Cemeteries and funerary architecture - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
General Material Designation
[Article]
First Statement of Responsibility
Ruggles, D. Fairchild
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Leiden
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Brill
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
(4,669 words)
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Cemeteries vary widely across the Islamic world, from simple open-air burial areas to large imperial funerary complexes containing graves marked with simple headstones and free-standing domed tombs. Although Prophetic ḥadīth s strongly discouraged the building of tombs and the visiting of graves, the practice was not expressly forbidden, and thus, from the earliest centuries of Islam, cemeteries and commemorative monuments proliferated amongst both Sunnī and Shīʿī Muslims. Early cemeteries were typically located outside the city walls, but, as cities expanded gradually beyond their original perimeters, they often penetrated