Islamicate cities were usually located outside the
city gates, where they could be easily reached
by funeral processions and people who wanted
to visit the gravesites of family, friends, or holy
people. Some urban historians have noted that
cemeteries may have actually inhibited the expan-
sion of some cities, but many cemeteries have also
been engulfed by urban growth or simply aban-
doned or forgotten with the passage of time. Jews
and Christians living in Muslim countries bury
their dead in their own cemeteries.
Visiting the dead and pilgrimages to the tombs
of Muslim saints are important aspects of life
for many Muslims to this day, even though such
practices are condemned by followers of the most
conservative schools of Islamic law, such as the
Wahhabis of saUdi arabia. During Ramadan, on
major feast days, and during the mourning period
after someone dies, families visit the cemetery
together, and women prepare food to distribute to
the needy on behalf of the dead. In Cairo’s larg-
est cemetery, the City of the Dead (also known
as al-Qarafa), there are family mausoleums that
look like houses where people pass the holiday
near their deceased relatives. Cemeteries may
have trees and gardens, which make them popular
places for strolling, picnicking, and other forms
of socialization. They were also known as places
where people could meet secretly to conduct illicit
activities, so secular and religious authorities have
periodically sought to control or ban people from
using cemeteries for anything other than their
intended purposes. In the popular imagination,
they are believed to be places where the Jinni and
demons may lurk.
Among the most famous cemeteries in Islamic
lands are the medieval ones found in medina,
damascUs, cairo, and baghdad, where the com-
panions oF the prophet, his relatives and descen-
dants, and other important figures from early
Islamic history are buried. naJaF, Iraq, where the
Shii shrines of Muhammad’s cousin ali ibn abi
talib (d. 661) is buried, has the Valley of Peace,
a vast cemetery where many of the Shia lay their
dead to rest. The nearby shrine city of karbala,
where Ali’s son Husayn (d. 680) is buried, has
another important Shii cemetery, known as the
Valley of Faith. In Iran, the shrine of the eighth
Shii imam Ali al-Rida (d. 818) at Mashhad is
surrounded by cemeteries that began to develop
when tWelve-imam shiism became the religion
of the Safavid state in the 16th century. Tehran’s
Behesht-i Zahra cemetery has recently become
famous as the burial place of Ayatollah rUhol-
lah khomeini (d. 1989) and Iranian martyrs of
the 1978–79 revolution and the eight-year war
with iraq (1980–88). Also, powerful Muslim rul-
ers have left spectacular funerary complexes that
they built for themselves from morocco to Cairo,
Tabriz (Iran), bUkhara (Uzbekistan), Delhi, Agra,
and Hyderabad (india). These constructions con-
tain some of the best surviving examples of medi-
eval Islamicate architecture in the world.
Small cemeteries can be found on the grounds
of mosqUes and madrasas located within city pre-
cincts, such as the mamlUk madrasas of Cairo,
Ottoman mosques in Turkey, and the Mecca
Mosque in Hyderabad. Sufi hospices may also
have burial grounds on the premises for a Sufi
saint, shaykhs, dervishes, family members, and
important patrons. For example, the shrine of
Nizam al-Din Awliyya (d. 1325) contains, in addi-
tion to the graves of his family and disciples, those
of Amir Khusraw (d. 1325), a leading Persian
poet and friend of Nizam al-Din, and Jahanara (d.
1681), an influential Mughal princess and patron
of the chishti sUFi order.
Since the 1970s, Muslim immigrants to eUrope
and the United states have purchased lots within
existing non-Muslim cemeteries for the burial of
their dead. Some prefer, however, to transport the
bodies of their deceased back to their homelands
for burial.
See also death; FUnerary ritUals; Jinni; sUFism.Further reading: Raymond Lifchez, ed., The Dervish
Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey
(Berkeley: University of California, 1992); Muhammadcemetery 133 J