Muhammad's Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society

Leor Halevi

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Paper, 416 pages, 7 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-13743-0
$26.50 / £18.50

May, 2007
Cloth, 416 pages, 7 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-13742-3
$45.00 / £31.00

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Map

Introduction. Funerary Traditions and the Making of Islamic Society

1. Tombstones: Markers of Social and Religious Change, 650–800

2. Washing the Corpse in Arabia and Mesopotamia

3. Shrouds: Worldly Possessions in an Economy of Salvation

4. Wailing for the Dead in the House of Islam

5. Urban Processions and Communal Prayers: Opportunities for Social, Economic, and Religious Distinction

6. The Politics of Burial and Tomb Construction

7. The Torture of Spirit and Corpse in the Grave

Epilogue. Death Rites and the Process of Islamic Socialization

List of Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Related Subjects

About the Author

A graduate of Princeton, Yale, and Harvard Universities, Leor Halevi is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University. His work has won numerous distinctions, including fellowships from the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. His publications have appeared in Past & Present, History of Religions, The Journal of the History of Ideas, and Speculum. His first book, Muhammad’s Grave, has won three major awards: the Albert Hourani Award, given by the Middle East Studies Association, the Award for Excellence in the category of Analytical-Descriptive studies, given by the American Academy of Religion and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, given by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

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