Overview

This pivot sets Muslim shrines within the wider context of Heritage Studies in the Muslim world and considers their role in the articulation of sacred landscapes, their function as sites of cultural memory and their links to different religious traditions. Reviewing the historiography of Muslim shrines paying attention to the different ways these places have been studied, through anthropology, archaeology, history, and religious studies, the text discusses the historical and archaeological evidence for the development of shrines  in the region from pre-Islamic times up to the present day. It also assesses the significance of Muslim shrines in the modern Middle East, focusing on the diverse range of opinions and treatments from veneration to destruction, and argues that shrines have a unique social function as a means of direct contact with the past in a region where changing political configurations have often distorted conventional historical narratives.

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Reviews

Bones of Contention is a concise and useful introduction to a topic that stretches from the pre-Islamic period to the present and catalogs a diverse range of religious structures. ... Bones of Contention is designed to appeal to a wide audience. It includes sketches of major shrines and photos of extant ones. It is a valuable contribution that will be of interest to students and scholars of Palestine's Islamic culture and architecture. (Awad Halabi, Journal of Palestine Studies, 2019)

Author Information

Andrew Petersen is Director of Research Islamic Archaeology and Professor of Islamic Archaeology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. He has travelled extensively in the Islamic world working on archaeological expeditions and later directing projects, and has written a large number of articles and published four books based on his research.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeology.

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