Traces of the Prophets

Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam

Bursi, Adam

A new interpretation of the roles of material relics and sacred spaces in the formation of Islam
. Provides a new image of early Islam by examining the roles of material objects, rituals, and sacred spaces in the formation of Muslim communities and identities
. Analyses a wide variety of Arabic sources to demonstrate the importance of relics and sacred spaces in early Islam, including biographies and hadiths of the Prophet
Muhammad, Qur’an commentaries, histories and chronicles, juristic compilations, poetry, and polemical tracts
. Brings early Islamic evidence into dialogue with late antique Jewish and Christian usages and discussions of relics, sacred tombs, and pilgrimage
. Complicates long-standing assumptions about early Muslims’ negative conceptions of and attitudes towards the veneration of relics and tombs
Traces of the Prophets rewrites the history of holy bodies and sacred spaces in the emergence of Islam. Rather than focusing on theological controversies among early Muslims, this book is grounded in the material objects and places that Muslims touched and "thought with" in defining Islamic practice and belief. While often marginalized in modern scholarship, sacred relics and spaces stood at the disputed boundaries of emergent Islamic identities. Objects and spaces like Abraham’s footprints in Mecca and Muhammad’s tomb in Medina provided sites of shared Islamic ritual, as well as tools for differentiating Muslims from non-Muslims.