Material Images and Mental Ziyāra: Depicting the Prophet’s Grave in North African Devotional Books (Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt)

Abstract

Abstract The Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt (Guidelines to the Blessings) is a very popular book of prayers over the Prophet Muḥammad, originally written around the mid-fifteenth century by Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Jazūlī (d. 869/1465). The Dalāʾil is probably the only illustrated religious text in the Maghreb, where the image has been the subject of more profound reluctance than in the rest of the Muslim world. They show the sacred tomb of the Prophet inside the mosque of Medina, as well as his minbar, his miḥrāb and his sandals (naʿl), one of the most venerated relics in Islam. If the images in North African books have been systematically interpreted in a superficial way, this article proposes a reading at the crossroads of art history, codicology and a careful examination of the main text and the precious annotations added by the readers of some unpublished manuscripts. We will then understand that these illustrations have gradually acquired an autonomous place within the book. They act alongside the text, as memorial images of the sacred space hosting the holy body of the Prophet, and as a virtual substitute for the pilgrimage to Medina. It is in fact through this act, be it physical or virtual, that Muslims hope to visualize, in a dream, the figure of their loved one, Muḥammad.