Relics of Piety and Power in Medieval Islam

Abstract

The study of the veneration of relics in medieval Islam is only now emerging as a sub-field of study after investigations by European Orientalists during the first half of the twentieth century. 1 The scarcity of sources, particularly in the Islamic context, seemingly relegates the Islamic experience to a secondary status vis-à-vis the medieval European Christian experience despite the ubiquity of relics and ritual practices associated with them in the devotional life of the Muslims and Christians of the Near East and North Africa. 2 Furthermore, in the study of the cult of relics a misperception persists that the Islamic experience is marginal, because of the perceived absence of relics in Islam. Commenting on what he considers to be the ‘relative paucity’ of relics in Islam Lionel Rothkrug observes that it ‘may be partly attributed to the fact that Islamic religious experience largely came out of conflict with other monotheistic religions’. 3