Roads of Arabia

32bis Arabie US p500-521_BAT.qxd 23/06/10 21:32 Page 514
ROADS OF ARABIA
296. Tombstone of the faqih Jamal al-Din Abi ‘Abdallah Muhammad
10 jumada I 592 H./11 April 1196
Basalt
84 x 38.5 x 22.5 cm
Signed: “‘Abd al-Rahman and his nephew Muhammad”
al-Ma‘la cemetery, Mecca
National Museum, Riyadh, 666
Bibliography: unpublished.
In the inner frame, from lower right: Quran, 41, 30–32.
In the outer frame, from lower right: Quran, 39, 72–75
On each side of the cusped arch:
At centre:
* Quran, 21, 34–35
** Quran, 29, 69
This unpublished tombstone joins the corpus of the inscriptions
carved by the Abi Harami al-Makki family. Its decoration is especially
elegant and well-crafted and corresponds to a sub-group of
their production that adopted wide bands with three fillets for the
frames and a bulbous arch. A stele held at the British Museum, 1 very
similar to this one, also belongs to this group. The epitaph liberally
borrows passages from the Quran, particularly appropriate for a
deceased faqih, that is, a specialist in religious law. Following the
trend which arose during the 12th century the name of the deceased
is enhanced by a series of epithets and precisions regarding his function:
“The imam, the faqih, the scholar, the worshipper [of God],
the devout, Jamal al-Din Abi ‘Abdallah Muhammad, son of al-
Futuh, son of Muhammad, al-Maknasi [= from Meknes, Morocco],
Malikite imam of the Noble Sanctuary”. Therefore he was an important
Meccan religious personality who led the prayer for those who
followed the Malikite rite, one of the four great Sunni juridical
schools, particularly observed in the Maghreb. The person’s given
name is Muhammad whereas “Jamal al-Din” (“Beauty of the Religion”)
is a sort of honorary surname (laqab) such as those which the
religious dignitaries were beginning to adopt on the model of the
military and civilian élites. C. J.
1. Bittar 2003, fig. 50, p. 137.
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