Re 2, the Shia sometimes get pretty elaborate, like the Tomb of Imam Ali. There's also the (Sunni) examples of the tomb of the previous King of Afghanistan, which is very nice, though not outrageous, and the Taj Mahal, which is, well.
The Sunni, though, are commonly not much on it, and the AQ strain of Wahabbism prohibits anything. Some of those guys are only willing to make an exception for the Tomb of the Prophet, and they were known to remove all the markers from cemeteries on occasion.
EtR:
Interesting about the Wahhabi removal of burial markers--that might explain it.
You see, there is a real-world reason I'm asking this. On Memorial Day, we visited my father-in-law's gravesite, as well as that of Heather's brother and sister.
I was passing through (very, very quickly--my heart breaks every time) the infants' section to get to one of the latter markers when I saw a 2005 grave marker for an infant Muslim boy, possibly stillborn (it had one of the agonizing one day listings for the date).
I know the marker was Islamic because it had the Quranic invocation "In the name of Allah, the most merciful and compassionate..." The headstone was also engraved with with a rose, and I've read of some Islamic writings that compare Allah to a rosebush.
I thought it was a beautiful corporal work of mercy to provide a burial, and given the prevalence of the Wahhabi strain of Islam in the U.S., the desire for a memorial marker may be the reason.
Dale:
I concour with Ed and I add some more info- supposedly in Saudi Arabia, the Whabbis connived with unscrupulous property developers and have systemically obliterated just about everything to do with the prophet and the family.
Kinda ironic because it renders Mohammed into just a name with no connection to life or reality; imagine when someone retorts- prove it that Mohammed really existed and wasn't some made up person by the Beadouins to justify their invasions and looting
The grave marker reminds us that Islam has no magisterium so anyone could pretty much decide what's licit or not.
xavier
xavier:
Thanks--I remember reading something along these lines. Though I thought the tomb of Muhammad was still intact--the Wahhabis caved into worldwide Muslim pressure and left that one. But all the Companions, his wives, Fatima--all those have been destroyed.
Makes me nostalgic for the Ottomans, actually. One of the Sultans actually had the heads of rebellious Wahhabi imams displayed on a gate in Constantinople after a Turkish campaign.
Explains a lot of the tension between Turkey and the Saudis today. Even the religious Turks revile the Wahhabis.
Dale:
Here's a Jihadwatch/Dimmiwatch post
on Islamic prohibitions of photography
Ya know I shake my head at how the mullahs and imams condemn photography but stay silent during the car swarms(tm) when the Palestineans grab some artifact from a bombed out car. To me that's a deviation from the natural tendency of man to collect things especially from 'revered' persons. I really wonder just how latent idolatry is within Arab Moslems societies- that's an interesting topic to explore
xavier
xavier:
Thanks for the link.
As to the rest, I think there is a built in human need for sacramentalism--the "car swarm" shows that, albeit in a deviant way. With a hyper-strict definition of idolatry, there probably are some interesting things bubbling under the surfact.
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