Maqam (Shrine)

A maqam need not have a single architectural form: a saint’s place may occupy a hilltop, consist of a tomb within an open enclosure, or be housed in a small domed building called a qubbah.[1] In the broader tradition of Muslim saint shrines, a tombstone may stand inside a square structure, often domed, either independently or attached to a mosque.[3]

These shrines can mark roads, village locations, and boundaries while attracting pilgrims and other visitors.[3] Some are associated with baraka, understood as divine grace or spiritual power, and with visits seeking blessing or mediation.[3] This broader account of Muslim saint shrines does not imply that every maqam has the same physical features or that all Muslims share the beliefs and practices associated with saint veneration.[3]

Examples in Palestine and Israel include Maqam Shihab El-Din and Maqam Nabi Sa’in in Nazareth and the maqam of Muhammad Jasser in Lod.[4][5] Nabi Musa, between Jerusalem and Jericho, is another prominent shrine associated with an annual pilgrimage.[6] The records concerning the Nazareth and Lod sites describe individual devotional visits, overlapping religious associations, and questions about preservation and access.[4][5]

The documented history of Mashhad Husayn in Ascalon begins with the alleged late-eleventh-century discovery by the Ismaili Fatimids of the head of Husayn ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s martyred grandson, and the establishment of a shrine there.[7] Its subsequent history included the relic’s transfer to Cairo and visits under the Sunni Ayyubids, Mamluks, and Ottomans.[7] The site’s narratives, structures, and rituals changed within these different political and religious settings.[7]

A Palestinian popular celebration, or mawsim, took place near the Ascalon shrine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[7] In April 1885, Nuʿman al-Qasatli, an Arab scribe working with the Survey of Western Palestine, observed a celebration around shrines near Ascalon lasting two and a half days.[8] His account provides a record of a local annual mawsim during the late Ottoman period and its relationship to the shrine associated with Husayn.[8]

The shrine was demolished by the Israel Defense Forces in 1950.[7] In 2000, a commemorative prayer dais was established at the site through a joint initiative of the 52nd Dā’ī Muṭlaq of the Dā’ūdī Bohras from India and an Israeli tourism entrepreneur.[7] A revival of pilgrimage brought visitors affiliated with the Bohra Dā’ūdiyya, who predominated among those visiting at the time of the study.[7]

Nabi Musa developed into a political gathering in the early twentieth century, particularly under the British Mandate.[6] Political speeches at the April 1920 pilgrimage gathering were followed by rioting in which nine people were killed and 244 injured.[9] After the War of Independence, Jordan banned the pilgrimage, but worshipers—especially women—continued to visit the shrine spontaneously and perform tomb rituals.[6]

The Palestinian Authority participated closely in organizing the Nabi Musa pilgrimage from 1997 to 2000, when it again became a national celebration.[6] The Israeli army prohibited the celebrations after the al-Aqsa intifada began in 2000.[6] The 1994 Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area stated that, pending the entry into force of the interim agreement, Nebi Mousa would be under the Palestinian Authority’s auspices for religious purposes. It also provided for Palestinian pilgrimage to al-Maghtas during three annual religious events and other special occasions coordinated with Israeli authorities.[10] These were interim-period provisions rather than a description of present-day administration.[10]

The maqam of Muhammad Jasser is among the few surviving Ottoman-era structures in Lod.[5] Its namesake is remembered as a Sufi shaykh and teacher from Tripoli who studied Islam at al-Azhar University in Cairo.[5] In the local account, he visited Nabi Musa, al-Aqsa, the Dome of the Rock, and the Cave of the Patriarchs before choosing Lod as the place where he would die because of its history as an important Sufi center; he is said to have been buried there in 1845.[5]

The annual Nabi Musa pilgrimage began a week before Greek Orthodox Good Friday, linking the timing of a Muslim religious gathering to the Easter season.[6] The shrine stands in the desert between Jerusalem and Jericho and is associated in Muslim tradition with the burial of Moses.[6] The festival procession traveled toward al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem before continuing to the maqam on the road to Jericho.[2]

Local shrine practices also included vows, offerings, and candles.[4][11] A village history of Salama describes Shaykh Hasan’s tomb as “a holy shrine (maqam) for the people of the village” and recounts women visiting to make a sacrifice and place candles.[11] At Maqam Nabi Sa’in, situated at Nazareth’s highest point, Muslims and Christians used to make religious vows and oaths.[4]

A related example of communal shrine pilgrimage is Nabi Shuayb in the Galilee, the Druze community’s holiest shrine.[12] In 1885 it was opened for pilgrimage by Druze from across the Middle East, and the community’s spiritual leadership established April 25 as the official pilgrimage day.[12] Pilgrims gathered for prayer and community consultations; over time, the annual event grew to include thousands of participants as well as visitors from other religious and political communities.[12]

The religious use of a shrine can persist outside an organized festival, as at Nabi Musa after the Jordanian prohibition, or diminish as a site falls into neglect.[6][5] Muhammad Jasser’s maqam, once an important Muslim pilgrimage destination, was described as ruined and overgrown after a long period of neglect.[5] Its decline was placed in the context of increasing criticism of tomb veneration and changes in Palestinian Islam over the preceding century.[5]

The domed tomb in Yavne attributed to Rabban Gamliel II is also known as the Mausoleum of Abu Huraira and has served as a Muslim shrine.[13] It stands in a burial ground used by Yavne’s Jews since Roman times, providing an example of a site with overlapping Jewish and Muslim religious associations.[13] In Nazareth, Maqam Shihab El-Din commemorates a Muslim leader identified as Saladin’s nephew and lies approximately 100 meters south of the Basilica of the Annunciation.[14]

Shrine narratives also have a place in community memory.[11] The Salama account of Shaykh Hasan’s tomb includes a story in which bulldozers attempting to destroy the maqam broke down, after which a fence was erected around it.[11] The narrative functions in village history as an assertion of Palestinian presence and a response to narratives of erasure, rather than as an independently established account of the machinery’s failure.[11]

The documentation of saints and sanctuaries in Palestine includes Taufik Canaan’s English-language book, Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine, published in London in 1927.[15] Reprinted from the Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, it comprises 331 pages with illustrations and plans.[15] Research on Mashhad Husayn has drawn on historical, ethnographical, and geographical writings alongside hagiography, inscriptions, archaeology, travelers’ and pilgrims’ itineraries, archives, maps, photographs, and oral accounts.[7]

Preservation does not necessarily ensure continued religious access.[5] Maqam Simeon in Lod was described as a preserved building kept locked, preventing visits and worship.[5] At Muhammad Jasser’s maqam, proposals to restore the structure and open it to the public placed the relationship between conservation, public circulation, and prayer at the center of local discussion.[5]

Visiting saintly tombs to seek blessing or mediation is disputed within contemporary Islam, particularly by some Wahhabi and Salafi reformist currents, while saintly places remain important in other communities.[3] Particular origin stories also rest on religious tradition: the discovery of Husayn’s head at Ascalon is described as alleged, and the widespread attribution of the Nabi Musa pilgrimage’s establishment to Saladin after his conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 lacks support in primary sources.[7][6]

In Nazareth, Muslim and Christian communities disputed the use of cleared, state-owned land between Shihab El-Din’s tomb and the Basilica of the Annunciation.[14] The land was intended for a public plaza, while Muslim activists sought a mosque on part of it; a government-initiated compromise satisfied neither side.[14]

In Lod, a proposed pedestrian route between a neighborhood and an archaeological park involved Muhammad Jasser’s maqam, located within the grounds of al-Razi Arab elementary school.[5] A city economic-development official described a restoration and public-access plan coordinated with the waqf, while Muslim residents feared that an open passage could profane or damage the shrine and undermine its use for prayer.[5] The report also cited a tour guide who disputed the local belief that a grave is present inside the maqam; it did not resolve the disagreement.[5]