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This chapter provides an overview of the broader context within which debates regarding graves, funeral architecture and ziyāra have taken place. The early Islamic interdictions against certain funerary structures and grave-related rites did not arise in a vacuum. Therefore, the chapter contextualises these debates and the gap that began to emerge between the traditionalists’ (Ahl al-hadith) vision of ideal Islam and the reality of popular Islam. The chapter also offers a detailed focus on the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya, as it was his narrative of Islamic history and the ideal Islamic community that inspired later Sunni reformists, among them the Salafis, who sought to defend Islamic identity against the incursion of foreign influences and impurities, be they elements of Christianity, Judaism, syncretism or modernity.

Ibn Taymiyya, a well known critic of saint and tomb veneration, devoted several fatwas and polemical treatises to disparage the cult of the head of al-Husayn and the sacredness of his shrines in Ascalon and Cairo. He argues that the erection of shrines and the rites of ziyara originate in Shiʿi and Christian polytheistic ways, that the cult is a bidʿa, and that the relic is not authentic.

Ibn Taymiyya, was a Damascene theologian portrayed as an extremist, with many radical positions attached to his name. In the domain of politics, he was unjustly regarded as the spiritual ancestor of the kind of extremism associated with Usama Bin Ladin, the source of a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam. In regard to philosophy, being the author of the Refutation of the Logicians, he was generally seen as the enemy of the falasita. This chapter focuses on Ibn Taymiyya's commentary on the Creed of the famous Sufi executed in Baghdad in 309/922. It is aimed in this chapter that this will show a more complex image of the theologician's relation to Sufism. As, in his reading of al-Hallaj's Aqida, he brings in Ibn 'Arabi's ideas, the chapter provides a good illustration of the interaction between kalam and tasawwuf. In order to appreciate what Ibn Taymiyya says of al-Hallaj in his commentary on his Creed, this chapter presents a double introduction. The first assesses how he views the controversial shaykh in his three fatwas on him. The second addresses, on the basis of the same fatwas, the question of the presence of an incarnationist monism in al-Hallaj's Sufism.

This chapter focuses on the principal concern of the Majālis, namely the discussion of innovations (bidʿa) in ritual worship. Al-Āqḥiṣārī cites some of the most famous texts penned on the subject but, as the chapter demonstrates, no text within this literary genre is as influential on his thinking as Iqtidā’ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm of Shaykh al-Islām IbnTaymiyya. Since no explicit mention of the Iqtidā’ is made in the Majālis, a detailed textual comparison is undertaken in order to demonstrate the places in the text where al-Āqḥiṣārī either cites verbatim or paraphrases parts of the Iqtidā’. A further aim of the chapter is to bring to light those aspects of al-Āqḥiṣārī’s reform programme that justify him being linked to the Qāḍīzādelis.

Addressing the pre-Islamic custom of the Arabs to use intercalation for adjusting their lunar calendar to the solar annual cycle, the Qurʾan and the Prophet's farewell sermon are said to forbid the nasīʾ. This excursus brings the explanations of the medieval scholars al-Biruni and Ibn Taymiyya and of western scholarship for the creation of a unique Islamic calendar.

In another controversial fatwa, al-Suyūṭī claims to represent a consensus of scholars opposed to the study of Greek logic on the grounds that it can lead to philosophical speculation of a heretical nature. While ostensibly a condemnation of logic, upon closer examination this fatwa serves to bolster al-Suyūṭī’s own claim to have achieved the rank of mujtahid (scholar capable of independent reasoning) in spite of his own lack of expertise in the discipline of logic. He tries to position his own opinion as being in line with those of the great scholars of the past or, in other words, with his “community of practice.” In fact, no such consensus against the study of logic existed during al-Suyūṭī’s time, thus making the “logic” of al-Suyūṭī’s logic fatwa even more tortured.

The re-Sunnification of Cairo, initiated by Saladin after the overthrow of the Fatimids in 1171, did not impede the veneration of the Husayni shrine and mosque. It ceased to constitute a source of political legitimation, but remained a popular pilgrimage site (as depicted by Ibn Jubayr). Under the Ayyubids and Mamluks it was frequented by Sufis, and by a circle of students of Islamic law. Some jurists, prominent among them Ibn Taymiyya, denied the authenticity of the relic and criticized the cult in its shrine.

This chapter shifts from the 'microscopic' to the 'macroscopic' perspective, to make several observations on medieval Islamic constructions of the 'sacred'. It demonstrates similarities between the understanding of sacred place and time, points out the common vocabulary describing them, and lists the shared set of rites performed in them. Recurrent themes - such as references to the benevolent presence of angels, events of sacred history, the apparition of holy men, the remittance of sins, God's excessive mercy and baraka - are noted here. The chapter also summarizes the opinions of the Hanbali-Sunni Ibn Taymiyya and the Shiʿi Ibn Tawus on these beliefs and practices. Notwithstanding pious devotions, festivities associated with sacred times and places served also political ends, communal purposes, and the formation of identities.

Chapter 1 sketches the historical and transregional context of the project, examining two acrimonious episodes local to twentieth-century Egypt to lay bare the ever-present background contexts of Muslim history and the greater Muslim world. Paying close attention to the social and political developments that dominated Egyptian intellectual life at the turn of the century, I examine two exchanges between Bakhīt and Rashīd Riḍā to lay out the terrain of partisanship and territorialism that so heavily structured Cairo’s intellectual scene in the early twentieth century. As a result of what Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen has termed the “Salafi Press,” the previous monopoly on Islamic interpretation held by the Azharī ulama began to loosen, and the latter began to sense their authority being threatened. These resulted in bitter polemics but also, I argue, a substantial reconfiguration of the intellectual landscape simply by virtue of the indefatigable onslaught of the Modernists, especially Riḍā. This state of affairs motivated the ulama to draw on resources that exceeded their specific context both historically and geographically, resulting in a certain rearrangement of authority that relied on older structural features of the madhhab to create new networks of belonging and allegiance.

The final chapter sets out the central findings of the study, delineates the centrality of al-Āqḥiṣārī’s writing for our understanding of the Ottoman revivalist movement and suggests avenues for future research.

Genealogical socialization is the process by which the actor acquires an identity derived from appropriating a different heritage and which determines a concept of the world and of life that will provide an exclusive frame for thought and action. It is genealogical because the process inserts itself into a sacred temporality with which every believing Muslim identifies, being sincere and strong enough to live with whatever ruptures with his environment he needs to make while seeking to reproduce the habitus of Islam’s first believers. It is linked to the establishment of a symbolic lineage between the time when this religion appeared and modern times, when a minute portion of believers show themselves to be faithful to the demands of the true faith.

For a man who had never met a Muslim until he was twenty-eight, Michel’s life as a priest was characterised by more than forty years spent mainly amongst them. The seminal turning points of the 1960s, the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam of Pope Paul VI, Vatican II, and the civil rights movement in the United States, prepared the way for Indonesia and a life lived in engagement with Islam. After teaching at a teachers’ college and working with political prisoners in Indonesia, experiencing for the first time the hospitality of Muslims, he became a Jesuit and, after the prompting of Muslim students, began the formal study of Islam. This led, via the Lebanon and Cairo, to Chicago, where a doctoral thesis was prepared on Ibn Taymiyya under the direction of Fazlur Rahman. After a short time back in Indonesia, the road leads to Rome and official Christian-Muslim dialogue. It concludes in Turkey with years spent in teaching Christian theology and wide-ranging conversations.

This chapter explains the historical origins of Salafism—covering the scholars Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab—before examining how it spread to the United Kingdom through organizations such as JIMAS and Salafi Publications. It disentangles Salafism from its Saudi variant, Wahhabism. But it shows that, while claims that major UK Salafi groups received Saudi funding appear to be unsubstantiated, they nevertheless benefitted from generous scholarships for foreigners at the Saudi Islamic University of Madinah. The chapter stresses the impact of generational transitions and key political turning points—such as the Rushdie Affair, the Gulf and Bosnian wars, 9/11, and 7/7—on the development of Salafism in the United Kingdom. It then describes how London’s Brixton Mosque, one of the first Salafi mosques in Britain, played a crucial role in accommodating a growing black convert community. The chapter ends by highlighting Salafism’s recently increased appeal among young women, black converts, and Somalis.