Prophetic and Saintly Relics, Remains and Traces in Islam

From early on, the sensory experience of physical relics and artifacts of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers has been cultivated in Islamic culture. In addition to the various ‘traces’ (athar) left by Muhammad, such as hairs, fingernails, teeth, clothing, sandals, utensils, accouterments, weapons, and especially footprints, the veneration of saintly remains (often enshrined) was an integral part of medieval Islamic worship and popular piety. Deriving their meaning from sensory engagement involving diverse practices of consumption (ingestion, touching, viewing, smelling), such relics and artifacts invoked individual as well as communal sensory experiences.

Relics often functioned as cultural nodes in the performance of Islamic piety, miraculous healing, socio-political events, and the creation of new centers of sacrality (thereby serving to extend the territorial boundaries of Islam). Seen as materials that directly contributed to and were conditioned by their ‘staging,’ these embodiments of spiritual power and authority make it possible to reconstruct Sunni and Shiʿi sensorial experience across time, space, and cultures. Studying such powerful sites of intercession and transformation in different contexts can deepen our understanding of prophetic and saintly relics in Islam, past and present. Moreover, some of these material ‘mediators’ of the human-divine dyad play a central role at pilgrimage sites that ‘share the sacred’ between different religions, opening up cross-cultural perspectives.