islam

The third lecture of the Charles Wilkinson lecture series from 2013, “In Quest of Paradise: Accommodating Death in Islam” was given by Lisa Golombek, and I think was the weakest of the three lectures. I’m not sure if this was down to me not having as much context – I know more about Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia than I do about the early centuries of Islam. But it also felt a little shoehorned into the overarching them – Golombek had to start off by explaining that Muslim burials don’t contain grave goods, nor are they supposed to have decoration or external tombs. So not promising ground for a talk in a series about the art of burial! Golombek did find two themes to talk about, however. One of these was the shrouds that the people are buried in. In high status burials these are not just plain cloths, they have… Read More »“In Quest of Paradise: Accommodating Death in Islam” Lisa Golombek