Tombstone
BackDescription:
Gravestone, made of carved white marble; rectangular with stepped apex. A bulbous mosque lamp and stylised trees of life carved on one side, while other side carved with two mosque lamps in baroque scrolls. Inscribed.
Object type: | tombstone |
Museum number: | 1840,0302.1 |
Culture/period: | Late Islamic |
Date: | 15thC (circa) |
Production place: | Made in: India (west) |
Findspot: | Found/Acquired: Aden (?) |
Materials: | marble |
Technique: | carved |
Dimensions: | Height: 86.00 cm Width: 38.00 cm Depth: 11.80 cm Height: 117.00 cm (on base) Width: 48.00 cm (on base) Depth: 22.50 cm (on base) Weight: 159.00 kg (on base) |
Inscriptions: | Inscription details: inscription in Arabic in Thuluth script Inscription quoted: الملك لله الولي القهار كل نفس ذائقة الموت وانما تو فون اجوركم يوم القيامة فمن زحزح عن النار وادخل الجنة فقد فاز وما الحياة الدنيا الا متاع الغرور اللهم صلي على محمد النبي وآله وارحم ........... توفي في اليوم ا Inscription translation: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. ‘Every soul shall taste death; and only on the Day of Resurrection shall you be paid your wages in full. And whoever is removed away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise, he indeed is successful. The life of this world is only the enjoyment of deception (Quran, Surat Al-‘Imran, 3: 185). O God bless Muhammad, the prophet and his family, and have mercy on. He died on the Inscription note: Panel of five lines in thuluth style, within a frame. Inscription: Inscription details: inscription Inscription quoted: Inscription translation: Of 'Ali b. 'Uthman b. Mufarrij b. dara' [?] b. 'Ali al- Mursi ... Inscription note: 9 lines thuluth with thuluth borders Inscription: Inscription details: inscription (on side with most text, with name appearing third row from bottom; year on lowermost register) in Arabic Inscription quoted: Inscription transliteration: (partial) "...Abu'l-Hassan `Ali ibn `Uthman..." Inscription translation: Abu'l-Hassan `Ali ibn `Uthman Inscription note: Name of the deceased. Date follows on the lowermost horizontal register on the same panel but other than the Arabic word for year ("sana"), remains illegible. (LA, 23/12/11) Inscription: Inscription details: inscription (topmost and widest horizontal register on panel with the greater amount of text) in Arabic in Thuluth script Inscription quoted: Inscription transliteration: Shahada: La illaha illa Allah wa Muhammad rasul Allah Inscription translation: There is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger. Inscription note: This is the Muslim profession of faith, known as the shahada ("he/she witnessed", from the Arabic root for the verb "to witness"). Inscription: Inscription details: inscription (on panel with most text; 2nd horizontal register from the top, just below the shahada inscription) in Arabic in Thuluth script Inscription quoted: Inscription transliteration: kullu nafsin dha'iqatu'l-mawt Inscription translation: Every soul shall taste death Inscription note: This phrase comes from Qur'an 3:185. Doris Behrens-Abouseif says that this phrase, along with the so-called Throne Verse (Ayat al-kursi, Qur'an 2:225), was often inscribed onto thirteenth- and fourteenth-century tombstones from Ahlat in Eastern Anatolia (Behrens-Abouseif, "Beyond the secular and the sacred: Qur'anic inscriptions in medieval art and material culture," in Word of God, Art of Man:The Qur'an and its Creative Expressions, edited by Fahmida Suleman (London: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2007), 44. |
Location: | 38 |
Exhibition history: | Exhibited: 2018, 6 May- 30 June, National Museum, New Delhi, India and the World: A History in Nine Stories 2017-2018, 10 Nov 2017 - 18 Feb 2018, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, India, India and the World: A History in Nine Stories 2016-2017 21 Oct-21 Apr, Perth, Australia, Western Australian Museum, 'Travellers and Traders in the Indian Ocean World' 2015–2016 4 Dec–29 May, National Museum of Singapore, ‘Treasures of the World’s Cultures’ 2012-2013 Nov-Feb, Kunsthalle, Bonn, Germany, 'Treasures of the World's Cultures' 2012 April-August, Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat, 'Treasures of the World’s Cultures' |
Subjects: | tree of life, grave/burial mound |
Associated names: | Named in inscription: Abdu l' Hassan~Named in inscription: 'Ali (b. Uthman) |
Acquisition names: | Donated by: Messrs Newman, Hunt & Christopher |
Acquisition date: | 1840 |
Curator's comments:
Although said to have been found in Yemen, this double-sided inscribed gravestone was probably initially manufactured in Cambay, situated in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The inscription includes the name and death date of the person for whom the gravestone was made, along with blessings and Qur'anic verse in Arabic, many of which (e.g., the basmala) commonly appear on funerary architecture. The name of the deceased, who has not yet been identified with a known figure, appears on the third row from the bottom on the side including the largest amount of text; a date is also given on the lowermost (and least legible) band inon the same panel but has not yet been deciphered. The port city of Cambay flourished from the late tenth to early sixteenth centuries. The taste for carved marble tombstones produced there appears to have been particularly strong amongst foreign patrons who regularly commissioned them during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The present gravestone displays a number of features associated with a 'Cambay style' known for its distinctive representation of a mosque lamp motif (see Elizabeth Lambourn, 'Carving and Recarving: Three Rasulid Gravestones Revisited,' New Arabian Studies 6, eds. G. Rex Smith, J.R. Smart, and B.R. Pridham [Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2004]: 10-29). Here, the image is carved in high-relief at the top of the stone.
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