The Islamic calendar
Many of the gravestones in Mamilla record the precise date of death. These are not given according to the Gregorian calendar used today around most of the world, but according to the Hijri calendar traditionally used in the Islamic world. Year 1 of the Hijri calendar, commemorating the migration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, corresponds to 622 CE of the Gregorian calendar. Like the Gregorian calendar, the Islamic calendar has 12 months, named Muharram, Safar, Rabiʿ al-Awwal, Rabiʿ al-Thani, Jumada al-Ula, Jumada al-Akhira, Rajab, Shaʿban, Ramadan, Shawwal, Dhu l-Qadʿa and Dhu l-Hijja. Because it is a lunar rather than solar calendar, it is about 11 days shorter, meaning that dates advance each year relative to the Gregorian calendar. In Palestine, Muslim villagers celebrated Islamic festivals such as Eid and Ramadan according to the Hijri dates, while also following the 365-day calendar (also used by Arab Christians) for the purposes of seasonal agriculture. In the PHJ website, for simplicity, we give dates in the Gregorian calendar.
A story of Juha
One day, Juha asked his neighbour if he could borrow a tanjara, or large saucepan. When he returned the tanjara, Juha also presented his neighbour with a smaller cooking pot, saying “While I had your tanjara, it gave birth. It’s not mine to keep, so please take it.” The neighbour, delighted to gain an apparently free pot, politely accepted the implements, while thinking that Juha was a fool. A while later, Juha asked the neighbour if he could borrow a dist, a larger kind of cauldron; the neighbour again obliged, thinking excitedly that he might get another free pot. But the next day, Juha returned with a sad expression, empty-handed. “I am sorry to inform you that your dist passed away when it was in my home, and I had to bury it.” “What?” exclaimed the neighbour angrily. “This is nonsense – a dist cannot die.” “That may be, but neither can a pot give birth – and yet you were happy to accept the small pot from me last time,” replied the crafty Juha, who never did return his neighbour’s large, expensive dist.
Arabic names
Arabs (or Arabic speakers) in Palestine, and elsewhere, have always placed great importance on their family lineage. This is reflected in the inclusion of a person’s patrilineal ancestors (father, father’s father, etc.) in their name. Ibn or bin (sometimes abbreviated in English to “b.”) mean “son of”, while ibna or bint (or “bt.”) mean “daughter of”. So the inclusion of “ibn ʿAbdullah” in a name means the person’s father is named ʿAbdullah. People with children may also get abi or abu (“father of”), or umm (“mother of”), usually followed by the name of their eldest son, added to their name. Sometimes, the name deriving from a person’s father or son becomes their kunya or the name they are usually known by, more often than their actual given name. For example, the 12th-century pilgrim to Jerusalem discussed in the following section is more often known in historical texts as Abu ʿAbdullah than by his given name Muhammad.
Sufi Islam
Once dominant across the Islamic world, Sufism is a spiritual practice which emphasises a mystical personal union with God. Sufi Muslims follow tariqas or spiritual pathways, each with their own specific teachings and practices. In Palestine, these commonly included dhikr and ziyara, “visiting”, travelling to tombs of teachers, saints and prophets, greatly honoured in Sufi tradition. Historic mosques and maqams such as those of Zakariyya, also featured by PHJ, were frequent destinations of ziyara pilgrimages, as were several graves in Mamilla.
The Mamluk Sultanate
The Mamluks ruled Palestine and much of the Eastern Mediterranean from the mid-13th to the early 16th century. Originally enslaved Turkic and Circassian soldiers, they seized power after deposing the Ayyubid dynasty in Cairo, and defeated Crusader states and Mongol invaders. Mamluk Palestine was an important crossroads of trade, pilgrimage and administration. Notable Mamluk-era sites include much of Jerusalem’s Old City, the lavish interior of the Mosque of Abraham in Hebron, and Gaza’s Qasr al-Basha, the latter now largely destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Jisr Jindas (Jindas Bridge), Lydda, constructed under the Mamluk Sultan Baybars (reigned 1260–77). The bridge features an Arabic inscription praising the Mamluk sultans and dating the bridge, and Baybars’ panther emblem. Photo by K.A.C. Creswell, c. 1920. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The maqam in Palestine
A maqam (Arabic: place) is a shrine, often a small domed building, honouring a respected religious and/or historical figure, and sometimes marking their tomb. The Palestinian ethnographer Tawfiq Canaan identified three kinds of person honoured by maqams: Islamic prophets (also often revered by Christians); early Muslims from the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad; and awlia, holy men or women. Visiting these shrines, hundreds of which were found around Palestine, was a regular religious practice. A shrine could be visited in order to ask for a successful pregnancy, or rain after a period of drought. Today, religious, social and political changes mean that maqams are not visited so frequently, although those which remain are often still treated with respect.
Maqam al-Qatrawani in the village of ʿAtara, north of Ramallah, a well-preserved 16th-century shrine. © Gabriel Polley, 2023.
The architectural legacy of Baybars
While Mamluk architecture is often associated with Cairo and Damascus, the Mamluk Sultan Baybars left a huge architectural legacy on Palestine. Historians believe that he wished to be perceived as an ideal Muslim ruler, or put a strong Islamic stamp on a Palestine recently liberated from Crusader occupation. Many public buildings commissioned by Baybars survive today, including the Red Mosque of Safad and the oldest part of the Nabi Musa shrine near Jericho. Some display unique architectural features, indicating the involvement of local Palestinian craftspeople. Not until the 15th-century Sultan Qaytbay would there be another period of such architectural innovation in Palestine.
The mihrab in the Nabi Musa shrine, built by Baybars in 1269. © Tawfiq Daʿadli, 2017.
Islamic burial practices
In Islamic tradition, on the day of a person’s death, their body is washed, wrapped in a shroud and buried, with prayers said for their soul. The body is laid on the right side, facing Mecca, distinguishing these graves from Byzantine burials, in which the body was usually placed on their back, arms crossed. The Islamic period of mourning lasts 40 days, after which prayers are said again, and food and charity given to the poor in the deceased’s name.
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In the early days of Islam, and afterwards among poorer communities, graves were marked by a simple circle of stones. In later centuries, however, as the practice of visiting famous tombs grew, elaborately inscribed gravestones became common (for those who could afford them), and shrines with spaces for prayer and reflection around the tomb for particularly renowned people. Cemeteries such as Jerusalem’s Mamilla and Medina’s al-Baqiʿ drew pilgrims from around the Islamic world.

Tombs that remain

Mamluk Jerusalem, written in stone

Al-Kubakiyya
‍“Set him in the Garden of Eden”
© Tawfiq Daʿadli, 2006.
The most striking and well-preserved tomb in Mamilla today is the elegant turba, or mausoleum, known as al-Kubakiyya, located in the eastern corner of the cemetery. In Mamilla’s heyday centuries ago, there were several such grand mausolea containing tombs, similar to the maqams discussed elsewhere on the PHJ website. Only two now remain, al-Kubakiyya and the 16th-century tomb of Shaykh Ahmad al-Dajani, the latter today hidden among the pathways and flowerbeds of the Independence Park which covers the western part of the cemetery.

Al-Kubakiyya dates from the early decades of Mamluk rule in Palestine. It is today the only Mamluk building in Jerusalem outside the Old City. Above the entrance to al-Kubakiyya, an engraved inscription reads
In the name of God the merciful and the compassionate, and his blessing upon his Prophet Muhammad and his family. This is the grave of the servant to God almighty, Prince ʿAlaa al-Din Aydughdi ibn ʿAbdullah, known as al-Kubaki, who died Friday 5 of the month of Ramadan in the year 688 [22 September 1289]. God covered him in his mercy and set him in the Garden of Eden.
© Tawfiq Daʿadli, 2006
ʿAlaa al-Din Aydughdi al-Kubaki was a Mamluk or slave-soldier from Syria, who served the powerful Sultan Baybars (reigned 1260–77). He served as the governor of Safad in northern Palestine, and Aleppo in Syria. In later life, however, he fell out of favour, and was imprisoned and then exiled to Jerusalem, where he died aged around 60.

Architecturally, al-Kubakiyya embodies the spirit of early Mamluk Jerusalem, influenced by the Crusader presence that reshaped the city. The façade features a “floating arch”, a European design also used in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The dome of al-Kubakiyya rests on intersecting corner arches, a form characteristic of Jerusalem, also influenced by Crusader architecture but developed locally by Mamluk-era builders.
© Tawfiq Daʿadli, 2006.
Inside, al-Kubaki himself presumably lies at rest, under a sarcophagus-style tombstone. This could be a repurposed Crusader grave, but might equally be evidence of European styles employed by local indigenous stonemasons. In the southeast wall, a mihrab, or niche indicating the direction of Mecca for Muslim prayer, reflects the Islamic faith of the deceased. Rather than a simple dichotomy of conqueror and conquered, the stones speak of a local synthesis. Builders took what was best from each tradition to create a unique Jerusalem style.

Over time, legends grew around al-Kubakiyya. According to J.E. Hanauer, a Swiss-born Anglican priest who lived in Jerusalem and documented regional folklore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some local people associated the tomb with Juha, a trickster figure in Palestinian folktales. We know from other Western travellers that al-Kubakiyya was in a dilapidated state in the 1870s, but was subsequently restored by the Ottoman authorities.
Sketch of al-Kubakiyya in the 1860s by French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau. Courtesy of the Palestine Exploration Fund
After 1948, al-Kubakiyya once again started to fall into disrepair. For some time, the structure was occupied by the homeless of Jerusalem, unwittingly continuing an old tradition in Palestine in which poor people would live in shrines; the entrance was, however, sealed in 2009. Today, al-Kubakiyya has survived the cemetery’s shrinking and redevelopment, a lonely reminder of Mamilla Cemetery in its Mamluk heyday.
Shaykh ʿAbdullah al-Qurashi
‍“Where the light of compassion descends day and night”
‍Scholars and religious teachers came from around the Islamic world to visit Jerusalem. Some never left. One such pilgrim is Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Qurashi, named on his beautiful gravestone in Mamilla as [Abu] ʿAbdullah al-Qurashi.
Squeeze of al-Qurayshi’s tombstone, formed by pressing wet paper into the engraving, by Hamdi Nubani in 1946. Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority
His family name indicates he was a descendant of the Arabian Quraysh tribe, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, highly respected among Muslims. Al-Qurashi was born in 1150 in what was then known as al-Jazira al-Khadra or “the Green Island” – today, the city of Algeciras in southern Spain. This area, known to the Arabs as al-Andalus, had been under Arab and Islamic control since the 710s.

Drawn by Jerusalem’s sanctity, al-Qurashi travelled from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, passing through Cairo and then settling down in Jerusalem. There, he earned renown as a Sufi scholar and teacher, attracting over 600 students to his zawiya or Sufi school. He also had a reputation as a faith healer and miracle worker – not only during his life, but also after he died in 1202.

Al-Qurashi’s gravestone and its inscription offer important clues to the respect he was paid after death. It reads:
Shaykh ʿAbdullah al-Qurashi, that is, source of miracles
And he indicates the time of the leader of all saints
His grave is near Bayt al-Maqdis [Jerusalem] in a place called Mamilla
Where the light of compassion descends day and night
He who has established his holy place at Baballah is the rightful king
In his past in this world, the king produced beautiful things
“Source of miracles” reflects the practice of later pilgrims, who visited Mamilla to perform Islamic prayer by graves of famous holy people like al-Qurashi, believing God would answer their prayers from such an auspicious location. For instance, an 18th-century Egyptian traveller, Mustafa Asʿad al-Luqaymi, wrote
In the afternoon I went with some gracious and noble friends to the Mamilla cemetery, the burial ground of the quintessence of righteous people, whose merits are reiterated in traditions and sayings. Al-Hasan says that the origin of the word is ma min Allah, and that burial in it is like burial in Heaven. We visited the masters in its soil, and stood at the thresholds of these weighty people, such as ʿAbdullah al-Qurashi, Ibn Raslan, Ibn al-Humam, Ibn Jamaʿa, al-Shaykh al-Dajani and al-Kamal ibn Abi Sharif, from whose graves all traces are gone, but whose tidings are still read in books. I recited on their graves such Quranic verses as I could.
More prosaically, travellers and locals also called on al-Qurashi’s name when suffering from indigestion.

Not only the living wanted to associate closely with the holy man. Mujir al-Din notes that many of al-Qurashi’s Sufi followers were buried close by him, including the 15th-century Palestinian scholar Ibn Raslan, forming a hawsh or “neighbourhood” of graves. Today, none of these once-revered graves are to be found, and al-Qurashi’s tombstone has been placed on an unrelated fustuqiya, or communal family grave, in a corner of the Independence Park in the south-west of the cemetery area.

Al-Qurashi’s tombstone itself is a work of art carved in stone. Yet the calligraphy is not in the style of the 13th century when al-Qurashi passed away, but rather of the 16th century; neither is its poetry in Arabic, but in Turkish. Why? Such was the popularity of visits to this grave, it had to be renovated twice: in 1322 (according to Mujir al-Din), and again under the Ottomans in 1557. Hence, the “rightful king” who “produced beautiful things”, praised on the stone, can be identified as Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (reigned 1520–66), who changed the face of Jerusalem by ordering the construction of the walls which still surround the Old City today. It is possible that the Turkish inscription was accompanied by an Arabic one, long since lost.
Al-Qurayshi’s tombstone in Mamilla today, partially obscured by astroturf. © Tawfiq Daʿadli, 2026

Read next:

Tombs that vanished

According to Asem al-Khalidi, a member of one of Jerusalem’s most prominent Palestinian families with many members buried in Mamilla Cemetery, today only around 5 per cent of the graves which once existed in Mamilla can still be seen, mostly a result of the destruction of large parts of the cemetery.

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