3Numerous historical studies have been devoted to the cult of saints in Islam (Dermenghem, 1954, Wilson, 1983, Chambert-Loir and Guillot, 1995, Andezian, 2001, Mayeur-Jaouen, 2002 and 2004, Chiffoleau and Madoeuf, 2005, Amri, 2008), sanctuaries of saints of Shiism or Sufism (Aubin, 1956, Boivin, 2005 and 2019, Boissevain, 2006), and more recently to burials forming "shared holy places" in the Middle East (Albera and Couroucli, 2009, Aubin-Boltanski, 2013, Boivin, 2012, Albera, Marquette and Penicaud, 2015). The issue of death among Muslim migrant populations is of increasing interest today (Burkhalter, 2001, Petit, 2006, El Alaoui, 2012, Grenet, 2017, Cuzol, 2017 and 2018). There lacked however, a multidisciplinary and multidimensional study of cemeteries and burial practices in contemporary Muslim worlds that dealt with the different categories of deceased, (whether they were saints, martyrs, heroes or ordinary dead, whether they had died in an Islamic country, or in religious minority circumstances) in this way confronting the geographical and cultural aspects of death. Such a study, by focusing on contemporary dynamics would also account for the context of beliefs and representations giving meaning to Muslim practices.

4The objective of the dossier "Cemeteries and tombs of the Muslim worlds: at the crossroads of religious, political and memorial issues" is to offer what must inevitably remain a partial view of funerary practices in today's Muslim worlds, combining multiple approaches: Islamology, the social sciences and cultural history. Indeed, among the multitude of viewpoints possible for addressing these issues, three seemed particularly inescapable and inseparable. The religious approach inherent in the funerary act is necessary to highlight the conception of the world and of the individual destiny which informs the practices, the nature and the value of the norms which frame them, and the range of deviations or transgressions observed in the different contexts. Evaluation of the political issues regarding burial or cemetery management makes it possible to go beyond the image of a morbid culture uniformly defined by sharī'a and religious sentiment to understand the historical dynamics to which funereal practices are subject in contemporary Muslim worlds. Finally, the notion of cultural memory and the attention paid to the stakes of memory are relevant to avoid the pitfalls of focusing on the short time of politics, of the essentialization of religion (in its doctrinal or legal aspect), as an exclusively physical approach to Muslim burials and cemeteries.

5The religious system, as faith and as law, represents the plane of immanence of all funerary practices and all burial places. On this “plane”, cemeteries and tombs appear as an interface between the world of the living and the world of the dead, both under the power of God, hence a discourse of a variable nature, at times prescriptive, moral or legal, at other times, visionary, even eschatological. While the Qur'an places burial in the horizon of resurrection (see Qur'an, 22: 6-7), Islamic scriptural sources (Qur'an and Hadith) remain ambiguous on the worship of the dead as they do on the question of communications between living and the dead. Therefore the theologians, philosophers, jurists and moralists of different currents have undertaken to justify the articles of faith and codify the practices. Since Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1326) and the emergence of Wahhabism (eighteenth century), neo-Hanbalite Sunnism even more strongly condemns the building of mausoleums and the visitation of tombs as practiced in Shiism and Sufism (Memon, 1976, Olesen 1991, Gaborieau 1994). A doctrinal orientation massively translated into action with massive destructions, such as desecrations of the al-Baqī' cemetery in Medina by the Wahhabis between 1806 and 1925. Despite the Wahhabi claim to represent orthodoxy and orthopraxis, the cult of saints remains omnipresent in the Islamic world… with the exception of the Saudi Wahhabi Kingdom.

8These religious, political and memorial issues are present throughout, reinforcing and interacting with each other; just as all three issues are raised in this dossier and central to the questioning. What vision of the world and of the beyond forms the basis for the physical organization of the cemetery, for the codification of funerary practices and finally, for the conscious experience of Muslims visiting the tombs? Particular attention is paid to beliefs and representations relating to the destinies of the dead, relations between the living and the dead and the proper attitude the living should adopt toward the dead; the balance between what is preached as “Islamic orthodoxy” and the observed reality of practices and discourses is also explored. What are the effects of contemporary societal, political and urban dynamics on funerary beliefs and practices? How do they participate in the memory- and identity-building of different groups? Three phenomena of major importance are studied here: the transformations of traditionalist Muslim societies under the authority of socialist regimes hostile to the religious tradition: the globalization of Islam and establishment of Muslim communities outside of the historical “home of Islam” (dār al-islām) and finally, the growing politicization of Islam since the 1970s, especially in the Shia world.

9The first part, "Beliefs and Funerary Practices Between Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy", concerns the religious dimension of the funeral as a set of representations, feelings and practices. Sufi and Shiite beliefs and conceptions are widely represented, against the backdrop of opposition from neo-Hanbalism and Islamic reformism. The article by Mathieu Terrier, "The Tomb as isthmus (barzakh) between the living and the dead: comparative views of Sufism and Shi'ism (al-Ghazālī and Fayḍ Kāshānī)", through the study of two classic texts - the great Iḥyā '' ulūm al-dīn by Sufi theologian and Sunnite, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d.505/1111), and the Shi'ite Imamite follow-up, al-Maḥajja al-bayḍā by Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī (d. 1091/ 1680), show that a deep consensus on the legality and ethical value of the visit to the tombs, and on the fate of the deceased beyond the grave, brings together Sufism, Shiism and Islamic philosophy, three streams hastily perceived as heterodox and marginal. Similarly, Delphine Ortis’ article, "The grave: a mirror of the destiny of the dead? Analysis of different burial places in a Pakistani pilgrimage town (Sehwan Sharīf, Sindh)”, shows, by means of a field survey, that in the cemeteries and around the tombs of the Indian Muslim world (Pakistan) steeped in Sufism and Shiism - and precisely, around the grave of the founding master of Qalandariyya, La'l Shahbāz Qalandar (d.672/1274), syncretic conceptions of holiness and salvation prevail over strict observance of the prescriptions of Sharia. The study also shows how the memory and identity of Qalandariyya are perpetuated in complete indifference to the political tensions and religious controversies of contemporary Pakistan.

10The second part, "Beliefs, power and memory in tension (1): Islam in a socialist context", studies the Muslim funerary act in a context rarely studied and yet eminently revealing of its religious, political and memorial issues: that of the Muslim communities integrated into socialist, Soviet or Chinese spaces. For regimes whose attitudes toward the religious, and toward Islam in particular, have oscillated between hostility, indifference and political opportunism, funerary spaces and practices are places of resistance and resilience of identity. In her article "Shadow Play: What the Tombs of Muslim Saints Tell Us about a Contemporary Form of Holiness (China, Gansu, 1968-2018)", Marie-Paule Hille examines how a non-official Sufi Muslim community, the Xidaotang, who is subject to varying degrees of political pressure, from desecration to patrimonialization, has managed to maintain the saints’ graves at the heart of ritual practice, and of its cultural memory and identity. Isabelle Ohayon's article, "Honoring the dead in socialism, an informal Kazakh Islamic economy," shows how Islamic funeral ritual constituted a social and moral imperative for Kazakh society during the Soviet period, despite the need to constantly adapt to the forms of control, institutionalization and repression implemented by Soviet religious policies, and how the symbolic, social and material space of death constituted a place for deployment of autonomous practices, in particular economic.

11The third part of this volume, “Reterritorializing Death: Muslim Cemeteries in Emigration Countries”, focuses on a major development among contemporary Muslim societies, and explores the economic and symbolic dimensions of Muslim burials outside of the dār al-islām. Two contrasting field studies, Greater London and São Paulo, bear witness to the same religious, political and memorial problems arising from the construction of “expatriate” Muslim communities which face the challenge of integration into “destination lands" through the care given to the community’s dead. In both cases, the choice of on-site burial rather than repatriation or reterritorialization of the dead, is a process as decisive as it is complex. Michelangelo Giampaoli, in "Tropical Islam in the Face of Death: An Ethnography of the Muslim Cemetery of Guarulhos (São Paulo)", examines the history, memory and daily life of the Brazilian Muslim community through its funerary practices. The survey focuses on the observation of the country's largest Muslim cemetery, its spatial organization, its administration and its ritual occupation, highlighting the interplay of religious norms and popular culture, as well as the formation of a Brazilian Islam integrated into the multicultural context. Nada Afiouni, in "Transformations of Muslim Burial Sites in Greater London", explores the increasingly important choice among British Muslims for on-site burial, analyzing the relationship between the actors of this process including the unprecedented economic and religious implications of private funeral arrangements. Her article examines the meaning and motivations for this choice, between citizen integration and doctrinal rigidification. On this ground, the theological-legal norms of neo-Hanbalism, often ignored or transgressed elsewhere, show both their influence and their ability to adapt.

13A dossier on the theme of cemeteries and tombs in Islam which advocates a multidisciplinary and multi-spatial approach would necessarily include numerous shortcomings. Among these we particularly regret that we have not been able to integrate contributions on the funerary act in sub-Saharan Africa, in the Maghreb, in Turkey or the Balkans. The number and variety of proposals received in response to our call for contributions, among which we were forced to make a drastic selection, allow us to hope that we may soon see successful publications on these subjects. As it stands, we believe that this dossier, in its conciseness, diversity and coherence, illuminates certain dynamics and issues that are little known about the Muslim funerary act today.

14On the whole the works presented in this volume will allow us to show, that at a time when, in our Western societies, the management of death has largely passed into the hands of modern, secularized states (Lauwers, 2005, Ariès 1977, Thomas , 1975), it is different in the Muslim worlds. In all these societies, whether Islam is an official religion or not, even where it has a minority status, the same practices, the same rites and the same beliefs are universally present in spaces dedicated to the dead, whatever their size, their material situation. and their management mode. Everywhere, the differentiated status of the dead is reflected in the organization of the cemetery and the care taken of the tombs, but the same set of beliefs, norms and rites, links together the different categories of deceased: saints, martyrs, heroes, ordinary deceased. Each individual is entitled to his funerary rite and grave, without cremation ever being admitted as it can be in Christianity (Kuberski, 2012), no doubt by virtue of beliefs about the fate of the deceased beyond the grave and the resurrection of bodies.

15The funerary culture of Muslim societies however, is anything but monolithic and immutable. First, it reflects the very relative and floating sense that the notions of orthodoxy and orthopraxis take in Islam, in the absence of a single, centralized religious authority. Then, infused with powerful and unprecedented religious, political and societal dynamics, it reflects a constant adaptation to the historical experience. The importance of political stakes is manifest in every field. The state or the dominant group, whether secular or Islamic, everywhere expresses its will to power and its capacity for control. In countries most affected by conflict, violent death is ideologized and funeral control is essential to legitimize the position of the group. On the other hand, the biopolitics of the modern state, analyzed by Foucault (1997 and elsewhere), in its application to funerary practices, is illustrated, paradoxically perhaps, only in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A notable phenomenon is the multiplication of actors who represent religious law in funerary matters, especially in relation to negotiations with the no less numerous political actors. To the local and traditional authorities are added, in the context of emigration, new authorities incarnated by confessional practitioners of death, whether funeral directors or cemetery administrators recognized by the public authorities of the host country. The scientific and anthropological studies reported in this volume, however, highlight a persistence and growing autonomy among popular practices, at the economic level as well as at the ritual or aesthetic levels, and even in the choice of the religious authorities themselves. While no authority holds a monopoly on the funerary act, it is undoubtedly because, as a complete social fact, it plays a major role in the construction of the memory both individual and collective and of the self-image of Moslem societies, linking the memories of the past, the problems of the present and the expectations of the future, here or in the hereafter.

16The project of this volume was born from a workshop entitled "The cemetery at the crossroads of politics: space, state, religion", presented at the first congress of GIS "Middle East and Muslim Worlds", on July 7, 2015 at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris. Some of the papers presented at this workshop resulted in articles published in this issue, joined by other contributions proposed in response to our call for submissions to the Review of the Mediterranean and Muslim Worlds (REMMM). It is a pleasure for us to thank especially, among all those who contributed to and supported this project with their scientific expertise – Marion Aubrée, Michèle Baussant, Xavier Bougarel, Christian Bromberger, Rémy Delage, Agnès Devictor, Stéphane Dudoignon, Galila El- Kadi, Marc Gaborieau, Mathieu Grenet, Denis Gril, David Henig, Pierre-Jean Luizard, Sabrina Mervin, Amina Mohammad-Arif, Alexander Papas, Jean-Francois Perouse, Bro. Emmanuel Pisani, Mina Said-Shahrouz, Simona Tersigni, Galia Valtchinova, Hélène Zwingelstein – and the REMMM editorial board, notably Élise Massicard, and Véronique Litaudon, editorial assistant, not to mention the invaluable moral support of Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen and Bernard Heyberger, whose encouragements ensured that this dossier would find expression as a publication.