AKPIA Lecture Series — Fatima Quraishi "Palimpsests Past and Present: The Sufis and Sultans of the Maklī Necropolis, 1380–1660"

Palimpsests Past and Present: The Sufis and Sultans of the Maklī Necropolis, 1380–1660

Established as a small hermitage in the late fourteenth century, the Makli necropolis, in what is now Sindh province, Pakistan, grew over three centuries to a site of more than 70 elaborately constructed tombs and mosques, and hundreds, if not thousands, of graves. Tracing its history from a modest Ṣūfī site to a monumental site that stretched over four kilometers along a branch of the Indus river in the deltaic plain, Palimpsests Past and Present explores how South Asian funerary spaces are dynamic spaces of sociability, deeply integrated with their surrounding communities and landscapes. Makli’s architectural affiliations are diverse from the lithic architecture of temples and mosques in medieval Gujarat and Rajasthan in India to the dazzling tile-clad brick tombs of Timurid Central Asia and Iran, reflecting its proximity to the Arabian Sea, a threshold into the Subcontinent. Untangling the necropolis’ temporal and stylistic layers reveals how funerary sites were reshaped by accretional building and the influx of new artistic practices and technologies. Simultaneously, Makli was also transformed by the emotional investments of visitors engaged in religious rituals and recreational activities. Thus, rather than separating elite patronage from more humble devotions, Professor Quraishi argues that these were mutually constitutive practices, necessary for sustaining historic monuments. In so doing, she reframes long-standing perceptions of funerary monuments as isolated, static containers of the past, exemplified by iconic mausolea such as the Taj Mahal, instead highlighting their vibrant lives and afterlives.

Fatima Quraishi
Assistant Professor, Art and Archaeology, Princeton University