232. Ma‘ān, aṭ-Ṭōr |  معان، الطور

Ma‘ān Governorate

Maqām / Weli Shēkh ‘Abd Allāh.

JADIS no. none

MEGA no. none

Coordinates: 30°12'30.0"N 35°44'20.0"E

30.208333, 35.738889

Plan: The tomb of the Shēkh was located with those of other members of his family in a rectangular building covered with a flat roof carried by transversal arches. One door at one of the short sides of the maqām.

Measurements: The new enclosure wall out of concrete blocks coincides exactly in orientation and dimension

with the exterior walls of the demolished maqām (oral information AKh).

Exterior: unknown.

Interior: unknown.

Building Materials: sun dried mud-brick combined with semi-dressed fieldstones for the arches; traditional roof of pealed wooden beams, cane mats and hay-mud layer on top.

Construction details: The rectangular room was divided by two (or three?) transversal arches which carried a flat roof in traditional wood, cane mats and mud construction (figs. 232.3-4). The interior walls had been covered by a whitewashed mud plaster.

Preservation: The old mud-brick building has been demolished in the earlier 2000s. Today the tomb is without access surrounded by a new enclosure wall with two marked humble burials of members of his family (fig.232.2). Miettunen (2013) explains this by the loss of the Shēkh’s importance in local veneration.

Inscription(s): At the head end of the Shēkh’s tomb is an inscribed stone, the top of which is broken away and lost. According to I. Lindtstedt (in Miettunen 2013, 107 note 404) the inscription reads:

Translation (according Lindtstedt, loc. cit.): “... buried in the year he executed / which (?) ǀ the buildings of castles and water pools ǀ on the pilgrimage road from Ḥarrān / Ḥawrān (or some other toponym) ǀ...[God guides] who he wills (or a similar phase) ǀ The year [1]262.” Date: H 1262 = AD 1845. (Lindtstedt's reading of the year seems doubtful, since the construction of the Qal‘ā was H 971 = 1563 AD)

Traveler Reports: “....A Ma‘ân, le cheikh ‘Abdallah jouit d’un culte incontesté. Ce personnage monta du désert et vint s’installer dans la ville. Il fit bien sans se remarquer. A sa mort, un de ss parents déclara qu‘il était au rang des wélys, par conséquent il pouvait guérir les maladies de quiconque s’adrésserair à lui et honererait son tombeau.‘ Un pauvre hère’ ma raconta mon interlocuteur, ‘ne pouvait se soulager; il était sur le point de mourir au milieu d’atroces souffrances; il se traina au tombeau d’‘Abdallah, se coucha auprès du wély, fit une prière. Quand il se leva, it était guéri.’ (Jaussen 1908).

Bibliography: Jaussen 1908, 297; Arabia Petraea III, 331; Miettunen 2013, 106-107 no. 17; 210 fig. 16; Schick 2020, no. 67.