47. ‘Azraq, al-, ash-Shishāni (south) | أزرق الشيشان / الأزرق الجنوبي

az-Zarqā’ Governorate

Chetchenian cemetery and maqām Shēkh Mubārak ash- Shishāni.

JADIS no. 321 3003

MEGA no. 7930 (s.v. ‘Azraq esh-Shishāni), maqām not registered.

Coordinates: 31°49'44.6"N 36°48'48.1"E

31.829056, 36.813361

Plan: The venerated tomb lies in the center of a low rectangular enclosure wall in E-W orientation with two covered low “entrances” in the SE sector of S wall and NW sector of N wall.

Measurements: ca. 25.2 m²

Exterior: Enclosure wall 5.05-5.13 x 4.59 x 4.92 m, Height ca. 0.55 m. Thickness of wall ca. 0.65 m.

Interior: unknown.

Building Materials: The enclosure wall consists of undressed basalt boulders combined with seven curved reused basalt half-column bases of late Ottoman date, laid down on 90o. Further blocks of the same type have been used in the mosque in the Qaṣr (see no. 44) as framing columns of the miḥrāb. The tomb of Shēkh Mubārak ash-Shishāni has been entirely newly built in 1982 out of industrially fabricated hallow concrete blocks and covered with a beige concrete-sand plaster.

Construction details: The column base spolia have been inserted each one on both sides of the low entrances to the enclosure and three beside each other in the axis of the tomb in the W wall.

Preservation: The enclosure wall seems to be intact in its original condition of the late 19th century AD. The tomb of Shēkh Mubārak ash-Shishāni has been entirely newly constructed in 1982.

Inscription(s): A coarse Arabic inscription has been incised in the head stone of the Shēkh’s tomb and commemorates its reconstruction in 1982. On the upper faces of the reused half-column bases are bedouin tribal marks (wasm) in punctuated letters: ∩ǀ.

Date(s): According to oral information Shēkh Mubārak ash-Shishān died at ‘Azraq on his pilgrimage to Mekka  in the late Ottoman period (“in the 1890s”) and he was buried on the Chetchenian cemetery in south ‘Azraq. Even though the narrative about the Muslim saint communicated by A. Musil (Arabia Petraea III) is different, the date seems to coincide in general.

Traveler Reports: “...; die ‘Abasa (scil.: verehren den) Mbàrek, welcher sieben Jahre bei el-Mšatta unter Gazellen wohnte und von ihrer Milch lebte, die er direkt aus dem Euter sog. Nach seinem Tode wurde er bei el- Azrak begraben. Die Gazellen besuchen sein Grab und ruhen auf demselben. Wenn jemand auf sie schießen will, tropft sogleich Blut aus seinem Gewehre, oder es zerspringt oder es geht nicht los, ‘la-tatûr, tansateh’” (Musil 1908: Arabia Petraea).

The popular  tale about the hermit life of Shēkh Mubārak  has striking similarities with that of Shēkh Ermēzān at Khirbet Khazwa (see here no. 203).

Bibliography: Arabia Petraea III, 329; for Shishāni burial customs in Jordan see Lash - Horun 2018.