Introduction: funerary traditions and the making of Islamic society -- Tombstones: markers of social and religious change, 650-800 -- Washing the corpse in Arabia and Mesopotamia -- Shrouds: worldly possessions in an economy of salvation -- Wailing for the dead in the House of Islam -- Urban processions and communal prayers: opportunities for social, economic, and religious distinction -- The politics of burial and tomb construction -- The torture of spirit and corpse in the grave -- Epilogue: Death rites and the process of Islamic socialization.
