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Abstract

Death is a grim and often overlooked subject in historical inquiry. However, at the borderlands of the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Qajar Iran, death - specifically the management of dead bodies - became a site of transimperial negotiation. This paper examines how the intersection of death, ritual, and imperial bureaucracy shaped debates and policies over burial practices, piety, afterlife, and communal identity. Focusing on Shi’a Muslim communities in the South Caucasus under Russian imperial rule in the nineteenth century, it explores the practice of preserving the bodies of the deceased for extended periods—ranging from several months to several years—before transporting them to sacred Shi’a cities like Karbala, Qom, and Najaf for final burial. Through the lens of imperial thanatopolitics, this paper investigates how the transnational funerary ritual known as naql al-jana’iz unfolded from the vantage point of the South Caucasus in the nineteenth century.