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Paper short abstract:

The area consists of commemorative stelae, ruins, cenotaphs of pre-Islamic prophets and tombs of Islamic holy men; its name is locally interpreted as presence of death. The well Barhut is believed to be a gateway to the afterlife. Pilgrims seek from the ancestors the vital power of baraka.

Paper long abstract:

Based on the author's long-term ethnological field work in South Arabia, this paper addresses Hadhramaut as a specific anthropogenic landscape. I called it a landscape of death and burial due to its ancient commemorative stelae, ruins, cenotaphs of pre-Islamic prophets and tombs of Islamic holy men; even its name is interpreted by native population as 'presence of death'. Moreover, the well Barhut, at the utmost East of Wadi Hadhramaut, is believed to be a gateway to the afterlife. Death and life are connected also because the local places of visitations are linked with potable water - the tomb of Prophet Hud, with the Masilah river; Mashhad 'Ali, with wells and rain reservoirs; the Mawla Matar sanctuary, with floods. Pilgrims seek from the pious ancestors the vital power of baraka; women ask the righteous to grant them a healthy posterity; ritual ibex-hunt meant to provide a good agricultural year. Continuation of commemorative traditions, kept in the region for many centuries, has been harassed during the last decades by Islamic radicals calling for abolition of 'the cult of ancestors' and 'grave-worship'.