Death, Identity, and Architecture: Constructing Identities at the Makli Necropolis

Historical information on Sindh, from the times of the Arab invasion in the early eighth century till it became a part of the Mughal Empire in 1591, is scanty and scattered. There is a large gap even in historic textual sources from Sindh and the material evidence is also fragmentary, making this region and its medieval polities significantly obscure. Correspondingly, accounts on the ethnological background, history, culture, and religion of the Samma dynasty also suffer from numerous uncertainties. It is, however, suggested that the Sammas were a large militarized pastoralist group, consisting of multiple nomadic sub-clans indigenous to Sindh. They converted to Islam prior to ascending the throne in 1351 and ruled over a vast sultanate expanding beyond the boundaries of modern Sindh, till 1522.

In the absence of contemporary chronicles, the imperial funerary monuments of Sammas, preserved in the Makli Necropolis, serve as primary informants. This paper mainly demonstrates how these royal tombs can aid in the diachronic analysis of Samma socio-cultural and belief systems that evolved between the fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries. From a visual perspective, the artistic program of the Samma tombs noticeably links them to the Persianate building traditions on one hand, and to the Maru-Gurjara styled Hindu temples from western India on the other. Additionally, the Quranic and non-Quranic inscriptions carved on their surfaces exhibit diversity in the religious denominational inclinations of the Samma elites. Hence, by actively engaging with the architecture, decoration, and epigraphy, this paper will also suggest that these culturally hybrid funerary structures evince dimensions of liberality, which comprised Samma state ideologies, religious values, and communal identities.