Upon the death of the celebrated Umayyad ḥājib Muḥammad b. Abī 'Āmir al-Manṣūr in 392/1002, a mawlā of King al-Musta'īn b. Hūd of the Taifa of Zaragoza, with the name Shujā' (literally ‘brave’ in Arabic), set out to meet King Alfonso. Soon discovering that the king had headed for al-Manṣūr’s tomb in the city of Sālim (Medinaceli), Shujā' followed him. There he found Alfonso sitting on a throne that he had installed over the tomb, while his wife leaned next to him. When Alfonso saw Shujā’, he proudly proclaimed: ‘Can’t you see that I have seized the lands of Muslims, and sat on the tomb of their king?’ Almost as if performing his name, Shujā’ was ‘carried away by bravery’. He replied in defense of al-Manṣūr: ‘Were the owner of this tomb to breathe while you sit over it, we would not have heard from you such abominable words, and no decision would have settled in you.’ Alfonso’s rage and imminent attack on Shujā' was prevented by his wife. Standing between the two, she scolded Alfonso and affirmed Shujā's words: ‘Should someone like you pride himself on such an act [sitting over the tomb]?’

The theme of Western leaders ‘visiting’ the tombs of Muslim rulers to proclaim victory is a recurring topos in Islamic (including modern) history, and one that is difficult to corroborate. In fact,this anecdote narrated, among others, by al-Maqqarī (d. 1041/1631), citing Ibn Sa'īd al-Andalusī (d. 685/1286), may have never taken place; and if it did, there is no proof of the Alfonso-Shujā' drama. What interests me, however, is not the portrayal of the religious conflict in medieval Arabic sources. Rather, it is Alfonso’s movement toward al-Manṣūr’s tomb, and his act of constructing a throne, that at once animate the Andalusī funerary realm and free it from its physical stagnation, as well as from its aesthetic isolation. The funerary realm was indeed informed by religious interaction. While this interaction still demands the attention of art and architectural historians, this article will focus on a very narrow, yet important, aspect of funerary epigraphy – specifically the presence of Islamic ad'iya (or supplications) in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Christian funerary projects in the Kingdom of Castile, in its two capital cities during this time period: Burgos and Toledo.