Graffiti is often associated with decay and vandalism. Modern scholars of the practice (.ho typically focus on graffiti in the modern West) have described it as a way a subaltern or “marginal” group might achieve a voice precisely because the practice can be both illegal and anonymous. Certainly, many restorers of architectural sites in the Muslim world have viewed pilgrimage graffiti in just this way. Utilizing examples from shrines in Turkey, Iran, and Tajikistan and contextualizing them into their proper religious and cultural milieu, I however argue that Muslim shrine graffiti is in many ways a very different phenomenon. I show that shrine graffiti in the Muslim world has typically been understood not as an act of vandalism, but as a normative pilgrimage practice across much of the Muslim world, accepted and even encouraged by custodians of shrines. In analyzing the text of these inscriptions, we can learn how the pilgrimage site has been understood by those who participated at the site. Moreover, Muslim shrine graffiti is quite often not anonymous: pilgrims often sign and date their graffito, meaning that these inscriptions can also serve to gauge the popularity of a site over a period of time. At the same time, Muslim shrine graffiti does share at least one thing in common with graffiti in the modern West: in both cases, it can provide a window onto segments of society not traditionally found in our standard source material. Shrine graffiti can therefore serve as a source for the study of history, religion, and society.