The annual ritual pilgrimage to Makkah was established by the Prophet Muhammad in the last year of his life (AD 632). Over the following centuries the experience and importance of Hajj have been evocatively documented in countless ways. Highlighting the pilgrims' journey across time, the sacred rituals of Hajj, and the city of Makkah itself, this beautiful little book features illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings and photographs, as well as calligraphy, textiles, scientific instruments, decorative tiles, maps, ceramics, metalwork and powerful works by contemporary artists. Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the British Museum, from 26 January to 15 April 2012.
Since the seventh century, the Hajj, or Great Pilgrimage to Mecca, has been a lifelong goal of devout Muslims throughout the world. Egyptian pilgrims traditionally celebrate their sacred journey by commissioning a local artist to depict their religious odyssey on the walls of their homes. This book shows the richness and variety of this naive art form covering images from towns, villages, and isolated farm communities along the Nile, across the Delta, down the Red Sea coast, and into Sinai. On the walls of buildings ranging from alabaster factories to mud-brick farmhouses they found brilliant murals illuminated by the desert sun, portraying beloved icons of the pilgrims' faith and scenes from the Qur'an.
The Hajj is the largest pilgrimage in the world today and a sacred duty for all Muslims. With contributions from renowned experts, this book opens out onto the full sweep of the Hajj: as a sacred path walked by early Islamic devotees, as a sumptuous site of worship under the care of sultans, and as an expression of faith in the modern world.
Scholars from a range of fields tell the story of the Hajj and explain its significance as one of the key events in the Muslim religious calendar. This volume pays attention to the diverse aspects of the Hajj, as lived every year by hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide.
In the late nineteenth century, as a consequence of imperial conquest and a mobility revolution, Russia became a crossroads of the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The first book in any language on the hajj under tsarist and Soviet rule, Russian Hajj tells the story of how tsarist officials struggled to control and co-opt Russia's mass hajj traffic, seeing it as not only a liability but also an opportunity. To support the hajj as a matter of state surveillance and control was controversial, given the preeminent position of the Orthodox Church. But nor could the hajj be ignored, or banned, due to Russia's policy of toleration of Islam. As a cross-border, migratory phenomenon, the hajj stoked officials' fears of infectious disease, Islamic revolt, and interethnic conflict, but Eileen Kane innovatively argues that it also generated new thinking within the government about the utility of the empire's Muslims and their global networks.
The material and visual culture of the Islamic World casts vast arcs through space and time, and encompasses a huge range of artefacts and monuments from the minute to the grandiose, from ceramic pots to the great mosques. Here, Venetia Porter and Mariam Rosser-Owen assemble leading experts in the field to examine both the objects themselves and the ways in which they reflect their historical, cultural and economic contexts. With a focus on metalwork, this volume includes an important new study of Mosul metalwork and presents recent discoveries in the fields of Fatimid, Mamluk and Qajar metalwork. By examining architecture, ceramics, ivories and textiles, seventeenth-century Iranian painting and contemporary art, the book explores a wide range of artistic production and historical periods from the Umayyad caliphate to the modern Middle East. This rich and detailed volume makes a significant contribution to the fields of Art History, Architecture and Islamic Studies, bringing new objects to light, and shedding new light on old objects.
“Wolfe does an exemplary job of detailing the ceremonies performed at Mecca and the reasons behind them . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review This updated and expanded edition of One Thousand Roads to Mecca collects significant works by observant travel writers from the East and West over the last ten centuries—including two new contemporary narratives—creating a comprehensive, multifaceted literary portrait of the enduring tradition. Since its inception in the seventh century, the pilgrimage to Mecca has been the central theme in a large body of Islamic travel literature. Beginning with the European Renaissance, it has also been the subject for a handful of adventurous writers from the West who, through conversion or connivance, managed to slip inside the walls of a city forbidden to non-Muslims. These very different literary traditions form distinct impressions of a spirited conversation in which Mecca is the common destination and Islam the common subject of inquiry. Along with an introduction by Reza Aslan, featured writers include Ibn Battuta, J. L. Burckhardt, Sir Richard Burton, the Begum of Bhopal, John F. Keane, Winifred Stegar, Muhammad Asad, Lady Evelyn Cobbald, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, and Malcolm X. One Thousand Roads to Mecca is a historically, geographically, and ethnically diverse collection of travel writing that adds substantially to the literature of Islam and the West. “Serves as an excellent introduction to a religion, people, culture, and philosophy.” —Santa Cruz Sentinel
Crucial to understanding Islam is a recognition of the role of Muslim networks. The earliest networks were Mediterranean trade routes that quickly expanded into transregional paths for pilgrimage, scholarship, and conversion, each network complementing and reinforcing the others. This volume selects major moments and key players from the seventh century to the twenty-first that have defined Muslim networks as the building blocks for Islamic identity and social cohesion. Although neglected in scholarship, Muslim networks have been invoked in the media to portray post-9/11 terrorist groups. Here, thirteen essays provide a long view of Muslim networks, correcting both scholarly omission and political sloganeering. New faces and forces appear, raising questions never before asked. What does the fourteenth-century North African traveler Ibn Battuta have in common with the American hip hopper Mos Def? What values and practices link Muslim women meeting in Cairo, Amsterdam, and Atlanta? How has technology raised expectations about new transnational pathways that will reshape the perception of faith, politics, and gender in Islamic civilization? This book invokes the past not only to understand the present but also to reimagine the future through the prism of Muslim networks, at once the shadow and the lifeline for the umma, or global Muslim community. Contributors: H. Samy Alim, Duke University Jon W. Anderson, Catholic University of America Taieb Belghazi, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco Gary Bunt, University of Wales, Lampeter miriam cooke, Duke University Vincent J. Cornell, University of Arkansas Carl W. Ernst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Judith Ernst, Chapel Hill, North Carolina David Gilmartin, North Carolina State University Jamillah Karim, Spelman College Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Bruce B. Lawrence, Duke University Samia Serageldin, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Tayba Hassan Al Khalifa Sharif, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Egypt Quintan Wiktorowicz, Rhodes College Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Brown University
The perfect book to introduce children to the special act of Hajj, the pilgrimage for Muslims to the holy city Mecca. One of the Five Pillars of Islam.
