Hajj

Hajj : Journey to the heart of Islam’ ‘a unique exhibition hosted by the British Museum from 26th January to 15th April 2012’ was designed to promote an international understanding of the pilgrimage to Makkah, one of the five basic pillars of Islam.

The British Museum is famous for holding, from time to time, great cultural and archaeological exhibitions. As Neil Macgregor, Director of the British Museum, has acknowledged on page 9: ‘This exhibition is the result of a close and happy co-operation between the British Museum and the King Abdulaziz Public Library’.

The book under review was conceived as a companion to the exhibition, rather than a conventional catalogue. As Venetia Porter admits ‘our intention has been to gather the history, the voices of pilgrims and the material culture associated with Hajj together in one place. It is felt that the story of Hajj crosses so many different disciplines, from religion, history and archaeology to anthropology, travel and art history and so on. Consequently, an interdisciplinary approach was necessary to bring the subject of Hajj to a greater appreciation for an international audience’.

The book contains essays by academic and independent scholars, such as M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, Hugh Kennedy, Robert Irwin, Karen Armstrong, and Ziuauddin Sardar. Unlike the usual handbooks on the Islamic pilgrimage by Muslim writers, who emphasize the rituals based on the Qur’anic text, quotations from the tiadith and supplications of Hajj, this book differs substantially in its approach to the subject. The book dispenses with the texts of Hajj manuals and instead approaches the subject from an outsider’s perspective. With the exception of Abdel Haleem, the contributors take a secular/orientalist approach to the Hajj. Much supplementary information, some of which is unavailable to general readers, is included in the book.