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Muslim Travellers: Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination
Focusing on travel in Muslim societies from Malaysia to West Africa to Western Europe from the first centuries of Islam to the present, the contributors to this edition investigate the role of religious doctrine in motivating travel. While pilgrimage is usually seen as travel with a uniquely religious purpose, this exploration of the role of travel in Muslim societies and in Islamic doctrine shows that other forms of travel—for learning, visits to shrines, exile, and labor migration—also shape the religious imagination. Conversely, travel for specifically religious purposes often has important economic and political consequences.
The contributors explore the transnational and local significance of pilgrimage and migration, showing how these journeys heighten a universal sense of "being Muslim" while also inspiring the redefinition of the frontiers of sect, language, territory, and nation. In this way, encounters with Muslim "others" have been as important in shaping community self-definition as encounters with European "others."
Linking pilgrimage and migration to issues such as class, ethnicity, and gender, Muslim Travellers will be of special value to students of history and anthropology and to those in cross-disciplinary courses such as Islamic civilization and world religions.
The contributors explore the transnational and local significance of pilgrimage and migration, showing how these journeys heighten a universal sense of "being Muslim" while also inspiring the redefinition of the frontiers of sect, language, territory, and nation. In this way, encounters with Muslim "others" have been as important in shaping community self-definition as encounters with European "others."
Linking pilgrimage and migration to issues such as class, ethnicity, and gender, Muslim Travellers will be of special value to students of history and anthropology and to those in cross-disciplinary courses such as Islamic civilization and world religions.
310 pages, Hardcover
First published September 6, 1990
46 people want to read
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August 27, 2024
Patterns of Pilgrimage, Modes of Migration
Some people in the West may have heard of Ibn Battuta, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Ahmad ibn Majid, or al-Masudi, early Muslim travellers whose written accounts have provided much knowledge of societies otherwise unobserved by literate people. I bought this book almost 30 years ago because I thought it would tell me more about such men. I was wrong. It is a collection of articles based on “movement” among Islamic peoples, whatever that may mean. The idea of Islam as flexible comes through strongly—it being far from the monolithic entity so often portrayed in the Western media. Readers will realize that there is a far more complex sacred geography in the Muslim world than just Mecca/Medina. Muslims traveled for many different reasons and contact with Muslims of various kinds resonated in the Islamic world just as much as contact with European or Indian “Others”. Perhaps the major reason for travel (always for men) was to acquire religious learning or experience, of course to accomplish the pilgrimage to Mecca, but not only that. Travel, in any case, helped form a cosmopolitan Muslim identity. The writers in “Muslim Travellers” perceive “travel” in a very wide sense, including being refugees, being “guest workers” in Europe, and even the influence of Islamic practice on Moroccan Jews in Israel.
In an introductory chapter the editors discuss motives and interest in travel in Islam plus the push and pull in stimulating travel: a certain tension between center and periphery, the causes of social action such as pilgrimage. Are local shrines as attractive to travelers as the faraway major shrines in Saudi Arabia? On page 18 they say that “…Muslims assert that Islamic directions are universal and clear and yet their manifestation in thought and practice are so varied and indeterminate.” The following chapters, each by a different author, illustrate what the editors mean.
M.K. Masud’s chapter on the doctrine of hijra is almost unreadable for the uninitiated. I will not comment because I didn’t really understand. S.I. Gellens writes on the search for knowledge in medieval Islamic societies and the dialogue among Muslims over centuries on the relative merits of local attachments vs. perceived universal sentiments and obligations. A. El Moudden talks of the consequences of travel for developing a sense of locality—travellers acquire a wider sense of Islam, but a sharper sense of what is specific to their own location. This chapter is more readable than the previous ones. B. Metcalf’s chapter deals with South Asian accounts of the Hajj—travelogues, letters, journals, and guidebooks. M.B. McDonnell describes patterns of pilgrimage from Malaysia, both motivations and benefits on return. The hajj created a more uniform Malay identity. The chapter by K. Karpat struck me as the most interesting. It concerns the migration of Muslims from Russia and Balkan lands to the Ottoman Empire in its last days—1860 to 1914. This was a movement of some five to seven million people into Turkey proper from the outer ex-provinces. The Ottomans granted asylum to anyone asking for it—not only Muslims but Jews as well. Karpat discusses the creation of post-migration identities along with the new idea of a Muslim territorial state. R. Mandel continues the theme of “traveler as migrant worker”, talking about Turkish migrants to Germany and how their identity changed in a new country. She speaks specifically about migrants from the Alevi branch of Islam and their changing identity in Germany. R. Launay focuses on scholarly credentials among the Dyula of the Ivory Coast—a certain debate between Wahhabi and non-Wahhabi religious scholars who had gone to study in Egypt or other parts of the Arab world. J.A. Clancy writes a very interesting chapter on an Algerian brotherhood in the 18th century that stemmed from travel to Egypt. She says that it showed a kind of “cosmopolitan neo-Sufism”. Cool term. I already mentioned A. Weingrod’s chapter “Saints and Shrines: A Morocco-Israel Comparison” which concerns the way North African patterns of visiting the tombs of local saints was continued by the Moroccan Jewish immigrants to Israel and is linked to rightwing politics there. The last chapter, by N. Tapper, is about visits to local shrines in a Turkish community even though strict Islam frowns on them. It is mostly women who participate.
All in all, there are many interesting chapters and I learned a lot, even if the book turned out to be something other than what I originally expected. A few of the selections would be far above any reader’s level except for specialists, others are readily accessible. Those chapters would be excellent choices for courses on Islam as they provide ample evidence of the enormous variety to be found in the Islamic world.
Some people in the West may have heard of Ibn Battuta, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Ahmad ibn Majid, or al-Masudi, early Muslim travellers whose written accounts have provided much knowledge of societies otherwise unobserved by literate people. I bought this book almost 30 years ago because I thought it would tell me more about such men. I was wrong. It is a collection of articles based on “movement” among Islamic peoples, whatever that may mean. The idea of Islam as flexible comes through strongly—it being far from the monolithic entity so often portrayed in the Western media. Readers will realize that there is a far more complex sacred geography in the Muslim world than just Mecca/Medina. Muslims traveled for many different reasons and contact with Muslims of various kinds resonated in the Islamic world just as much as contact with European or Indian “Others”. Perhaps the major reason for travel (always for men) was to acquire religious learning or experience, of course to accomplish the pilgrimage to Mecca, but not only that. Travel, in any case, helped form a cosmopolitan Muslim identity. The writers in “Muslim Travellers” perceive “travel” in a very wide sense, including being refugees, being “guest workers” in Europe, and even the influence of Islamic practice on Moroccan Jews in Israel.
In an introductory chapter the editors discuss motives and interest in travel in Islam plus the push and pull in stimulating travel: a certain tension between center and periphery, the causes of social action such as pilgrimage. Are local shrines as attractive to travelers as the faraway major shrines in Saudi Arabia? On page 18 they say that “…Muslims assert that Islamic directions are universal and clear and yet their manifestation in thought and practice are so varied and indeterminate.” The following chapters, each by a different author, illustrate what the editors mean.
M.K. Masud’s chapter on the doctrine of hijra is almost unreadable for the uninitiated. I will not comment because I didn’t really understand. S.I. Gellens writes on the search for knowledge in medieval Islamic societies and the dialogue among Muslims over centuries on the relative merits of local attachments vs. perceived universal sentiments and obligations. A. El Moudden talks of the consequences of travel for developing a sense of locality—travellers acquire a wider sense of Islam, but a sharper sense of what is specific to their own location. This chapter is more readable than the previous ones. B. Metcalf’s chapter deals with South Asian accounts of the Hajj—travelogues, letters, journals, and guidebooks. M.B. McDonnell describes patterns of pilgrimage from Malaysia, both motivations and benefits on return. The hajj created a more uniform Malay identity. The chapter by K. Karpat struck me as the most interesting. It concerns the migration of Muslims from Russia and Balkan lands to the Ottoman Empire in its last days—1860 to 1914. This was a movement of some five to seven million people into Turkey proper from the outer ex-provinces. The Ottomans granted asylum to anyone asking for it—not only Muslims but Jews as well. Karpat discusses the creation of post-migration identities along with the new idea of a Muslim territorial state. R. Mandel continues the theme of “traveler as migrant worker”, talking about Turkish migrants to Germany and how their identity changed in a new country. She speaks specifically about migrants from the Alevi branch of Islam and their changing identity in Germany. R. Launay focuses on scholarly credentials among the Dyula of the Ivory Coast—a certain debate between Wahhabi and non-Wahhabi religious scholars who had gone to study in Egypt or other parts of the Arab world. J.A. Clancy writes a very interesting chapter on an Algerian brotherhood in the 18th century that stemmed from travel to Egypt. She says that it showed a kind of “cosmopolitan neo-Sufism”. Cool term. I already mentioned A. Weingrod’s chapter “Saints and Shrines: A Morocco-Israel Comparison” which concerns the way North African patterns of visiting the tombs of local saints was continued by the Moroccan Jewish immigrants to Israel and is linked to rightwing politics there. The last chapter, by N. Tapper, is about visits to local shrines in a Turkish community even though strict Islam frowns on them. It is mostly women who participate.
All in all, there are many interesting chapters and I learned a lot, even if the book turned out to be something other than what I originally expected. A few of the selections would be far above any reader’s level except for specialists, others are readily accessible. Those chapters would be excellent choices for courses on Islam as they provide ample evidence of the enormous variety to be found in the Islamic world.
Displaying 1 of 1 review