10.9 Pilgrimage
Another Islamic duty worth attention here is of a very different kind. Pilgrimages are commonplace in the world's religions. The adherents of a given faith will usually regard some places as more sacred than others. The reasons for this may vary; thus the place may have some cosmic significance, or have been the scene of an important event in the life of the founder, or be the tomb of a revered saint. What believers do about such places may also vary: they may travel to them to join in crowded communal rituals, or visit them as individuals, or even make a point of avoiding them. This kind of thing is as widespread in Islam as in other world religions. What, then, is different about Islamic pilgrimage?
Of the many forms of pilgrimage in the Islamic world, one stands out: the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). There are several reasons why Mecca is a more significant place in Islamic terms than the average Arabian oasis, but the most fundamental is the one we have already encountered, the presence of God's house. In some religions gods have multiple residences, but in the Islamic case God's house is unique. Here, then, is a sacred place that has priority for all Muslims, just as Jerusalem does for all Jews. By contrast, it is not at all clear what single place would enjoy such a status for adherents of either of the other world religions, be they Christians or Buddhists. Moreover, going on pilgrimage to Mecca is not just an act of piety. It is an obligation of the individual believer laid down in the Koran: "It is the duty of people towards God to make the pilgrimage to the House, if he [the believer] is able to make his way there" (Koran 3:97).
Again, the scholars went to work to produce a full legal account of the duty. A Muslim is obliged to perform the pilgrimage once in a lifetime (though there is nothing wrong with doing it repeatedly). Certain categories of people are exempt, such as slaves, lunatics, or unaccompanied women. Insecurity on the roads and lack of means excuse those who would otherwise be obligated (the Koran says "if he is able"). The scholars also spelled out the traditional rituals that the pilgrims must perform when they gather in the neighborhood of Mecca in the second week of the last month of the Muslim year. The net effect of all this was to confer on the pilgrimage to Mecca the status of a fundamental institution of Islam.
This meant that in Islam, to a far greater extent than in Christianity or Buddhism, there was a place and a time each year at which believers from the most diverse components of the Islamic community were gathered together. The Muslim world, like any other of its day, was one in which most people lived their lives within very narrow horizons. News traveled slowly across landscapes that were politically, ethnically, and culturally fragmented. In such a world the pilgrimage played an unusual role in creating a broader consciousness of the geographical range of Islam, and in making possible the maintenance of regular contact between widely separated Muslim populations. Mecca was admittedly far from perfect in this respect. At the best of times it was a difficult place to get to—pilgrims came at the risk of being robbed by the nomads in the desert or shipwrecked in the Red Sea. And when the pilgrimage fell in high summer, Mecca was a grim place for the pilgrims to be wandering around in the open. But as a way of keeping a civilization in touch with itself, it was peerless in premodern times.