The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca
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Description
About The Book
The hadj, or sacred journey, is the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are enjoined to make once in their lifetimes. Its purpose is to detach human beings from their homelands and, by bringing them to Mecca, temporarily reinstate the equality of all people before God. One of the world’s longest-lived religious rites, the hadj has continued without break for fourteen hundred year. It is, like most things Islamic, shrouded in mystery for Westerners. In his new book, Michael Wolfe, an American-born writer and recent Muslim convert, recounts his experiences on this journey, and in the process brings readers closer to the meaning of Islam.
Wolfe’s book bridges the high points of the Muslim calendar, beginning in April with the annual month-long fast of Ramadan. In Morocco, he settles into daily life with a merchant family in the ancient quarter of Marrakesh. During his three-month stay, he explores the intricate traditional life of Muslim Morocco. His accounts of this time deepen our feeling for Islam, a faith that claims one-sixth of the world’s population. As summer approaches, he travels north to Tangier, where he visits Western writers and Moroccan mystics. In June, he arrives in Mecca, a city closed to all but Muslims.
The protean experience of the hadj, and the real Mecca, that most religious and mysterious of cities, are captured in the last half of the book. Inevitably, the buildup to the Gulf War hovers in the background–the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is just weeks away. Yet it is the author’s participation in the age-old rites of the hadj that most preoccupies his thoughts, strengthening his bond to the faith he has embraced as an outsider, developing and transforming it, making it personal and alive.
About the Contributor(s)
About the author
Michael Wolfe: Michael Wolfe (b. 1945 CE) is an American poet, author, and documentary producer, widely recognized for bringing the experience of the Hajj to Western readers. He studied Classics at Wesleyan University and, on an Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship, spent several years traveling in North and West Africa, an experience that drew him toward Islam. He embraced the faith in 1989 and performed the pilgrimage to Makka in 1990, describing it as transformative. That journey produced his two best-known works. The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca is a candid first-person narrative of his own pilgrimage, while One Thousand Roads to Mecca gathers ten centuries of travelers' accounts of the Hajj, from classical Muslim voyagers to later Western converts, into a single anthology. He also edited Taking Back Islam: American Muslims Reclaim Their Faith, a collection of essays by American Muslims, and contributed to The Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage, a volume of scholarly essays. Beyond the page, Wolfe co-founded Unity Productions Foundation and worked in broadcast media, serving as writer and on-camera host for an ABC Nightline report on the Hajj and helping produce a PBS documentary on the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. For a number of years he also ran Tombouctou Books, a small literary press. Across his work he has sought to present Islam and the pilgrimage with both personal warmth and historical depth.
Specifications
EAN 13 / ISBN
9780802135865
Publisher
Grove Press
Author
Michael Wolfe
Pages
352
Year Published
1998
Size
W-6 in | H-9 in | D-1 in
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