Pilgrimage to Jerusalem Jewish Christian Muslim
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PILGRIMAGE TO JERUSALEM: JEWISH, CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM
By Harry B. Partin
JERUSALEM IS ONE of the great cities of human history. Yet it has few
of the things that have made other cities great. It has almost always been
a small place, whether in terms of area or population. It has not been an
important political center. Jerusalem has not been a military power, with
the possible exception of the time of David and Solomon (tenth century
B.C.) who extended the borders of the Hebrew Kingdom by military means,
which exception has a modern parallel in Zionist expansionism.
Jerusalem has never been an important center of commerce. It has
neither produced goods on a large scale nor developed trading relations of
the magnitude and importance of, say, the Meccans at the time of Muhammad
(seventh centuryA.D.).
Jerusalem is not located on a waterway as are most of the great
cities. It is an inland city, a city set among hills on the edge of the
Judean wilderness. Specifically, Old Jerusalem sits astride two ridges
forming part of the backbone of Palestine between the Mediterranean to the
west and the Jordan Valley to the east.
For most of its history Jerusalem, as, indeed, the whole of Palestine,
has been betwixt and between the great powers. To the north and northeast
were successively the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians; to the
southwest the Egyptians. Later, Jerusalem was subjected to the power and
influence of the West through the appearance of the Greeks and then the
Romans in the area. Suddenly in the seventh century A.D. the Arabs,
inspired by a new religion, Islam, arrived at its gates from the south.
The early medieval period saw the contest of Western Christendom and the
Arab Islamic world ("Islamdom") for Jerusalem in the form of the Crusades
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and Muslim responses to them. Palestine has been again and again a
battleground and Jerusalem a city often beseiged. It is little wonder that
Jerusalem has almost always been a walled city, as, indeed is the Old City
today.
The fundamental reason for Jerusalem's greatness is religious. It is
a "holy city," a city imbued and invested with sacrality across the centu
ries. It has the distinction of being holy city to the adherents of three
major religionsJudaism, Christianity, and Islamwhich account for more
than a third of the world's population.
The three religions share Jerusalem as a holy city not only for
historical reasons but because they share a common religious orientation
which sets them apart from religions of a basically different orientation.
In brief, the orientation of the "Abrahamic"(l) religions is historical
rather than cosmic, monotheistic rather than polytheistic or monistic.
Moreover, there are large areas of shared sacred religious history among
the three religions. Using the term myth in a non-pejorative sense, we may
say that they participate in important elements of a common mythology
centering on Jerusalem to which each religion brings its own distinctive
associations and interpretations.
Adherents of each of the religions still make their way to Jerusalem
as pilgrims. Jerusalem is a city of pilgrims. From a certain point of
view the three religions are pilgrimage religions. They are pilgrimage
religions in the general sense that they see human beings as journeying
through this world of time (history) to the presence of God at the end of
or beyond history as exemplified in a particular way by John Bunyan's
Pilgrim Progress. Thus pilgrimage is a paradigm for life. They are also
pilgrimage religions in the specific sense that each has an important
tradition of valuing journeys in time and space to places held to be
special and sacred.
JEWISH PILGRIMAGE
Jerusalem has been a pilgrims' city for several thousand years. It
became the goal of pilgrimage for the Hebrews following the establishment
of the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem around 1000 B.C. after David's
t f th J b it t h ld U h li (2)
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your males appear beforetheLord. . . "(3)Deuteronomy added: ". . .at
the place whichhewill choose"(16:16). Theoccasions were specified:
the feastofunleavened bread (Passover, orPesach), thefeastof weeks
(Pentecost, or Shavuot), and thefeastofbooths(Succot). During the
periodof thejudges Shiloh,some twenty miles northofJerusalem, was the
placeoftribal gatheringandappearing beforetheLordon theoccasionsof
the thrice-annual pilgrim festivals. Withtheconstructionof the First
Temple Jerusalem became the primary placeof pilgrimage and grew in
importance as asymbiotic relationship developed between Jerusalem and
pilgrimageinJewish religious life.
Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem hasbeen directly related to the
Temple, whether existingor inruins. Theperiodof theBabylonian Exile
(587-538 B.C.) constitutedabreakin theobservanceofpilgrimage, as in
some other aspectsofJewish religious life, especially those centeringon
the Temple. Insome waysthesignificanceofJerusalemand itsTemplewas
heightenedbyforced absence from them. Withthereturnof theexilesand
the completion of thetempleofZerubbabelin 515 B.C. the pilgrimage
festivals were again observedbut nowwithaportionof thepilgrim "going
up"toJerusalem from outsidetheland.
The last great period ofpilgrimagewasthat of Herod's temple.
Pilgrims came notonly from Babylonbutalso from Syriaandfrom a new,
important centerofJewish life, AlexandriainEgypt. WiththeRomans'
destruction of theTempleinA.D. 70participationin pilgrimage became
much more individualand farless frequent. Thepolicyofexclusion of
Jews from Jerusalem which obtained fromthetimeofHadrian's razingof the
city inA.D. 135followingthe BarKokhba revoltand itsconversion into
Aelia Capitolina (4)untilthefifth century resulted in a hiatus of
several centuriesinJewish pilgrimage. In thefourth century, however,
Jewish pilgrims were allowedtovisitthetemple site onceayearon the
ninth day of theJewish monthofAv, theanniversary of the Temple's
destruction,as thepolicywasslightly relaxed.
With thecaptureofJerusalemby theMuslimsinA.D. 638 Jews were
again abletosettlein thecityandpilgrimage couldbemadeto theTemple
Mount althoughtheconstructionson itwere Muslim, not Jewish. Jewishreligious interest began tofocuson the Western ("Wailing") Wall,
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Christian) pilgrims although it was in most respects a Muslim city. For
the most part Jerusalem was an interfaith city as regarded pilgrimage.
During the period of the Latin (Crusaders') Kingdom of Jerusalem
(1099-1187 A.D.) Jews were again excluded, as were Muslims. With its
demise they were able to return and there was a continuous Jewish presence
as well as pilgrimage until the division of Jerusalem in 1948 as a result
of the Arab-Israeli War.
CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGE
There is a sense in which Christian pilgrimage began with Jesus as a
pilgrim. In the Gospel according to Luke it was written: "Now his parents
went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was
twelve years old, they went up according to the custom; and when the feast
was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in
Jerusalem" (2:41). It was also at Passover that Jesus and his disciples
"went up" to Jerusalem for the last time, shortly before his condemnation
and crucifixion. It is possible, indeed likely, that Jesus journeyed to
Jerusalem at the times of other pilgrim festivals.
Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem is not based, however, on the
example of Jesus as a pilgrim. His pilgrimage was not paradigmatic for
Christians as, for example, were his baptism and his eating of the Passover
meal with his disciples. Rather, Christian pilgrimage is based mainly on
crucial events which occurred in Jerusalem during the time of his final
visitation.
The earliest Christian pilgrimages about which we know definitely were
made in the fourth century from the West. There were likely earlier,
shorter pilgrimages, perhaps, for example, from the Galilee, Caesarea, and
Pella across the Jordan to which Christians had fled at the time of the
destruction of the Temple. Clearly, the fourth century A.D. was the time
of the transformation of Jerusalem into an attractive and frequented center
of Christian pilgrimage. The Jerusalem of the Emperor Constantine and his
mother Helena was magnificent, largely due to their patronage and
initiatives. Most imposing were the domed Anastasis("resurrection")over
the tomb of Jesus and the Martyrium, a basilica immediately to the east of
the Anastasis
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a Christian. He arrived in Jerusalem in A.D. 333, two years before the
completion and consecration of Constantine's basilica. By A.D. 381, the
likely time of the pilgrimage of the redoubtable Spanish nun Egeria,
pilgrimage to Jerusalem had developed considerably. Of particular value is
her description of the liturgy which had come into existence in connection
with sacred places, times, and objects (e.g., the True Cross) in Jerusalem.
The Bordeaux pilgrim and Egeria blazed the trail, as it were, for
others to follow. By land and sea venturesome Christians, religious and
lay, made their long, arduous journeys. They were a select group, however,
and their number did not approach that of the MiddleAges,the great era of
Christian pilgrimage, whether to Jerusalem or other places of pious
visitations. Christian pilgrimage had not yet acquired the multiple
motivations and uses of medieval pilgrimages.
Perhaps the last narrative of a Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem
before the Muslim conquest of the city was that of an Italian pilgrim,
Antoninus Martyr, late in the sixth century. By the time of his visit a
great clutter had accumulated at the tomb. The Muslim occupation neither
ended nor prevented the further development of Christian pilgrimage
although it changed its conditions. Christians were now guests in a sense
in which they had not been in Byzantine Jerusalem and had to accomodate
themselves accordingly. Because of the fundamental importance of
pilgrimage in Islam Muslims had some understanding and appreciation of the
desire of Christians to visit Jerusalem.
As the period of the Crusades approached pilgrims experienced some
difficulties, especially with local Muslim authorities en route. Bernard
the Wise, a Breton monk, journeyed to Jerusalem about a century before the
Crusades. He reported harassments and solicitations of bribes on the way
but little difficulty once he reached Jerusalem. In fact, Western pilgrims
were somewhat privileged as the result of an agreement between Charlemagne
and the renowned khalif Harun ar-Rashid (786-809) to permit the endowment
of hostels and other facilities for Western Christians. (This agreement
marked the beginning of official Latin Christian presence in Jerusalem and
was greeted by the Jerusalem patriarch with consternation.)
Toward the end of the eleventh century, however, horror stories about
the experiences of Christian pilgrims began to be promulgated in the West.
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succeeding Crusades were complex in causes and motivations they can
resonably be seen asmass,armed pilgrimages to Jerusalem.
The Crusaders were offered plenary indulgences. This offer greatly
encouraged an incipient trend which had appeared as early as the eighth
century in the Jerusalem pilgrimage. The systems of penances and
indulgences was to become characteristic of Western medieval Christendom.
Journeys to holy places, Jerusalem importantly included, became means of
penances and opportunities for indulgences.
The Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 A.D., massacring its Muslim
and Jewish population. They changed the face of Jerusalem, for they were
builders as well as warriors. They rebuilt the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, bringing the tomb and Calvary under one roof. The church as it
exists today is essentially the Crusaders' church. Other Jerusalem
churches, notably the Church of St. Anne near the Temple Mount, were built
or rebuilt. Moreover, monasteries and hospices offering services for
pilgrims were constructed. Of passing importance was the Crusaders'
appropriation of the principal Muslim buildings, the Dome of the Rock and
the al-Aqsa Mosque. The former was converted into a church under the name
Templum Domini (Temple of the Lord) and the latter headquartered the newly
established Order of the Knights Templar.
The Crusades heightened Western Christians' consciousness of
Jerusalem. Minds and hearts were centered on Jerusalem.
Negatively, the Crusades greatly increased the enmity of Muslims.
Jerusalem was recaptured by Salah ad-Din in 1187 and the Latin Kingdom of
Jerusalem came to an ignominous end. As the Westerners withdrew it was
mainly Eastern Christians who were left to bear the brunt of the
displeasure of Muslims. Subsequently, Western pilgrims, associated in the
minds of Muslims with the Crusaders, could expect to be met with suspicion
and disdain.
In general, the Middle Ages was the great period of Christian
pilgrimage. While some redoubtable souls made their way to Jerusalem, more
by far were pilgrims bound for Santiago de Compostela, Rome, Canterbury,
and other Western, more accessible places. Pilgrimage became a major form
of Christian existence, a recognized and approved species of Christian
religious behavior. Jerusalem pilgrimage found itself in competition with
other pilgrimages Its great advantage was that it more than any other
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manasticism and, to some extent, asceticism, fell into disrepute. All
continued but were increasingly criticized. There was a sense in which
pilgrimage had run its course and could the more readily be criticized,
especially as abuses had become patent. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem was
perhaps less affected by the criticisms than pilgrimages to other places
because of its continuing identification with biblical events,
Pilgrimage to Jerusalem has increased during the past century. In part
this is due to improved means of transportation and the growth of tourism.
It has become difficult in many cases to distinguish between pilgrim and
tourist. The distinction, in any case, is seldom absolute, for, as Victor
Turner has observed, the pilgrim is half a tourist and the tourist is half
a pilgrim.(5)
MUSLIM PILGRIMAGE
Islam is unique among the monotheistic religions in making pilgrimage
a fundamental religious duty. It is more than an option, one of the ways
of being religious. The goal of Muslim pilgrimage is Mecca and certain
places in its vicinity. "It is the duty of all men towards God to come to
the House a pilgrim . . ."(6) So states the Qur'an explicitly. The
obligation was reinforced by the personal and paradigmatic example of
Muhammad's own pilgrimage (the "farewell pilgrimage") several months before
his death in A.D. 632. At the conclusion of this pilgrimage he is said to
have addressed the pilgrims in the words of Sura 5.5: "Today I have
perfected your religion for you ..."
But what of Mis lim pilgrimage to Jerusalem? Mecca, not Jerusalem, is
the goal of the pilgrim'shajj. Indeed, the term hajj has traditionally
been reserved for the Mecca journey. But Muslims have, in fact, journeyed
to other sacred places, including Madina and Jerusalem as well as tombs of
saints. The term ziyarah("visit,visitation") has typically been applied
to these "pilgrimages" in order to maintain the distinction. However, the
distinction is largely terminological, for phenomenologically these ziyarah
are pilgrimages.
Briefly, the religious significance and value of Jerusalem for Muslims
derives from the historical fact that it was the first qiblah of prayer for
M li Qibl h i th i t di ti t hi h M li t i
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the second yearof theProphet's hijrah("migration")from MeccatoMadina.
The religious significanceofJerusalemwasgreatly enhancedby the early
appearance and developmentof areligious narrativeormyth according to
which Muhammadwasmiraculously carriedbynight from Mecca to Jerusalem
where he ledother, former prophetsinprayerandthere ascended intothe
near presenceofAllah.
Ifonesees Muhammad himselfas insome sensethefirst Muslim pilgrim
to Jerusalem(his"nightflight"), thenthesecondwas'Umar, the second
Khalif, whoenteredthecityinA.D.638 toreceiveitssurrender fromthe
Christian patriarch Sophronius. He issaidtohave entered Jerusalem
reverentlyonfootand tohave searchedout theholy places, especiallythe
Temple Mount.
The Muslim "Constantine"ofJerusalemwas theninth khalif, 'Abd al-
Malik (685-705), whoundertooktheconstructionof theDomeof the Rock.
Under thedomeofthis magnificent octagonal building liesthegreat rock
associated variously with Abraham's intended sacrificeof his son on Mt.
Moriah, thestationof the Ark of theCovenant,and thealtarof theHouse
(Temple)ofJerusalem.
Why did 'Abdal-Malik buildtheDomeof theRock? Itsdomed shape
already suggestsonereason. HeintendedaMislim building surpassing in
beauty andmagnificencethenearby domed Churchof theResurrection (Holy
Sepulchre). Inthis ambitionhesucceeded.
Ya'qubi, one of theearly Muslim historians (ninth century A.D.),
wrote that'Abdal-Malik builttheDomeof theRock withtheintention of
drawing Muslim pilgrims away: from MeccatoJerusalemasMeccawasthen in
the handsof arival khalif,IbnJubayr,whosoughttoextendhispolitical
and religious swaybycompelling pilgrimstoswear allegianceto him.(7)
'Abd al-Malik urged pilgrimstocircumambulatetheRockinJerusalem rather
than the Black Stone(in theka'ba)inMecca. Hefailedto divert the
pilgrimage from Meccabut thebuildingof theDomeof theRock and, early
in the following century, the replacementby al-Walid (his son and
successor) of the simple mosque of'Umarby the great al-Aqsa made
Jerusalem increasingly attractivetoMuslim visitors.
At the same time there was evidently some resistance to the
recognition of Jerusalemas aplaceofpilgrimage. Conflicting hadiths
(Traditions) indicate that during the second century A H (eight century
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for three mosques: the Sacred Mosque (inMecca),my mosque (in Medina) and
al-Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem)."(8) Negatively, this Tradition placed a
limit on places of pilgrimages; positively, it validated pilgrimage to
Jerusalem (andMedina).
The capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in A.D. 1099 interrupted the
continuity of Muslim pilgrimage. The Crusaders arrogated the city. Not
only were the principal Muslim holy places seized, modified, and converted
to the Crusaders' uses but Muslims as well as Jews were excluded from
Jerusalem. The Crusaders' seizure of Jerusalem increased its significance
for Muslims. As with Jews during the Babylonian Exile so with Muslims
Jerusalem became dearer still.
The recovery of Jerusalem by Salah ad-Din in 1187 brought rejoicing in
the Islamic World, for the event was seen as having religious as well as
military and political meaning. Salah ad-Din's entry into Jerusalem was in
conscious emulation of 'Umar's five and a half centuries earlier. The
Muslim holy places were cleansed and restored and pilgrimage resumed.
While Jews were allowed to return and the Christians were permitted to
maintain a presence through the intervention of the Byzantine emperor on
behalf of the Orthodox community in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
Jerusalem became once more a largely Muslim city and remained so for over
seven hundred years until its capitulation to the British army in 1917.
General Allenby entered Jerusalem on foot through the Jaffa Gate on
December 11, 1917. He addressed a proclamation "to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem the Blessed" in English, French, Italian, Arabic, and Hebrew.
His proclamation concluded:
. . . since your city is regarded with affection by the adherents
of three of the great religions of mankind, and its soil has been
consecrated by the prayers and pilgrimages of multitudes of
devout people of these three religions for many centuries,
therefore do I make known to you that every sacred building,
monument, holy spot, traditional shrine, endowment, pious
bequest, or customary place of prayer, of whatsoever form of the
three religions, will be maintained and protected according to
the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they
are sacred.(9)
The policy of maintaining the status quo as regards holy places
ennunciated by General Allenby was largely followed by the British throughthe period of the Mandate until its termination in May, 1948. On its face
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however, saw it as marking the boundary of the Haram (sacred territory) and
moreover as connected with Muhammad's night journey and ascension. It was
specifically identified as the wall of al-Buraq, Muhammad's celestial
mount,in which are located the tethering ring of the marvelous animal, the
Door of the Prophet through which he entered the Haram, and Misi im
religious propertry(waqf).
It is not our purpose to recount the history of the Arab-Jewish
conflict during the Mandate period although it included conflict over holy
places and prerogatives. Throughout the period Muslims, Jews, and
Christians continued to visit Jerusalem as pilgrims. The more significant
development, portent of the future, was the large increase in Jewish
immigration as the result of the pogroms in Eastern Europe and, with the
approach of the Second World War, the extraordinary persecution of Jews in
Germany and Austria. Following the war survivors of the Nazi holocaust
and other Jews sought to reach the Holy Land as a place of refuge and new
beginning. The Arabs resisted the large increase in immigration and the
British sought to regulate it. With the encouragement of Zionist ideology
and practical assistance from world Jewry Jews made their way to Palestine,
not as pilgrims but as those who would settle in and possess the land.
With the withdrawal of the British in May, 1948; the immediate
proclamation of the State of Israel; and the consequent Arab-Israeli War
resulting in the division of Jerusalem with the Jordanians holding the Old
City, Jewish pilgrimage was halted. The Western Wall became inaccessible.
Jews and Arabs faced one another across the barbed wire of a divided
Jerusalem with most of the holy places, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian, in
the Jordanian sector. This situation obtained until the Six Day War of
June,1967, when Arab Jerusalem was seized by the Israeli army. Since that
time a process of Judaization of Jerusalem has proceeded apace which
threatens its future as an inter-religious city.(10)
PILGRIMAGE AS JOURNEY
Pilgrimage involves a journey to a place considered sacred in hope and
expectation of receiving benefis, spiritual and/or material (or in recog
nition of such benefits alreadyreceived). It requires one to leave home
and to separate oneself from one's accustomed world The benefits may be
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Pilgrimage is thus a rite of passage. As passage it has been perceptively
analyzed by the anthropologist Victor Turner who has explored the
experiences of liminality and communitas which he finds characteristic of
pilgrimage.(11)
The pilgrimage journey is usually an actual, physical journey. Rarely
is it entirely "spiritual," a journey made "in the spirit." Typically it
is both in that physical movement is accompanied byideally integrated
withspiritual experience. This commonplace observation does not exhaust
the multi-dimensionality of the pilgrimage journey. Thus one may find that
as the pilgrim moves forward in space he moves backward in time and that as
he moves outward toward some distant goal he moves inward in quest of the
center of his own being. One of the reasons for the persistence of pilgri
mage is its potential for realizing such multi-dimensionality. While the
three monotheistic religions share this multi-dimensionality in their Jeru
salem journeys each of the pilgrimages has its own distinctive emphases.
CHARACTERISTIC SYMBOLIC GOALS OF THE PILGRIMAGE JOURNEY
At the risk of oversimplification we suggest that the three pilgri
mages can be significantly and appropriately distinguished in terms of the
symbolic goal of the journey.
The religious symbolism which most illuminates Jewish pilgrimage is
the symbolism of the center. For Jews Jerusalem is the center both of
their world and of the world. Pilgrimage is thus a journey to the center.
Jonathan Z. Smith in his essay "Earth andGods"cited a well-known
rabbinic text which gives direct expression to the centrality of Jerusalem:
Just as the navel is found at the center of a human being, so the
land of Israel is found at the center of the world . . . and it
is the foundation of the world. Jerusalem is at the center of
the land of Israel, the Temple is at the center of Jerusalem, the
Holy of Holies is at the center of the Temple, the Ark is at the
Center of the Holy of Holies and the Foundation Stone is in front
of the Ark, which spot is the foundation of the world.(12)
Virtually all of the characteristics of the center which historians of
religions and others who have studied this important religious symbolism
have found are illustrated by Jerusalem. Thus, for example, it is the
"navel"of the earth, the place where creation began. Illustrative of what
may be called sacred geography it has the form of a mountain ("Mt Zion")
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intersects the netherworld (Tehom) and the upper, celestial world. Wrote
Jonathan Smith: "For the Jew to journey up to Jerusalem is to ascend to
the very crucible of creation, the womb of everything, the center and foun
tain of reality, the place of blessing par excellence. It is, in Eliade's
terms,to journey to the place which is pre-eminently real . . ."(13) This
superabundance of reality expresses itself specifically in a number of
ways, for example, in terms of holiness, purity, wisdom, fertility, and
fecundity.
Historically, Jerusalem has been the central city for the Jewish com
munity. King David seems deliberately to have chosen it as his city ("the
City of David") because it was centrally located between the northern and
southern tribes. Here was brought to rest the mobile Ark of the Covenant,
first in a tent (reminder of its earlier mobility), and then, under
Solomon, installed permanently, as it was hoped, in the first Temple. With
the division of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms the political and reli
gious centrality of Jerusalem was contested by the appearance of rival
centers in the North but Jerusalam eventually prevailed. During the period
of the Babylonian Exile Jerusalem became a powerful symbol as a broken
center on which memories and hopes for return and restoration were focussed
("If I forget you, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand wither" Ps. 137:5.) For
Jews of the Diaspora both before and afater the destruction of the Temple
in A.D. 70 Jerusalem was and remained the central point of orientation.
Wherever in the wide world the Passover (a pilgrim festival, as one
recalls) was celebrated it concluded with the expressed hope: "Next year
in Jerusalem."
One does not have to search far to find Christian and Muslim
references to Jerusalem as the center of the world. This is in part
because Christians and Muslims have appropriated this among other Jewish
images. More significantly, Muslims appropriated virtually the entire
symbolism of the center as it had developed in relation to Jerusalem and
applied it to Mecca. (Thus Mecca was said to be the navel of the earth,
its highest point, situated between the lox er and upper worlds, source of
fertility, et cetera.) While Muslims may speak of Jerusalem as the center
of the world (as historians of religions have learned, there can be,
paradoxically, many "centers of theworld"), Mecca is the pre-eminent
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Jewish image of Jerusalem. However, while the Jews identified the center
with the Temple (center of the central city) Christians identified it with
the place of crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus died and rose from the
dead at the center of the world. Calvary, the"hill"of his crucifixion,
was perhaps paralleled with the Rock on which the sacrificial altar stood
and on x hich Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son. The Tomb paralleled
the Holy of Holies of the Temple (the "empty" place of darkness). Even
today one is shown "the center of the world" in the Catholicon (Eastern
Orthodox custody) situated between the Tomb and Calvary in the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre.
Nevertheless, it is not the symbolism of the center which essentially
expresses the Christian valuation of Jerusalem. Christian pilgrimage is
best understood in terms of a journey to the origin. Jerusalem is the
source-place of the Christian faith.
The origin is conceived primarily in terms of events, that is, of
crucial, climactic events which "took place" (the expression is instruc
tive) in Jerusalem. While most of Jesus' life and activity took placeout
side Jerusalem the dramatic events of his final week, including his
passion, crucifixion, and resurrection, occurred in Jerusalem. "No other
sentiment draws men to Jerusalem," wrote St. Paulinus of Nola late in the
fourth century,
than the desire to see and touch the places where Christ was
physically present, and to be able to say from our very own
experience 'we have gone into his tabernacle and adored in
the very places where his feet have stood' (Ps. CXXXII.7)
. Theirs is a truly spiritual desire to see the places
where Christ suffered, rose from the dead, and ascended into
heaven . . . The manger of His birth, the river of hisbaptism, the garden of His betrayal, the palace of His
condemnation, the column of His scourging, the thorns of His
crowning, the wood of His crucifixion, the stone of His
burial; all these things recall God's former presence on
earth and demonstrate the ancient basis of our modern
beliefs.(14)
Events occur in time and space; they "take place" in time. A
consequence is that in journeying to the origin the Christian pilgrim
journeys, imaginatively at least, to a time as well as to a place. The
time is the time of the events, first century A.D., the Jerusalem of the
time of Jesus. This helps us to understand the characteristic effort of
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other sources. It is one of the reasons that many Christian visitors, and
not Protestants only, are disappointed by, say, the tomb of Jesus in the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It does not look like a tomb and it is dif
ficult to imagine that it really is. It also helps to explain the attrac
tion of the so-called Garden Tomb("Gordon'sCalvary") although it is
unauthentic. It is a tomb (probably second century) and looks like it.
John Wilkinson has observed in discussing the authenticity of various
Christian holy places in Palestine that they should be understood as
memorials.(15) That is, whether or not a particular site is authentic it
has served to recall an event or person. As the center of gravity of the
Christian religion shifted westward and the original Christian events
became accessible only in narrative form there seems to have been a desire
to confirm, as it were, the Christian events by visiting the places where
they had occurred. It was not that pilgrims doubted but that their
visitations gave them a sense of historical as well as transcendent
reality. So it may have been with Origen, sometimes mentioned as a pilgrim
although of uncertain status, who ostensibly visited the Holy Land in the
third century for biblical information more than for reasons of piety.
Also, visiting the holy places was believed to increase understanding.
Wrote St. Jerome late in the fourth century: "One may only truly understand
the Holy Scriptures after looking upon Judea with one's own eyes."(16) He
lived the last thirty-five years of his life in Bethlehem engaged in
biblical translation. He also wrote a description of the pilgrimage of his
protegee Paula, a Roman matron, describing her initial visits to the holy
places in terms of what Jonathan Sumption has called "a constant effort of
imagination."(17) Wrote Jerome: "She fell down and worshipped before the
Cross as if she could see the Lord hanging on it."(18) Hers was perhaps a
more intense experience of the general kind which has been characteristic
of Christian pilgrims.
Islamic pilgrimage to Jerusalem is best understood as a journey to the
end. For Muslims Jerusalem is the place of culmination.
Although the Mecca pilgrimage, like Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem, is
fundamentally a journey to the center of the world, it evidences some
eschatological significance. In particular, the "standing" (wuquf) on the
plain of 'Arafat before the Mount of Mercy is appropriately to be seen as a
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PilgrimagetoJerusalem 29
If 'Arafat (near Mecca)is theplaceof"rehearsal," Jerusalemis the
locus of the actual event. AccordingtoMuslim mythology it is at
Jerusalem that thegeneral resurrectionof thedead will begin and the
final judgment occur. It issaid, forexample, that whentheyaum ad-din
("day of reckoning") arrives MeccaandMadina will cometoJerusalem (as
willall theworld). \
In ordertounderstandthesignificanceofJerusalemforMuslimsit is
necessary to understand howMuslims relate Islam to Jewish religious
history. Inbrief, Muslims claimtheJewish religious historyis ahighly
significant part of the pre-history of Muhammadan Islam. One says
"Muhammadan Islam," forIslaminessenceisbelievedto be asancient as
Adam. Muhammadan IslamisIslam restoredin theseventh century A.D. by
Muhammad.
In and through thereligious historyof theJews Allah sought to
restore Islam(in thefundamental senseofsubmissionto thewillofAllah)
but without success although true prophets proclaimedit. Muhammad saw
himselfas in thelineofthese prophetsandindeed sought acknowledgement
as such fromtheMadinan Jews shortly afterthehijrah A.D.622. Hisclaim
was not acknowledgedand so arupture withtheMadinan Jews ensued, but
Muhammad never ceasedtoregard himselfas amessenger (rasul)of the One
God whomtheJewish prophetshadproclaimed.
The myth of Muhammad's night flight and ascension is entirely
congruent with this understandingofJewish religious history. Itinvolves
a spiritual(and, saysome Muslims, actual) flight fromtheKa'bainMecca
to "the farther mosque" in Jerusalem. The latter is the Temple,
commemoratedbyMuslimsby theal-Aqsa("farther")Mosque nearthesite of
the Jewish Temple. (Al-Aqsa refersnotonlyto thebuilding knownas the
al-Aqsa Mosquebut to theentire haram ash-sharif, includingtheDome of
the Rock.) Themyth thus linkedthe twotemples, MeccanandJerusalemite.
Moreover, it washere that MuhammadwasgreetedbyJewish prophetsof the
pastand ledtheminprayer, thus affirminghismembershipinthis exalted
company. Thewhole mythhas aninitiatory structureandcontent, for not
only was Muhammad greetedandacknowledgedbyearlier prophets but he
subsequently ascended from theRock throughtheseven heavens into the
"near presence"ofAllah. In thecourseof hisinitiatory journeyhe saw
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30 Encounter
While Jews and Judaism have consistently denied Muhammad's religious
claim to continuity with Jewish religious history Muslims have persistently
affirmed it and consequently laid religious claim to Jerusalem. That they
should have come into possession of Jerusalem in the seventh century and
held it into the twentieth, except for the brief period of the Latin
Kingdom, has seemed to Muslims not only appropriate but evidence of a
continuing, progressive religious history and ultimately of divine guidance
and favor.
To summarize, although each of the three pilgrimages to Jerusalem
shares some of the characteristics of the others, Jewish pilgrimage is most
characteristically a journey to the center, Christian pilgrimage a journey
to the origin, and Islamic pilgrimage, to the end.
PROBLEMS OF PILGRIMAGE
Each of these emphases has generated particular problems in relation
to the later history of pilgrimage in the several religions. In the case
of Judaism in the modern period there has been a tendency, much influenced
by Zionism, to make it problematic for Jews to continue in diaspora.
Should not a Jew do more than orient himself toward Jerusalem and perhaps
visit it? Should one not rather return to the center and live there?
Aliyah ("going up, ascent") is a term used since ancient times for
pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In modern times it has come to be used for
immigration to the land of Israel. Thus Jewish historians refer to the
modern successive waves of immigration as the first, second, third,
et cetera aliyahs. The possibility of fulfilling one's religious duties
and living an authentically Jewish religious life in diaspora has been
called into question by the creation of the state of Israel and its
ideological development as Eretz Israel. The Museum of the Diaspora at the
University of Tel Aviv, for example, communicates this message to its
visitors.
"The most archaic way Israel has of talking about her land," wrote
Jonathan Z. Smith, "may be described under a rubric borrowed from the war
in Vietnam: Israel is an 'enclave' or a 'strategic hamlet.'"(18) He
continued: "For the ancient Israelites, the wilderness or desert was not
t l d b t th d l d d i th '
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Pilgrimage to Jerusalem 31
cosmicized. One did that by fighting and dying for it and by living in it.
Even so, the possession and prosperity of the land were always fragile and
contingent. Moreover, the land was always surrounded by strange, hostile
powers to be kept at bay. The "enclave" was a place of asylum to be
defended against the enemy.
This conception of sacred space differs, though it is not unrelated,
from its conception primarily as the center. Center implies orientation
while enclave implies habitation. Pilgrimage thrives on the former and is
inhibited by the latter, for pilgrimage involves leaving one's accustomed
place of habitation to journey to a sacred place and to return, having been
significantly transformed during the course of the journey. In brief,
pilgrimage is a rite of passage.
Christians have always had a problem with pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Their attitude has been ambivalent. As suggested above, Christians have
seen the pilgrimage as a journey to the place (and perhaps the time) of the
crucial events central to the Christian faith. Thus Jerusalem is the most
significant place in the world and journey to it appropriate and
important. The ambivalence, however, was created by the de-
territorialization tendency of the New Testament. This tendency dissolves
spatially localized notions of sacredness. W.D. Davies has perceptively
analyzed the New Testament's "spiritualization" of the realia of Judaism,
Jerusalem included.(20)
An Englishman, Philip, from the Diocese of Lincoln departed on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem early in the twelfth century. He planned to visit
Clairvaux en route. Shortly his bishop received a letter from Bernard,
abbot of Clairvaux, informing him that Philip had arrived at his
destination. Wrote Bernard: "He has entered the Holy City and has chosen
his heritage . . . He is no longer an inquisitive onlooker but a devout
inhabitant and an enrolled citizen of Jerusalem."(21) But then Bernard
revealed that this Jerusalem is Clairvaux. "She is the Jerusalem," he
wrote,"united to the one in heaven by wholehearted devotion, by conformity
of life, and by a certain spiritual affinity."(22) It was this same
Bernard who preached the Second Crusade and helped establish the Knights
Templars, thus exhibiting in himself the aforementioned attitude of
ambivalence toward Jerusalem.
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32 Encounter
terrestrial Jerusalem which may be Jerusalem or Clairvaux or, for that
matter, in "England's green and pleasant land"in other words, in any
place "united to the one in heaven."
On the one hand, Christians have cherished the Jerusalem of Palestine
as "the holy city" and have come at all times "to visit the sites
associated with the mystery of salvation and to permeate their souls with
the blessing of his mystery at the very place of its earthly and historical
manifestation."(23) On the other hand, they have understood not only how
unspiritual pilgrimage may be but that the Christian center is not Golgotha
and the Tomb but Christ himself resurrected and ascended and that his
earthly "body" is the new community wherever it exists.
Some of the major Christian churchesthe Latin and, especially, the
Orthodoxhave assumed that physical pilgrimage can be a spiritual
experience and that there is no necessary incompatibility between the
heavenly and the terrestrial Jerusalem. The ambivalence is not thereby
dissolved but pilgrimage is recognized as an approved species of Christian
religious behavior, a "good work" which does not assure salvation but is an
occasion of grace. Some Protestant groups, on the other hand, have
heightened the ambivalence to the point that pilgrimage is suspect, or
destroy the ambivalence by rejecting pilgrimage outright. There is a
strong tradition of suspicion and criticism of pilgrimage. One recalls,
for example, Erasmus1In Praise of Folly, the Reformers' castigations, and
John Milton's description of the paradise of fools:
"Here Pilgrims roam, that stray'd so far to seek
In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heav'n."(24)
In spite of such criticisms and jeers many Christians, even radically
Protestantones,have continued to feel the"pull"of Jerusalem.
Muslims also have a problem with the Jerusalem pilgrimage. It is that
for the present at least the pilgrimage has been "lost," for Jerusalem has
been lost. One has to see this loss in the wider context of Muslim hopes
and expectations as these are related to their theory of history. As W.C.
Smith has written, there is a tension "between their sense on the one hand
of what Islamic history is essentially, and their awareness on the other
hand of what their actual history is today observably."(25) Islamic
history is essentially the actualization on earth of a divinely willed and
guided community and order (social political economic "religious")
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Pilgrimage to Jerusalem 33
The tension between theory and actuality is not new. It arose toward the
end of the brilliant, successful period of the first several centuries of
Islam and has been renewed each time Muslims have become keenly aware of
the incongruity between expectations and realizations. Throughout most of
their history Muslims (Islam) have succeeded often enough to validate the
theory. But, to quote Smith again, "The fundamental malaise of modern
Islam is a sense that something has gone wrong with Islamic history."(27)
One sees at the present time various attempts to rehabilitate that history,
including most dramatically the Iranian Shi'ite revolution.
One of the ways in which the Muslim theory of history found
vindication was in territorial expansion. Muslims early divided the world
into the dar al-islam (the house or abode of Islam) and the dar al harb
(the house or abode ofwar). The former was the territories where the
shari'a (sacred law) obtained and the latter those where it did not yet
obtain. It was not a matter of attachment to land as such but of
sovereignty and order.
Jerusalem became part of the dar al-islam in A.D. 638 only six years
after the Prophet's death, and remained so for almost twelve centuries. Its
surrender to a Western power (Great Britain) in 1917 began a process which
led to its loss in 1967 to a religious community which Muslims thought
Islam to have superseded in religious history. History has gone wrong.
Current events as regards Jerusalem are seriously retrogressive.
Comparatively few Muslim pilgrims have journeyed to Jerusalem since
1967. Extra-Palestinian Muslims hesitate to visit Jerusalem under de facto
(if not de jure) sovereignty of the Israelis. To do so would be to
acknowledge the actual situation; to refrain is to protest if only
passively. Most of the Arab governments discourage would-be pilgrims for
the same reason. Also, it is difficult for Arab Muslims who would require
visas from the Israeli authorities actually to obtain them.
In the present situation Muslims find some hope in resorting to the
Crusades as a model. They remember that the Crusaders were forced to
abandon Jerusalem after eighty-eight years. It is their hope and
expectation that the latest Westerners (for so they regard the Zionists)
will not ultimately succeed in arrogating Jerusalem and that Muslim
pilgrimage will again be resumed and continue until the Last Day when all
l h ll b th d th f di i j d t
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34 Encounter
NOTES
1. Each of the three religions claims and has special regard for
Abraham. For Jews he is "father Abraham," for Christians the exemplar of
faith (cf. Heb. 11), and for Muslims he "was not a Jew, neither a
Christian; but he was a Muslim and one pure of faith" (Sura 3.60; Arberry's
translation),and archetypal prophet.
2. Urushalimma means "foundation of Shalem" or "Shalem has founded,"
not "city of peace" as is sometimes said. Shalem was a Canaanite deity.
Urushalimma was evidently established as a religious foundation in his
honor. (See William F. Stinespring, "Jerusalem: The First Thousand Years
in the Perspective of Canaanite Religion," in
Jerusalem: Key to Peace in the Middle East, ed. by 0. . Ingram [Durham,
N.C.: Triangle Friends of the Middle East, 1978],p. 4.)
3. Biblical quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version.
4. The Roman emperor Hadrian attempted to destroy Jerusalem totally
and gave the city a new name.
5. Victor and Edith Turner, Image and Perspective in ChristianCul-
ture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978),p. 20.
6. Quotations from the Qurfan are taken from the English translation
by A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1955).
7. AlYa 'qubi, Historiae, ed. T. Houtsma (Leyden, 1883),Vol. 2, p.
311.
8. On this hadith see M.J. Kister, "You Shall Only Set Out for Three
Mosques," Le Museon, Vol. 82(1969),pp. 173ff.
9. Quoted in John Gray, A History of Jerusalem (New York: Praeger,
1969),p. 289.
10. On the Judaization of Jerusalem see The Transformation of Pale-
stine, ed. by Ibrahi AbuLughod (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University
Press, 1971).
11. Turner, Op. Cit., Chapter I.
12. Midrash Tanhuma, Kedoshim 10, quoted in Jonathan Z. Smith, "Earth
and Gods," The Journal of Religion, Vol. 49 (1969) p. 111.
13. Smith, Op. Cit., p. 112.
14. Quoted in Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval
Religion (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and LIttlefield, 1975),pp. 89f.
15.John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades (Warminster,
En l nd A i nd Philli 1977) 38
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PilgrimagetoJerusalem 35
18. Smith, op.cit., p. 108.
19. Ibid.
20. W.. Davies, The Gospel and the Land (Berkeley, Calif.: Univer-
sity Of California Press, 1974),Part II, "The Land in the New Testament."
21. Quoted in R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, "Jerusalem: Holy City of Three
Religions" (Israel Universities Study Group for Middle Eastern Affairs,
1977),p. 6.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., p. 7.
24. Paradise Lost, III, 476. The Works of John Milton (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1931),Vol. II, p. 94.
25. W.C. Smith, Islam in Modern History (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1957),p. 27.
26. Ibid., p. 26.
27. Ibid., p. 41.
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