A Season in Mecca - Abdellah Hammoudi; Translated from the French by Pascale Ghazaleh

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A Season in Mecca

Narrative of a Pilgrimage

Abdellah Hammoudi; Translated from the French by Pascale Ghazaleh

Hill and Wang, January 2006
ISBN: 978-0-8090-7609-3, ISBN10: 0-8090-7609-8,
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 304 pages, 2 Maps,
Hardcover, $26.00

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Categories and Subcategories

See All Categories Middle Eastern Studies Middle Eastern Studies - All Titles Political Science Africa & Middle East Religion Religion - All Titles

Winner of the Lettre Ulysses Award

In 1999, the Moroccan scholar Abdellah Hammoudi, trained in Paris and teaching in America, decided to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca. He wanted to observe the Hajj as an anthropologist but also to experience it as an ordinary pilgrim, and to write about it for both Muslims and non-Muslims. Here is his intimate, intense, and detailed account of the Hajj—a rare and important document by a subtle, learned, and sympathetic writer.

Hammoudi describes not just the adventure, the human pressures, and the social tumult—everything from the early preparations to the last climactic scenes in the holy shrines of Medina and Mecca—but also the intricate politics and amazing complexity of the entire pilgrimage experience. He pays special heed to the effects of Saudi bureaucratic control over the Hajj, to the ways that faith itself becomes a lucrative source of commerce for the Arabian kingdom, and to the Wahhabi inflections of the basic Muslim message.

Here, too, is a poignant discussion of the inner voyage that pilgrimage can mean to those who embark on it: the transformed sense of daily life, of worship, and of political engagement.

Praise

"[A] moving and sometimes painful book . . . Mr. Hammoudi infuses this social and personal drama with meditations on ritual, travel, family, state power and the ceaseless desire for global communion, aspects of religious life that have guided the footsteps of pilgrims of all faiths since ancient Egypt. His is a book of surpassing intelligence, humor, sadness and grace."—Richard B. Woodward, The New York Times

"These observations offer readers an intimate, insider's account of the minutiae of a hajj, particularly intriguing for those of us who will never be able to come any closer. Equally engaging are the moments when the anthropologist disappears and Hammoudi surrenders to feelings he can't explain, such as the surge of ineffable joy he feels at the Prophet Mohammed's tomb and the tears that fill his eyes at the first sight of the Kaaba, or Great Mosque. Eventually, however, the academic in Hammoudi regains the upper hand and the book returns to the kind of intellectual writing the trip was intended to inspire."—Marjorie Kehe, The Christian Science Monitor

"[Hammoudi's] account is marked by a keen eye for detail. He is attentive to every aspect of the experience, beginning with his plunge into the corrupt and arcane world of Moroccan bureaucracy. He gives lively reports of shopping sprees in Medina, the onmipresent Wahabi propaganda and Saudi security forces, fear and weariness on being herded from place to place, and moments of relief and joy finding help among strangers. Those hungry to see the hajj from within will relish this aspect of his account . . . [H]is narrative sheds much light on the day-to-day events and challenges of a Muslim pilgrim to Mecca."—Robert Hunt, The Dallas Morning News

"This hajj seen from the inside is a jewel of wit and emotion, a reflection on Islam, and a mine of information."—Catherine Brégant, Le Monde des Religions

“Hammoudi is a Princeton anthropologist whose previous work examined deeply rooted structures of authoritarian rule in Moroccan daily life through a highly accessible, if undeniably Foucauldian, lens. Here, he retains his focus on the profound minutiae of power structures as he examines the hajj, the highly ritualized journey to Mecca required of all Muslims. At least initially, Hammoudi approaches the Fifth Pillar as an academic outsider, fascinated by the rituals of pilgrims and the bureaucracies built around piety but privately conscious of his inability to dedicate himself to only one truth. Yet, without abandoning his academic wisdom—the source of much insightful analysis, particularly about the obstructive and instructive role played by national identity in a ritual celebrating religious unity—Hammoudi cannot stop the circumambulations at Mecca from awakening in him an understanding that does not easily translate into anthropological categories. It's not exactly a conversion story, but it is a tale of transformation. Hammoudi's deeply personal plunge into the subtleties of the sacred and the profane will interest many readers and perhaps inspire some as well.”—Brendan Driscoll, Booklist

"Hammoudi, a Paris-educated professor of anthropology at Princeton University, brings his worldly experiences to the most personal of journeys: the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca (called the hajj in Arabic). Originally written in French, this English edition is being published to coincide with the 2006 hajj. Hammoudi is eager to explore the academic angles of the hajj, all the while doubting the strength of his own faith. He is constantly tested. First, he must bribe a mid-level government official in his native Morocco several times simply to be added to the country's quota list of pilgrims. Upon arrival in Medina, the city of the Prophet Muhammad, Hammoudi is stunned by the omnipresent markets hawking everything from rugs to suitcases. Still struggling for a religious experience, Hammoudi is angered by the Wahhabi stewards of Mecca and Medina, who police Islam's holiest sites with irrational Wahhabi zeal. Beset with the flu, Hammoudi still circumambulates the Kaaba in Mecca, appreciating the rare absence of gender segregation. Ghazaleh's translation is reminiscent of both French eloquence and Moroccan storytelling . . . [a] mystical, almost surreal, journey."—Publishers Weekly

About the Author(s)

Abdellah Hammoudi

Abdellah Hammoudi was born in 1945. Educated at the University of Rabat and the University of Paris, he joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1991 as a professor of anthropology; in 1995-2004 he was also Director of the Transregional Institute there. He is the author of The Victim and Its Masks (1993) and Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism (1997). He and his wife, Miriam Lowi, and their two children divide their time between Princeton and his native Morocco.

Excerpt

A Season in Mecca
1DEPARTURESMY DEPARTURE FOR ISLAM'S HOLY SITES WAS NO EASY MATTER. There were the time-consuming travel preparations, and then long weeks spent going through the procedures required for the pilgrimage--complicated further by my being a resident of both the United States and Morocco.But this was the common lot of every pilgrim who in the same circumstances chose to undertake the trip to Mecca that spring of the year 1419 of the Hegira--that is, 1999.

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