Pilgrimage to Jerusalem Jewish Christian Muslim

7/24/2019 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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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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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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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

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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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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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