Two Turkish Pilgrimages: The Islamic Hajj and the Return Home
No discussion of pilgrimage would be complete without some mention of the hajj, the obligatory
journey to Mecca that all Muslims should make at least once in their lives. As Muslims, people from
Turkey undertake this important and often onerous trip, yet it is not the only voyage that they embark
on. Many Turks living in Europe also travel back to Turkey “year after year, at vast expense, in physical
discomfort, and at risk of life” (Delaney 1990: 513). Carol Delaney argued that both journeys might be
understood as pilgrimages—sacred in one case, secular in the other—with interesting and important
cultural similarities.
Of course, “sacred” and “secular” may be the wrong ways to think about these two travels, especially
because “in Islam the distinction between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ is not a viable one” (514). In fact, since
the hajj requires much preparation and much exertion, often involving an entire village, we should not
think “that a powerful symbol like the hajj is contained within the limits defined by religion”; rather,
“such symbols overflow their boundaries and enter into the cultural mainstream” (514).
As Victor Turner put it, pilgrimage is a sort of journey to the “center out there,” and Delaney insisted
that Muslims on the hajj are “thought to be vouchsafed a glimpse of the other world (Turkish obur
dunya), which they imagine to be their original, true, and final home” (515). Yet, “Unlike notions of
pilgrimage that have influenced the Christian West, notions in which the movement is perceived
primarily as a ‘going forth,’ so that even life itself can be construed as a pilgrimage, the Muslim notion
embodies an image of return, a return to place of origin” (515).
First Delaney described the preparation and execution of the hajj. Weeks before departing, those
individuals who intended to undertake the pilgrimage offered a feast to their entire community, partly
to acquire sevap or blessing. On the day of departure, “the entire village gathered in the main square for
the blessing and to say goodbye. The pilgrims were distinctive in their pale blue traveling clothes with
the Turkish flag embroidered on the breast pocket. All of the men formed a huge circle while the imam,
who was part of it, said prayers and wished them well” (518). However, Delaney also indicated that the
“journey to Mecca is not undertaken alone. These trips are organized by local travel agents but
coordinated at the national level. Passports are of course controlled by the government, and travel
outside of Turkey has been restricted; people going on the hajj must get izin (leave or permission) from
the government” (519).
There were many structured activities to participate in once the pilgrims reached Mecca, such as
drinking from the well of Zemzem, offering a sacrifice, and touching or kissing the Black Stone of the
Qa’aba, as well as circumambulating (walking a circle around) the Qa’aba.
Upon their return, these villagers, at least the men, have changed in status. Forever after they
will be known as hajji (Turkish hao) and treated with deference and respect. Even those who
think the trip to Mecca is a waste of money that could be put to better use show public respect
to the hajjis. For a man, being a hajji represents a new stage in life, and his changed status is
evinced by a number of outward signs. He can now legitimately let his beard grow, as he was
required to do as he entered the sacred precinct of Mecca. A beard signifies a kind of sanctified
status conferred by age and wisdom, which is why the elders are irritated and confused when
they see youths with beards. (No youth in our village had a beard). Male hajjis, having been
elevated to a more spiritual status, no longer permit women to shake or even kiss their hands,
as is customary. This symbolically emphasizes their belief that women are more immersed in the
material, perishable aspects of existence than men are (520).
The successful hajji also accepted visitors and offered them gifts of incense, fruits, and various “baubles,
bangles, and beads” such as rings purchased while on the road. Ironically, while Turner highlighted the
“communitas” or unifying and equalizing aspect of ritual, Delaney found that many of the practices of
the hajj, including “the retention of secular but high-status clothing for certain people and the
exemption of women from the symbolic garment,” tended to “ensure that the hierarchies of the secular
world continue to be recognized even in Mecca, thus undermining the ideology of equality and
brotherhood” (521).
And even greater irony, according to Delaney, is that many pilgrims felt not so much “at home” in Mecca
as disoriented and out-of-place. By contrast, she insisted, “the ‘secular’ hajj,” the visit back to the
homeland of Turkey for expatriates, “seems to fulfill for the immigrants what the ‘sacred’ hajj failed to
fulfill for the villagers” (521). This homecoming of Turks living in Europe has them literally returning to
“the place where they are yerli” (yer meaning “place/ground” and li meaning “with/belonging to”) (522).
Turks separated from their native homeland tended to express feeling gurbet, which means something
like “foreign” or “strange.” Notably, for Muslims too, “Life in this world (bu dunya) is imagined as gurbet
because the original, true, and final home is in the other world (obur dunya), in Paradise—an intimation
of which is supposedly glimpsed on the hajj to Mecca” (522).
Thus, every year thousands of Turks trek from Europe to Turkey. They make similar preparations as
going on the hajj; then “together they travel back to their own home area in Turkey as villagers from the
same area travel together on the hajj to Mecca” (524). They also bear gifts to their Turkish kin and
friends, although these gifts are often modern secular luxury items like electronics and household
appliances. Interestingly, just as there is a season for the hajj, so there is a season for visiting home,
specifically the holy month of Ramadan. In this and other ways, Delaney found, the secular journey
shared features with the sacred one. Indeed, for some Turks living outside their yerli, “Turkey begins to
take on the characteristics of the other world and, at least among immigrants in Brussels, is described as
being Cennet gibi, like Paradise” (526).
Reference
Delaney, Carol. 1990. “The ‘Hajj’: Sacred and Secular.” American Ethnologist 17 (3), 513-30.