Narrating the Pilgrimage to Mecca as a Sensational Form

In her presentation, Buitelaar will introduce the recently published collected volume Narrating the Pilgrimage to Mecca that concluded the research project ‘Modern Articulations of the Pilgrimage to Mecca’ (funded by NWO, the Netherlands Council for Scientific Research) Buitelaar will reflect on how contemporary Muslims learn to frame the pilgrimage experience by listening to the stories of those who preceded them. In particular, she will discuss the narrativization of the pilgrimage to Mecca as what Birgit Meyer (2011; 2012) has called a ‘sensational form’.

Sensational Form: The religious practice of sensing and feeling a transcendental realm or force, it is understood as the field of the sensing body allowing humans to experience the divine.

Pilgrimage accounts abound with descriptions of being moved to tears upon setting one’s eyes on the Ka‘ba for the first time. Indeed, profuse weeping is a recurrent trope in pilgrims’ stories, and pilgrims who do not produce tears at the anticipated moment may be disappointed, or worry about their degree of devoutness.

About the Speaker:

Marjo Buitelaar is a Professor of Contemporary Islam from an anthropological perspective at the Faculty of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Groningen. Her research interests concern Islam in everyday life and narrative identity construction in a post-migration context. She has conducted fieldwork in Morocco and the Netherlands. Her most recent co-edited books include: Narrating the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Historical and Contemporary Accounts (2023, with Richard van Leeuwen); Muslim Women’s Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring gender, religion, and mobility (2020, with Manja Stephan-Emmrich & Viola Thimm); Religion as Relation; Studying Religion in Context (2021, with Peter Berger & Kim Knibbe).

Narrating the Pilgrimage to Mecca is published in Open Access. Click here to download the book.

Chair:

The event will be chaired by Dr Kholoud al-Ajarma, Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World at the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD thesis focused on the socio-cultural embeddedness of the Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) in Moroccan everyday life. In 2020, she published a chapter on “Power in Moroccan Women’s Narratives of the Hajj.” In Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion, and Mobility. Alongside her research and teaching, Kholoud is also an award-winning photographer and film-maker who has extensive experience developing and leading programs and projects among refugee communities.