Against the sweeping backdrop of South Asian history, this is a story of journeys taken by sixteenth-century reformist Muslim scholars and Sufi mystics from India to Arabia. At the center is the influential Sufi scholar Shaykh Ali Muttaqi and his little-known network of disciples. Scott Kugle relates how Ali Muttaqi, an expert in Arabic, scriptural hermeneutics, and hadith, left his native South Asia and traversed treacherous seas to make the Hajj to Mecca. Settling in Mecca, he continued to influence his homeland from overseas. Kugle draws on his original translations of Arabic and Persian manuscripts, never before available in English, to trace Ali Muttaqi's devotional writings, revealing how the Hajj transformed his spiritual life and political loyalties. The story expands across three generations of peripatetic Sufi masters in the Mutaqqi lineage as they travel for purposes of pilgrimage, scholarship, and sometimes simply for survival along Indian Ocean maritime routes linking global Muslim communities. Exploring the political intrigue, scholarly debates, and diverse social milieus that shaped the colorful personalities of his Sufi subjects, Kugle argues for the importance of Indian Sufi thought in the study of hadith and of ethics in Islam. We are proud to announce that this book is freely available in an open-access enhanced edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of Emory University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Learn more at the TOME website: openmonographs.org. The open-access enhanced edition of Hajj to the Heart can be found here: https://manifold.ecds.emory.edu/projects/hajj-to-the-heart

The Hajj is the largest pilgrimage in the world today and a sacred duty for all Muslims. With contributions from renowned experts, this book opens out onto the full sweep of the Hajj: as a sacred path walked by early Islamic devotees, as a sumptuous site of worship under the care of sultans, and as an expression of faith in the modern world.

This exploration of Islamic spirituality delves into the psychological diseases and cures of the heart. Diseases examined include miserliness, envy, hatred, treachery, rancour, malice, ostentation, arrogance, covetousness, lust, and other afflictions that assail people and often control them. The causes and practical cures of these diseases are discussed, offering a penetrating glimpse into how Islam deals with spiritual and psychological problems and demonstrating how all people can benefit from these teachings.

The annual ritual pilgrimage to Makkah was established by the Prophet Muhammad in the last year of his life (AD 632). Over the following centuries the experience and importance of Hajj have been evocatively documented in countless ways. Highlighting the pilgrims' journey across time, the sacred rituals of Hajj, and the city of Makkah itself, this beautiful little book features illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings and photographs, as well as calligraphy, textiles, scientific instruments, decorative tiles, maps, ceramics, metalwork and powerful works by contemporary artists. Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the British Museum, from 26 January to 15 April 2012.

The hajj calls Muslims to journey to Mecca from wherever they are across the world. Of the far-flung communities one of the largest is that of the Muslims of Southeast Asia, and within that region in times past, one of the principal centres for hajj transit and transport was Singapore. If modern air travel bridges continents within hours, before the 1970s, pilgrim travel from Southeast Asia was by sea, and distance and difficulties were far more strongly felt. Hajj pilgrims then might take a lifetime to save for the journey, so a great many were old and frail, yet no real records remain and very few personal accounts exist of the experience, the tests, or fears along the way, of the time spent under sail or by 'steam.' This book sets out to describe the development of hajj shipping and the historical place of Singapore in this network. And, through anecdotes and comparisons, images and maps, to paint a picture of what this hajj journey by sea entailed and, in that sense, to offer a kind of 'human face' to the journey.Related Link(s)

Islam is often described as abstract, ascetic, and uniquely disengaged from the human body. Scott Kugle refutes this assertion in the first full study of Islamic mysticism as it relates to the human body. Examining Sufi conceptions of the body in religious writings from the late fifteenth through the nineteenth century, Kugle demonstrates that literature from this era often treated saints' physical bodies as sites of sacred power. Sufis and Saints' Bodies focuses on six important saints from Sufi communities in North Africa and South Asia. Kugle singles out a specific part of the body to which each saint is frequently associated in religious literature. The saints' bodies, Kugle argues, are treated as symbolic resources for generating religious meaning, communal solidarity, and the experience of sacred power. In each chapter, Kugle also features a particular theoretical problem, drawing methodologically from religious studies, anthropology, studies of gender and sexuality, theology, feminism, and philosophy. Bringing a new perspective to Islamic studies, Kugle shows how an important Islamic tradition integrated myriad understandings of the body in its nurturing role in the material, social, and spiritual realms.

The hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, is a religious duty to be performed once in a lifetime by all Muslims who are able. The Prophet Muhammad set out the rituals of hajj when he led what became known as the Farewell Hajj in 10 AH / 632AD. This set the seal on Muhammad's career as the founder of a religion and the leader of a political entity based on that religion. The convergence of the Prophet with the politician infuses the hajj with political, as well as religious, significance. For the caliphs who led the Islamic community after Muhammad's death, leadership of the hajj became a position of enormous political relevance as it presented them with an unrivalled opportunity to proclaim their pious credentials and reinforce their political legitimacy. Exhaustively researched, The Meaning of Mecca is the first study to analyse the leadership of the hajj in the formative and medieval periods and to assess the political subtext of Islam's most high-profile religious ritual.

The pilgrimage to Mecca - the hajj - is a major aspect of the Islamic religion, yet little has been written about its history or of the conditions under which thousands of pilgrims from far flung regions of the Islamic world traveled to the heart of the Arabian peninsula. This pioneering book concentrates on the pilgrimage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Mecca was ruled by the Ottoman sultans. At a time when, for the majority of the faithful, the journey was long, arduous and fraught with danger, the provision of food, water, shelter and protection for pilgrims presented a major challenge to the provincial governors of the vast Ottoman Empire. Drawing on rich documentation left by Ottoman administrators and on the accounts of contemporary pilgrims, Suraiya Faroqhi here sheds new light on the trials and experiences of everyday life for those undertaking the hajj.

Following on the British Museum's critically acclaimed exhibition Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam, this volume provides over thirty papers on the history and significance of the Hajj, spanning history, politics, archaeology, pilgrims' journeys, art, architecture, photography and material culture. This is a major multi-disciplinary study and a key reference work for anyone with an academic or personal interest in the Hajj.