Pilgrimage

In Byzantium

Pilgrimage—a long journey to a sacred place for the purposes of worship, repentance, or healing of the soul and body—isn't addressed in the Scriptures or by the Church Fathers, but this didn't stop it from developing and growing rapidly from the fourth century onwards.

Pilgrimage originated as a journey to the Holy Land undertaken by people who wanted to discover the places described in the Scriptures. In so doing, they hoped to follow in Christ's footsteps. The aim was to imitate as closely as possible the life and behaviour of Christ, but curiosity led to and was quickly overtaken by sanctification. For many centuries, Jerusalem was the Byzantines' most popular destination, despite difficulties created by the Arab—and at times Latin—sovereignty over the holy city. Pilgrimage expanded rapidly to include other important places in the Bible, such as Mount Sinai, at the foot of which was built Saint Catherine's Monastery.

The very rapid development of the cult of the saints—initially martyrs of persecution, and later men and women whose behaviour was judged or declared exceptional—led to a diversification of pilgrimages to shrines that were built around their tombs and relics, whether real or alleged. Hagiographies were written to glorify their exploits, including the miracles that occurred after their death. This led to a greater geographical diversification in pilgrimage, which even made it available to those who had neither the time nor the means to make long, and sometimes dangerous, journeys. But this didn't make pilgrimages to the Holy Land—the most commonly mentioned place in hagiography—any less desirable or important. The saint, who was often a monk, sometimes made several pilgrimages to Jerusalem. This also enabled them to visit the monasteries founded in the Judean desert by Euthymius and his successor, Sabas. Since the Laura of Sabas continued to exist under Arab dominion, they were even able to become monks in this special place.

The places of pilgrimage rapidly grew in number. Some of them fell outside the framework of Byzantine Christianity. The tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul thus attracted Christians from the East, particularly when the reconquests after the Slavic invasions had made the route between Rome and the East relatively secure—provided that the deterioration in relations between the papacy and the patriarchate didn't stop the flow of pilgrims, at least up until the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. The author of The Life of Cyril Phileotes, the modest owner of a village located around fifty kilometres from the capital, describes for us his journey to Rome accompanied by his brother, and how he had to keep well away from the people who crowded round him on his journey. A good many of them were pilgrims. The author wrote this account at the beginning of the twelfth century.

But the most successful of the saints was Simeon Stylites, who created an austere way of life that was very popular up until the eleventh century. The humble son of a shepherd from North Syria erected a pillar (his name is derived from the Greek stylos, meaning ‘pillar’) in an enclosure on the summit of Mount Coryphe. He lived atop the column and only came down when his well-wishers replaced it with other, higher columns. He became famous after his death, in 459, and his fame spread to Gaul, and particularly the East. Although his remains were given to the Patriarch of Antioch, following a contest with Constantinople, the column remains, around which has been built a magnificent quadruple basilica—four basilicas radiating from the sides of a central octagon, within which was enshrined the famous column. This martyrium was designed to accommodate the large numbers of pilgrims who flocked to see the pillar. A number of annexes were also been built for this purpose. The holy route up to the shrine begins in a village at the foot of Mount Coryphe, whose initial slopes are surrounded by seemingly prosperous boutiques. The shrine passed into the hands of the Monophysites, who were condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. But, the Chalcedonians, who were in the majority in the region, contributed to the emergence of another Simeon Stylites—Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger, who also attracted many pilgrims. People flocked from the whole of Christendom—particularly from the east and the depths of the Caucasus — to see the pillar of Simeon the Elder and Simeon the Younger. The shrines remained active up until the twelfth century.

Many secondary pilgrimages, promoted by a monastery or a bishop, developed locally. With the development of the cult of the images, in the sixth century and especially after the end of the iconoclasm in 843, many pilgrims began making pilgrimages to holy icons. Cyril Phileotes travelled from his village to Constantinople every Friday to witness the miracle of an icon of the Virgin in the Church of Blachernae. It was a covered in a veil that was lifted by a divine wind every week to make it available for worship.

The pilgrimages had a tremendous impact on economic and social life. Pilgrimages were expensive and raised considerable sums. When Cyril Phileotes travelled to Chonae (the ancient city of Colossae in Asia Minor) to witness the miracle of St Michael, he was robbed of the relatively large sum he was carrying. Anyway, this pilgrimage, like that of Demetrius to Thessalonica and many others, was accompanied by an annual fair, to meet the needs of the pilgrims and those of the local population.

Apart from being objects of worship, icons and relics also attracted pilgrims because of the miracles they were supposed to perform, and which were exalted in the hagiographic texts. Practices from ancient shrines, such as incubation, which can last several weeks, are still used today. Apart from direct contact with the relic, which was closely supervised, healing was often conducted by means of Myron oil—the oil that ran from the lamps lighting the relic or icon, and which could be mixed with wax to make cerate for applying on the affected part of the body. And the pilgrim was given a eulogia as a parting gift. This was a small terracotta or mudbrick amulet with a representation of the saint, which served as a talisman.

Pilgrimages were in no way obligatory, but they were very popular in the Byzantine world. Even a humble peasant could find an icon or relic to worship in a nearby church or monastery.

M. K.

In Islam

The pilgrimage or hajj, is one of the fundamental obligations of Muslims. It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam and must be performed by every Muslim at least once in his lifetime, provided he has the physical and financial capabilities. It must be carried out in the holy city of Mecca at a fixed period of the year, during Dhu’l-Hijja, the last month of the Muslim calendar. Its origins and certain practices go back to pre-Islamic times; then, the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula observed a truce in order to visit the sanctuary of the Kaaba in Mecca where the idols were kept. The Koranic revelations during the Medina period provided a framework for these practices in the new monotheistic religion by cleansing them of their pagan character, symbolised by the destruction of their idols. It was then thought that the foundations of the Kaaba were raised by Abraham and his son Ismail. However, the ritual practices – simply mentioned in the Qur’an – were for the most part set by the Prophet Muhammad during the pilgrimage – known as “the Farewell Pilgrimage” – that he performed in Mecca in 632, shortly before his death.

For centuries, the number of Muslims performing the pilgrimage was limited by slow means of travel, by the distance from the most remote parts of the Muslim world and especially by the many dangers that the pilgrim could meet on the pilgrimage route, or Darb al-Hajj. The greatest dangers were losing one’s way, a lack of water and attacks by Bedouins or followers of dissenting sects such as the tenth-century Qarmatians. Over the centuries, however, a number of improvements were made to facilitate the movement of increasingly large numbers of pilgrims. The Iraqi route was the first to be improved by the wife of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786–809) and bore her name: Darb al-Zubayda. The most frequented routes from Cairo and Damascus were also equipped with stations where the pilgrims could eat, drink, bury their dead and even find refuge behind the walls of small forts, such as Nakhl in the Sinai, or in Aqaba where the Egyptian and Syrian roads met. In addition, a military escort led by the emir of the pilgrimage – a title given to an officer that the caliph wanted to honour – was responsible for protecting the caravan and ensuring the safety of the pilgrims. Muslims who were not physically able to go to Mecca could make the pilgrimage by proxy, a practice that was rather popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries among the Turkish and Kurdish princes of the Near East. They were both anxious not to leave their states, where they might be overthrown in their absence, and eager to show their devotion to the people they administered. They used to hang in the great mosques magnificent copies of certificates for pilgrimages that had been made on their behalf.

After a journey that could last several months, the pilgrims arrived at the boundaries of the sacred territory, or haram, represented by stations, or miqat, along the caravan routes, where they had to put themselves in a state of sanctification by performing a purifying ablution and wearing a particular garment consisting of two pieces of fabric not sewn together. The precisely codified rites of the pilgrimage have varied very little from the beginning and are performed every year from the seventh month of Dhu’l-Hijja. The pilgrims then usually started by the umra or “little pilgrimage”, which can also be done at any other time of the year and is primarily an exercise in personal piety. They first went to Mecca, towards the Sacred Mosque in the centre of which the Kaaba is placed in order to perform the taw?f, a rite which consists of walking seven times around the building anticlockwise after having kissed, in the south-east, the “black stone” brought to Abraham by the angel Gabriel to help him complete the construction of the building. They should then perform a run, or sa?y, close to the Sacred Mosque, between the two hills of Safa and Marwa to commemorate the run of Hagar, concubine of Abraham, looking for water in the desert to save her son Ismail.

Hajj itself begins the next day and mostly takes place in the vicinity of Mecca, first in the valley of Mina, where pilgrims spend the night before going to the foot of Mount Arafat, on the ninth of Dhu’l-Hijja where they stay standing for several hours before rushing after sunset to Muzdalifa where the evening and night prayers are said. The day of the tenth, marked by the return to Mina, sees two major rites of the pilgrimage accomplished: stoning with seven pebbles one of three piles of stones, symbols of Satan, and the sacrifice of an animal in remembrance of the sacrifice of Abraham. The pilgrims return to Mecca, then performs the last circumambulations around the Kaaba. The last three days of the pilgrimage – which ends on the thirteenth of Dhu’l-Hijja – take place in Mina and are accompanied by the ritual throwing of stones.

From its earliest days, the pilgrimage to Mecca materialised the unity of the Muslim community and as such has always represented a major political issue. During the first centuries of Islam, it was the role of the caliph to lead the pilgrimage. Some, like Harun al-Rashid, accomplished this mission with zeal. If subsequently the presence of the ruler became rarer in Mecca – no Ottoman sultan performed the hajj – the control and the assertion of his authority on the holy city were always a way of getting recognition and legitimacy from the different powers dominating the Muslim world. The pre-eminence of a prince was also demonstrated by the rank the caravan of its nationals occupied in the march towards Mina and by the location of its banners on Mount Arafat. After the breakup of the caliphate in the tenth century, Near Eastern rulers tried to take control of the holy places or to have their rule over them recognised. The famous Sultan Salah al-Din was the first to take the title of “guardian of the holy places” in the second half of the twelfth century. The Mamluk rulers, followed a few centuries later by the Ottoman sultans, demonstrated their supremacy over the holy places by sending each year a palanquin mounted on a camel called mahmal, marking the symbolic pilgrimage of the prince and asserting his dominion over Mecca.

Theoretically, the only canonical pilgrimages outside the hajj were those made to the other two holy cities of Islam, Medina and Jerusalem. However, from the early centuries of Islam pilgrimages multiplied around the tombs of Shiite imams such as 'Ali at Najaf and Husayn in Karbala and even became obligatory. This manifestation of popular piety touched the Sunni world where, from the eleventh century, pious visits, or ziyarah, to the graves of Muslim saints multiplied, in the hope of capturing the good luck, or Baraka, of saintly characters likely to answer pilgrims’ prayers. These secondary places of pilgrimage, especially in the outer provinces of Islam, grew from the twelfth century, when the first pilgrimage guides meant to help pilgrims find their way – including that of al-Harawi – appeared. This new devotion often occasioned power struggles, and the local princes tried to use it to their advantage. These practices were nevertheless regularly condemned by Muslim lawyers, especially those belonging to the Hanbali rite like Ibn Taymiya in the thirteenth century, who saw in these practices a questioning of the divine uniqueness. Similarly, from the eighteenth century the Wahhabi movement permanently condemned the cult of saints and pious visits. In the centuries that followed, this resulted in the destruction all over Arabia of saints’ tombs of and the prohibition of all so-called non-canonical pilgrimages.

J.-M. M.