Pilgrimage to the City of Medina

Paper Summary:

The writer of this research proposal contends that the religious experience of Hajj and visiting Medina ,the city of the Prophet, can, in a modern context, be seen as not only a pillar of Islam but a tourist response to religion. The relationships of Islamic pilgrimage, tour operating and symbolism are, according to the paper's author, worth further exploration and analysis. The writer states that he has been a tour operator for Hajj pilgrims for many years and the purpose of the study is to communicate this extensive experience to pilgrims along with the academic references to verify the visited sites with substantive proof of their relevance and importance to the faith today. The writer states that the proposed study will seek to identify where many sites lost to pilgrimage now are, even though the ravages of modern Saudi Arabia may have concreted over them.
The paper includes one appendix.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Statement of the Problem
Purpose of Study
Importance of Study
Rationale of Study
Overview of Study
Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature
Chapter 3: Methodology
Description of the Study Approach
Data-gathering Method and Database of Study
References

From the Paper:

"Since the birth of Islam, it has been a requirement that all Muslims who are able to do so must perform the Hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. Since the earliest days there are certain to have been those who have performed their pilgrimage before subsequently failing to return home for one reason or another (Gearon, 2006, p. 44). The numbers of pilgrims performing the Hajj were far less than those being experienced today, though. As Gearon emphasizes, "Easier financing and modern mass transport methods allow an annual increase in the numbers of those able to perform their religious duties. As host to the holy cities of Mecca and Madinah, the modern-day nation of Saudi Arabia occupies a unique place for the world's approximately 1.2 billion Muslims" (Gearon, p. 45). Therefore, it is the rationale of the proposed study that there is significant merit in seeking to work this into the practice element of the project in that such a mapping service may try to provide an authentic religious experience for contemporary Muslims. This approach is highly congruent with cultural geographers such as Noble who reports, "Sacred sites must now, in large part, be investigated from an archaeological perspective. Leading authorities on geography utilize such techniques to retrieve many almost lost sites to reveal their rich, although now mostly hidden, material culture" (p. 1). Furthermore, an emerging theme in the geography of religion is the investigation of pilgrimages. In this regard, Noble notes that, "Much has been written concerning the hajj, the most important of Islamic journeys, but little exists in print on Muslim non-hajj pilgrimages. Non-hajj pilgrimages demonstrate the varied and vibrant cultural variety of the Islamic world" (p. 1). Further, the proposed study seeks to develop an interactive Web site that provides the geographic coordinates of these rediscovered sites to help the visitors in achieving a more robust and fulfilling pilgrimage experience."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Al-Samhudi, A. B. 'Abdullah. (n.d.). The complete history of Al-Madinah.
• Bhardwaj, S. M. (1998). Non-hajj pilgrimage in Islam: A neglected dimension of religious circulation. Journal of Cultural Geography, 17(2), 69.
• Dennis, C., & Harris, L. (2002). Marketing the e-business. London: Routledge.
• Fraenkel, J. R. & Wallen, N. E. (2001). Educational research: A guide to the process. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Gearon, E. (2006, August-September). After the pilgrimage: Every year approximately two million people enter the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj or umrah pilgrimage. The Middle East, 370, 44-47.

More papers on Pilgrimage to the City of Medina:

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