Places and Pilgrimages
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on places and pilgrimages in Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the normal pilgrimages to the Kaaba in the Hajj, but also other shrines, such as Muhammad’s shrine, the Tomb of Hussain, and other Saints, and the rituals involving these places and pilgrimages.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Places and Pilgrimages.
This is a lecture about the places and pilgrimages, lecture 35, special pilgrimages, you know, not just to Mecca. Let’s not forget that. The the pilgrimages are not just to on the on the the special one to the Kaaba, but all kinds of pilgrimages and, of course, that’s included. Now we’ve said before that the main reason Muslims do the Hajj is to touch this black the black stone. The black stone meaning that little stone there, not so little, in the, corner of the Kaaba, and they would want to bring black brack clay and from Mecca or something back from Karbala in Iraq, zumzum water, something like that.
I’ve told you stories of my own experience in that regard. But, let’s go on to some of the other tombs, you know, besides, and and I I guess what I’m saying is that the one in Mecca, you know, that’s not really called a true a tomb or a shrine. Muhammad is built is buried in Medina, 280 miles to the north, and that’s really what, you know, Muslims really want to do. They wanna go on the Hajj, of course, but then they wanna go on that little jaunt up to Medina to take in the blessing, of being up there. But there’s other stuff too.
In for Shiites, there’s the tomb, the shrine of Hossein in Karbala, and remember remember that every year during Muharram, 1st month of the year, Shiite Muslims grieve, agonize, sweat over the death, the unfortunate, unreasonable, grievous death of Hussein, and it’s it’s it’s a it’s a wound that never goes away. For, another one, it’s Ali in Najaf, and that’s in Iraq. Wasn’t I was always interested when, you know, in reference to the war when we were in Iraq, and, they would be mentioning these various places in Iraq that, most people have never heard of except that those are the places where Shiites go, and and often the Sunnis would attack Shi’ite pilgrims in Iraq at these holy sites. Of course, not only in Iraq, they do it in Pakistan as well and other areas. For the Alawites in Syria, they have their own tombs.
Alawites, you know, are really heretic heretics, and the president, Assad, Bashar Assad, is a another white and he has there’s so many minorities that somehow he has managed to pull them together, he and his whole family, his father did too, But, it’s a, quite an amazing thing. Now there are various and sundry tombs, not just, you know, the ones that you think of. And a ziara or ziara as we say in Pakistan, but Arabs would say ziara, is really a pilgrimage to a mazar, a pilgrimage to a shrine, place of pilgrimage, and it’s where you go. For example, ziara to Muhammad’s tomb or to a grave of a saint. I give the illustration of Benazir de Puto, that beautiful, western educated woman who twice was a prime minister in Pakistan.
And, by the way, she would have, I think, been much more was much more keen to, to deal severely with the Taliban than, other prime ministers have, other leaders in Pakistan. And she ended up getting assassinated just before she was killed. There was a huge explosion, you know, just at the time or shortly after she arrived from exile in Karachi, I think 140 people were killed. And then not too long after that, she herself was assassinated in, Rawalpindi, which is near the capital, Islamabad. I have, I’m reading right at the moment a couple of books.
Well, I had read one by Ahmed Rashid, who wrote on Pakistan. He called the book Taliban, and now he writes another one. It’s the night title of the book is, Pakistan on the brink. Very straightforward, very clear, and he says that Pakistan is paying a terrible price for, you know, playing games with the Taliban, because they have used the Taliban in their war with India. Not that not their so much their war, but their fears of India, so they’ve used them.
That’s why they can’t deal with them today, and that’s why there’s such a headache. But what I started to tell you and wanted to finish telling was what was about Benazir Bhutto and her book, Daughter of the East. Now here is a beautiful, western educated, woman who’s articulate, in every sense of the word. She says in her book that, when she really was pressed to you know, for guidance and encouragement and all those kind of things, what does she do? She goes and consults with a peer in Pakistan.
And, also, she goes on a pilgrimage when she’s on the hud, she goes up to to visit the shrine in, Muhammad’s tomb. So there’s an example. Now you have tombs of major figures like Shafi, who is the founder of the Shafi school. You know? The Sunnis have 4 schools.
They they have agreed to disagree, but the founder of that school, Shafi, there’s a special shrine of his in Cairo. But there are other shrines too that the Shiites have. For instance, Mazar I Sharif in the town way up north, the noble tomb of Ali. Even say that, his, apparently, his horse was up there. Of course, I don’t think his horse ever made it that far.
He died in Iraq, for Pete’s sake, so how could his horse be up there? But, nevertheless, those are the kind of legends you hear. Another one,is a place, a tomb of the mystic and and, he was a mystic and poet, Ansari. Al Ansari Abu Ismail ab Abu Dula. Abu Dalla, the servant of Allah.
In Iran, he’s called the in in Sarai, saint, you see, saint, and then you have even the mixing over, you know, to the tombs of non Muslims, for instance, the tomb of a Christian in Harat. This one here was, if you’re not careful, your computer, the, spelling will turn that to heart, but it’s a place called Harat. Apparently, there’s a tomb up there of a Christian non Muslim. Now another one is the tomb of Bellekesu Sanbu in Nigeria. You can Google that, and you can find you know, it’s amazing, really, isn’t it?
All you can find, she’s a female saint and they say that that’s the queen of Sheba. Interesting. I didn’t know that she’d gone that far south, but that’s the tradition. Now, also, Yoruba women and dogs suffer if they visit that shrine. It’s taboo.
See? So then besides that, you have tombs of holy men. For instance, some holy guy, you know, some saint in Morocco or somewhere, you can find all kinds of stuff. There’s a tomb of this holy man who is revered for his power, not holiness. It could be, you know, some holy guy or some ruler, who, does this.
I I when when I was thinking about this, I was thinking of the fact that, that this is what Jesus said about the Jews of his day. What did he say? He says in 23 of Matthew, chapter 1st 29, Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees. Now who would have thought that the Pharisees and the teachers of law would do something like this? These were orthodox people, weren’t they?
He says, you build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. So it’s not just the Muslims who did those kind of things, you know, because Jesus accused the the Jews, Orthodox folks, as they would have liked to have been thought, of the same kind of thing. Now here is another comment of a relic or imprint. In other words, that in itself is holy too. We’ve talked about those imprints, about those footprints.
And, in pilgrimage to the top Topkapi Palace, if I’m pronouncing that right, there are 650 different items. Even one of them is the, supposedly, the huge footprint in brass of Mohammed. But there’s underwear of Muhammad, hairs of the prophet, as we’ve mentioned before, and his cloak, the. Now not just, hairs of the prophet there, but I’ve mentioned too that that famous mosque, the Badshahi mosque in Lahore, built during the days of the the Moghuls. These great builders is what they did.
If you ever go to Lahore, you’ll see some of the fancy stuff that they built. There is a great mosque there, Badshahi Mosque, meaning king mosque, and, it all looks very orthodox and so on on the first floor. But if you go up the steps, what do you see behind the glass? Dirty glass it is because it’s been touched by so many over the years years, by may pilgrims because in this place there behind are are some relics, including underwear of the prophet. Now was it his underwear?
I doubt it. But, I wanted to say a word about the burda and this is the cloak and, some of you, many of you perhaps, will remember Muhammad, Mullah Omar, who was the second in is the second in command. He’s still alive as far as we know, second, in command of of, Bin Laden. One patch over his eye, definitely a good warrior, a fierce warrior. Some years ago, when he wanted to speak and show his authority, you know what he did?
He had one of these bhurdas. Put that on to show his authenticity. And I thought to myself whenever, you know, is this is very folk. This is really folkish stuff. It’s, popular Islam that he would do that, put on that burgha or the cloak to show his authority and somehow gain authenticity.
Now, other areas here, especially, they’re, specialized in some some thing, and one was, the fact that Hoda’s son, Ismet, was taken through Saint Theresa in who loves children. This is obviously a Muslim who brings her little boy, Ismet, to a Christian saint who apparently was supposed to have loved loved children and apparently was healed. Bill Musk give us this story. So, all kinds of things. And here is a picture of that, that, thing that I was telling you about, the top copy, museum in Turkey, the palace, actually, with all of these artifacts.
Maybe someday you’ll have a chance to get in there and look at it yourself. But but it is, it is worth noting, and you can Google it and find stuff there too, and it’s a it’s a magnificent building, a magnificent place. Northwest corner of the 3rd courtyard, you will find relics of the prophet brought after the conquest of Egypt, boxes and boxes of holy hairs, and, Quran’s, you know, real kind of stuff. Now let’s talk about how veneration is shown at these places. What kind of places?
The things that we’ve been talking about, the tombs and how merit is achieved, you see? So there is a procedure to all this. There is a way. Now, it’s often through lamps. We’ve talked about this before that that the way to show your veneration and to get something, is often through a lamp that is lit usually on Thursday nights.
It might be a simple shrine. It might be quite, you know, elaborate. And, here’s one that says, 1 night, Imam Ridah shine in Mashed. In other words, this is Iran. And he says that whoever makes the pilgrimage has me with him when good and bad separated.
So I guess I guess what he’s saying is that if you go to my shrine and then, you know, get something relic or something, then when I when you make the pilgrimage, I’m with you. The bridge of Sirat, you know about, that’s that thing that Muslims fear so much at the end, crossing over sharp as a razor and so on, well, what do you do to to to try to to navigate that bridge at the end? You’re hoping for some extra stuff. Now the weighing of merits so you take home, from these shrines, you take home souvenirs. Maybe the railing around the shrine is what you, rub.
In other words, rub against it so you can take home that. Or you might pick up a brass bangle with the imam’s name or the big five that we’ve talked about before. There, the tiny picture of the imam will serve as a talisman in worship. Vases, inkwells. Sorry.
Went too far there. Whoops. Vases, inkle jars, bowls, pots of black stone from Meshed, and the best idea is a sheet with dust on it that you can take and and take it with you. If you do guarantee all your sins will be forgiven. So how does Shu show veneration?
Well, through a cloth. If a person is sick, in other words, your little little guy is sick, your little boy baby is sick, then you would take a cloth from that little person and take it to the shrine, tie it on the branches or railing near the shrine, and then you would take that cloth and, make some knots in it, various requests. In other words, just imagine that I’ve got a hanky here, and take that cloth and make a knot in it. That’s one request. Make another knot.
That’s another request. And, then as as you make the requests, then you vow to do something if those requests are fulfilled. A blind person may tie a black rope to his neck and fasten it to the railing, and then say that I’m not leaving until I’m healed. Well, one guy I heard of stayed there for 7 years in vain. Now, as we’ve said before, the dust is invaluable.
To rub on your eyes or under the corpse, you see, to lessen the sin burden, rub on the roof of a newborn. Flags are often left there. You see, various and sundry flags. I drive driven by shrine after shrine after shrine, and I see the flags. Not sure why those flags, but the flags are there flying in the wind, little ones.
And oftentimes, money is left at the shrine. Now what are the signs of the prayer? In other words, the special prayer or the vow or even an answer. Well, basically, there are 2 steps to the vow. The first step is that a vow is composed, and you have a vow box just like we have little boxes for some churches have they don’t take up an offering, but they have the box.
So they, put write out the vow, probably have someone write it in beautiful classic Arabic or Urdu or something, which no one can understand. But the, the scholar and probably he or she can’t understand it either, but it could be as simple as as this. You see, you compose the vow and then, if if this comes true, then I will do the pilgrimage. It’s it’s, you know, it’s sort of a a deal, isn’t it? Cut a deal.
It’s like Jacob saying, you know, if if you you’re with me, oh god, you know, then I will give this. I’ll do this. It’s it’s you’re making a deal with god. So this is the second part of the vow. Very, very important that you do what has been promised.
For example, I will not cut the child’s hair for 7 years if a son is born. Then I will give its weight in gold to the saint. So God forbid. I mean, in the scripture too, doesn’t it say that if you vow a vow, you have to keep it, you have to keep your word? Well, same in Islam.
And as I mentioned before, the flags and and, you know, the nails and the so on, the money, these are all part of what goes into it. And now, fairs, we have talked about at these fairs. I I mentioned before, fairs, where a saint is doesn’t mean that other things don’t go on, like, the one that was close to me, the prostitutes would set up too, set up shop there and do a roaring business. But at these fairs, religious fairs, you have, processions. People go up there during the birthday and the death day of a saint, maybe for a few days each year, replicas of the tomb, and there, you have people doing petitions.
This is the the Mawlid, the birthday of this celebration. It’s an annual celebration of the birth and death of the saint, and I’ve already talked about that. Women and men go. We had one friend in Pakistan, a little woman who couldn’t have a baby. She could not have a baby boy.
Tried and tried in years. Finally, she went to this saint, only 20 miles away. It was Sakhi Sarvar, quite close to the Balochistan border in south central Pakistan. What happened? She had a baby.
And what do you think they called the baby? Peer bachsh given of the peer. Well, interesting. You know? I mean, I’m not sure how in the world it happened.
But, is this legitimate stuff? Of course, it isn’t. I mean, the Quran says clearly, no intercession, only he. It says vows are made to God, and, it says here in 5326, some of the verses we’ve already looked at, angels in heaven, intercession will avail nothing, but then accept what Allah has given. So you can always argue that, well, you know, after all, after all, you know, this special saint is he is the one through whom we can can pull this off and gain access to God.
You know, they have, one way or the other, that they will manage to, to legitimize it or rationalize it, I should say. And that’s how they do, they do rationalize it. In other words, I know Christians, and you probably do too, who make vows, and I I don’t see think there’s anything particularly wrong with it, in other words, but I do think that it’s substandard because, after all, God has given his promises and we have those. We don’t have to try to cut a deal with him, though it is in the scriptures, you know, Gideon and others, they made vows in Jacob and so on, just for, I guess, for their own security and emotional stability, but, we probably shouldn’t encourage it as Christians, though we do know Christians who have done it.