After twenty-five years a writer in America, I wanted something to soften my cynicism. I was searching for new terms by which to see. The way one is raised establishes certain needs in this department. From a pluralist background, I naturally placed great stress on the matters of racism and freedom. Then, in my early twenties, I had gone to live in Africa for three years. During this time, which was formative for me, I did rubbed shoulders with blacks of many different tribes, with Arabs, Berbers, and even Europeans, who were Muslims. By and large these people did not share the Western obsession with race as a social category. In our encounters being oddly coloured rarely mattered. I was welcomed first and judged on merit later. By contrast, Europeans and Americans, including many who are free of racist notions, automatically class people racially. Muslims classified people by their faith and their actions. I found this transcendent and refreshing. Malcolm X saw his nation’s salvation in it. “America needs to understand Islam,” he wrote, “because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem”.

I was looking for an escape route, too, from the isolating terms of a materialistic culture. I wanted access to a spiritual dimension, but the conventional paths I had known as a boy were closed. My father had been a Jew; my mother Christian. Because of my mongrel background, I had a foot in two religious camps. Both faiths were undoubtedly profound. Yet the one that emphasizes a chosen people I found insupportable; while the other, based in a mystery, repelled me. A century before, my maternal great-great-grandmother’s name had been set in stained glass at the high street Church of Christ in Hamilton, Ohio.
By the time I was twenty, this meant nothing to me.

These were the terms my early life provided. The more I thought about it now, the more I returned to my experiences in Muslim Africa. After two return trips to Morocco, in 1981 and 1985, I came to feel that Africa, the continent, had little to do with the balanced life I found there. It was not, that is, a continent I was after, nor an institution, either. I was looking for a framework I could live with, a vocabulary of spiritual concepts applicable to the life I was living now. I did not want to “trade in” my culture. I wanted access to new meanings.

After a mid-Atlantic dinner I went to wash up in the bathroom. During my absence a quorum of Hasidim lined up to pray outside the door. By the time I had finished, they were too immersed to notice me. Emerging from the bathroom, I could barely work the handle. Stepping into the aisle was out of the question.

I could only stand with my head thrust into the hallway, staring at the congregation’s backs. Holding palm-size prayer books, they cut an impressive figure, tapping the texts on their breastbones as they divined. Little by little the movements grew erratic, like a mild, bobbing form of rock and roll. I watched from the bathroom door until they were finished, then slipped back down the aisle to my seat.

We landed together later that night in Brussels. Reboarding, I found a discarded Yiddish newspaper on a food tray. When the plane took off for Morocco, they were gone.

I do not mean to imply here that my life during this period conformed to any grand design. In the beginning, around 1981, I was driven by curiosity and an appetite for travel. My favourite place to go, when I had the money, was Morocco. When I could not travel, there were books. This fascination brought me into contact with a handful of writers driven to the exotic, authors capable of sentences like this, by Freya Stark:

The perpetual charm of Arabia is that the traveller finds his level there simply as a human being; the people’s directness, deadly to the sentimental or the pedantic, like the less complicated virtues; and the pleasantness of being liked for oneself might, I think, be added to the five reasons for travel given me by Sayyid Abdulla, the watchmaker; “to leave one’s troubles behind one; to earn a living; to acquire learning; to practise good manners; and to meet honourable men”.

I could not have drawn up a list of demands, but I had a fair idea of what I was after. The religion I wanted should be to metaphysics as metaphysics is to science. It would not be confined by a narrow rationalism or traffic in mystery to please its priests. There would be no priests, no separation between nature and things sacred. There would be no war with the flesh, if I could help it. Sex would be natural, not the seat of a curse upon the species. Finally, I did want a ritual component, daily routine to sharpen the senses and discipline my mind. Above all, I wanted clarity and freedom. I did not want to trade away reason simply to be saddled with a dogma.

The more I learned about Islam, the more it appeared to conform to what I was after.

Most of the educated Westerners I knew around this time regarded any strong religious climate with suspicion. They classified religion as political manipulation, or they dismissed it as a medieval concept, projecting upon it notions from their European past.

It was not hard to find a source for their opinions. A thousand years of Western history had left us plenty of fine reasons to regret a path that led through so much ignorance and slaughter. From the Children’s Crusade and the Inquisition to the transmogrified faiths of nazism and communism during our century, whole countries have been exhausted by belief. Nietzsche’s fear, that the modern nation-state would become a substitute religion, have proved tragically accurate. Our century, it seemed to me, was ending in an age beyond belief, which believers inhabited as much as agnostics.

Regardless of church affiliation, secular humanism is the air westerners breathe, the lens we gaze through. Like any world view, this outlook is pervasive and transparent. It forms the basis of our broad identification with democracy and with the pursuit of freedom in all its countless and beguiling forms. Immersed in our shared preoccupations, one may easily forget that other ways of life exist on the same planet.

At the time of my trip, for instance, 650 million Muslims with a majority representation in forty-four countries adhered to the formal teachings of Islam. In addition, about 400 million more were living as minorities in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Assisted by postcolonial economics, Islam has become in a matter of thirty years a major faith in Western Europe. Of the world’s great religions, Islam alone was adding to its fold.

My politicized friends were dismayed by my new interest. They all but universally confused Islam with the machinations of half
a dozen middle eastern tyrants. The books they read, the new broadcasts they viewed depicted the faith as a set of political functions. Almost nothing was said of its spiritual practice. I liked to quote Mae West to them: “Anytime you take religion for
a joke, the laugh’s on you”.

Historically a Muslim sees Islam as the final, matured expression of an original religion reaching back to Adam. It is as resolutely monotheistic as Judaism, whose major Prophets Islam reveres as links in a progressive chain, culminating in Jesus and Muhammad. Essentially a message of renewal, Islam has done its part on the world stage to return the forgotten taste of life’s lost sweetness to millions of people. Its book, the Qur’an, caused Goethe to remark, “You see, this teaching never fails; with all our systems, we cannot go, and generally speaking no man can go, further”.

Traditional Islam is expressed through the practice of five pillars. Declaring one’s faith, prayer, charity, and fasting are activities pursued repeatedly throughout one’s life. Conditions permitting, each Muslim is additionally charged with undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime. The Arabic term for this fifth rite is Hadj. Scholars relate the word to the concept of kasd, “aspiration,” and to the notion of men and women as travellers on earth. In Western religions pilgrimage is a vestigial tradition, a quaint, folkloric concept commonly reduced to metaphor. Among Muslims, on the other hand, the hadj embodies a vital experience for millions of new pilgrims every year. In spite of the modern content of their lives, it remains an act of obedience, a profession of belief, and the visible expression of a spiritual community. For a majority of Muslims the hadj is an ultimate goal, the trip of a lifetime.

As a convert I felt obliged to go to Makkah. As an addict to travel I could not imagine a more compelling goal.

The annual, month-long fast of Ramadan precedes the hadj by about one hundred days. These two rites form a period of intensified awareness in Muslim society. I wanted to put this period to use. I had read about Islam; I had joined a Mosque near my home in California; I had started a practice. Now I hoped to deepen what I was learning by submerging myself in a religion where Islam infuses every aspect of existence.

I planned to begin in Morocco, because I knew that country well and because it followed traditional Islam and was fairly stable. The last place I wanted to start was in a backwater full of uproarious sectarians. I wanted to paddle the mainstream, the broad, calm water.

                   From The Publisher
                   The pilgrimage to Mecca, or the Hajj, is a journey all Muslims are enjoined to make once in their
                   lifetimes. Its purpose is to detach human beings from their homes and, by bringing them to Islam's
                   birthplace, to emphasize the equality of all people before God. Since its inception in the seventh
                   century, the Hajj has been the central theme in a large body of Islamic travel literature. Beginning with
                   the European Renaissance, it has also been the subject for a handful of adventurous writers from the
                   Christian West who, through conversion or connivance, managed to slip inside the walls of a city
                   forbidden to non-Muslims. One Thousand Roads to Mecca collects significant works by observant
                   writers from the East and West over the last ten centuries. These two very different literary traditions
                   form distinct sides of a spirited conversation in which Mecca is the common destination and Islam the
                   common subject of inquiry.

                   Reviews
                   From Library Journal
                   An American convert to Islam, Wolfe (The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca, LJ 8/93) has
                   collected excerpts from the accounts of two dozen pilgrims to Mecca over a span of 1000 years. Islam
                   is the only world religion that requires its followers, if they are able, to undertake a pilgrimage at least
                   once. Through detachment from his or her environment and travel to the birthplace of Islam, and
                   through the subsuming of race and class during the ceremonies, the Muslim experiences a sense of the
                   unity of all humanity and a sense of religious commonality and personal humility before God. Wolfe
                   does an exemplary job of detailing the ceremonies performed at Mecca and the reasons behind them.
                   The chosen excerpts give readers a sense of how the hajj has changed over time as well as how
                   constant the central ceremonies have remained. Works like this help both the student and the general
                   reader gain a better understanding of this remarkable faith. Highly recommended for academic and
                   large public libraries.Robert J. Andrews, Duluth P.L., Minn.

                   From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly
                   For more than a thousand years, Mecca has been the epicenter of the spiritual world of Islam. A
                   pilgrimage to this remote desert city is Islam's supreme ritual, affirmation and renewalthe lifetime goal of
                   faithful Muslims. The journey has never been about pleasure or convenience; pilgrims have braved
                   plagues, famine, warfare and the routine predations of desert raiders. Though nowadays the journey is
                   less perilous, it has also become less eventful. In this overgrown anthology of travelers' accounts
                   through the ages, Wolfe (The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca) has erred on the side of
                   inclusiveness; only a few of the 24 selections hold their own as classic literature. The most intriguing
                   tend to be by outsiders (for whom Mecca has been a place of romance and inaccessibility), as Wolfe
                   notes, and by women (who have come to make up a third of all hajjis). Wolfe's ample commentary
                   provides an effective historical framework, but the volume's bulk will deter the uninitiated. (July)
 

                   FROM THE BOOK

                   Table of Contents
                                 Preface
                                 General Introduction
                   1
                                 The Medieval Period: Three Classic Muslim Travelers, 1050-1326
                   1
                                 Naser-e Khosraw, Persia, 1050
                                                                                             11
                   2
                                 Ibn Jubayr, Spain, 1183-84
                                                                                             33
                   3
                                 Ibn Battuta, Morocco, 1326
                                                                                             51
                   2
                                 Enter the Europeans: Renegades, Impostors, Slaves, and Scholars,
                                 1503-1814
                   4
                                 Ludovico di Varthema, Bologna, 1503
                                                                                             79
                   5
                                 A Pilgrim with No Name, Italy, ca. 1575
                                                                                             90
                   6
                                 Joseph Pitts, England, ca. 1685
                                                                                            102
                   7
                                 Ali Bey al-Abbasi, Spain, 1807
                                                                                            126
                   8
                                 John Lewis Burckhardt, Switzerland, 1814
                                                                                            162
                   3
                                 Nineteenth-Century Changes, 1853-1908
                   9
                                 Sir Richard Burton, Great Britain, 1853
                                                                                            197
                   10
                                 Her Highness Sikandar, the Begum of Bhopal, India, 1864
                                                                                            226
                   11
                                 John F. Keane, Anglo-India, 1877-78
                                                                                            245
                   12
                                 Mohammad Hosayn Farahani, Persia, 1885-86
                                                                                            276
                   13
                                Arthur J. B. Wavell, Anglo-Africa, 1908
                                                                                            295
                   4
                                 The Early Twentieth Century, 1925-33
                   14
                                 Eldon Rutter, Great Britain, 1925
                                                                                            329
                   15
                                 Winifred Stegar, Australia, 1927
                                                                                            347
                   16
                                 Muhammad Asad, Galicia, 1927
                                                                                            363
                   17
                                 Harry St. John Philby, Great Britain, 1931
                                                                                            384
                   18
                                 Lady Evelyn Cobbold, Great Britain, 1933
                                                                                            406
                   5
                                 The Jet Age Hajj, 1947-90
                   19
                                 Hamza Bogary, Mecca, ca. 1947
                                                                                            441
                   20
                                 Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Iran, 1964
                                                                                            455
                   21
                                 Malcolm X, United States, 1964
                                                                                            486
                   22
                                 Saida Miller Khalifa, Great Britain, 1970
                                                                                            504
                   23
                                 Michael Wolfe, United States, 1990
                                                                                            523
                                 Maps
                                                                                            551
                                 Acknowledgments
                                                                                            569
                                 Permissions
                                                                                            570
                                 Glossary: Names and Terms
                                                                                            571
                                 Selected Bibliography
                                                                                            581
                                 Index
                                                                                            589

                   ABOUT THE BOOK
                   Synopsis
                   "Once in their lives, all Muslims must make a pilgrimage to the city of Mecca--the hadj. . . . Wolfe, an
                   American convert to Islam, has written a first-person narrative of his first hadj. He does not focus on
                   his hadj as a purely spiritual journey but also details his journey through Islamic countries,where he
                   slowly learns about Islam as a culture as well as a faith." (Libr J)

                   From The Publisher
                   The hadj, or sacred journey, is the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are enjoined to make once in
                   their lifetimes. Its purpose is to detach human beings from their homelands and, by bringing them to
                   Mecca, temporarily reinstate the equality of all people before God. One of the world's longest-lived
                   religious rites, the hadj has continued without break for fourteen hundred years. It is, like most things
                   Islamic, shrouded in mystery for Westerners. In his new book, Michael Wolfe, an American-born
                   writer and recent Muslim convert, recounts his experiences on this journey, and in the process brings
                   readers closer to the meaning of Islam. Wolfe's book bridges the high points of the Muslim calendar,
                   beginning in April with the annual month-long fast of Ramadan. In Morocco, he settles into daily life
                   with a merchant family in the ancient quarter of Marrakesh. During his three-month stay, he explores
                   the intricate traditional life of Muslim Morocco. His accounts of this time deepen our feeling for Islam, a
                   faith that claims one-sixth of the world's population. As summer approaches, he travels north to
                   Tangier, where he visits Western writers and Moroccan mystics. In June, he arrives in Mecca, a city
                   closed to all but Muslims. The protean experience of the hadj, and the real Mecca, that most religious
                   and mysterious of cities, are captured in the last half of the book. Inevitably, the buildup to the Gulf
                   War hovers in the background - the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is just weeks away. Yet it is the author's
                   participation in the age-old rites of the hadj that most preoccupies his thoughts, strengthening his bond
                   to the faith he has embraced as an outsider, developing and transforming it, making it personal and
                   alive.

                   Reviews
                   From Malise Ruthven - The Times Literary Supplement
                   It requires a special sensibility to write well about the Hadj. To retain a cold-eyed scepticism, as
                   Burton did when he made the pilgrimage in disguise in 1853, inevitably serves to diminish what for the
                   vast majority of pilgrims becomes a life-transforming experience. Apart from the occasional lapse,
                   Michael Wolfe's tone is exactly right. A recent convert to Islam, he communicates his feelings of
                   brotherhood and ecstasy with a light, unpious touch. But devout though he is, he never closes his cool
                   Californian eyes completely. To the bemused infidel he fully conveys the horrors: the constant crush of
                   people, the fumes, the scorching traffic jams. . . . His is a private pilgrimage that explains, without
                   preaching, how a sensitive Westerner was drawn into Islam,and how his embrace was deepened by
                   the experience of the Hadj.

                   From Robert Irwin - London Review of Books
                   Wolfe, who also writes novels, conscientiously avoids the politics of thecontemporary hajj and his
                   responses seem curiously muted. He enjoyed many encounters with his co-religionaries, and
                   appreciated the multi-racial and democratic aspects of the hajj, but there is a feeling of something being
                   held backand I never fully understood why Wolfe had become a Muslim or had made the pilgrimage.
                   One gets a stronger sense of the crowds and the heat than of the divine from his book. But perhaps
                   that is as it should be--a matter of pious decorum.

                   From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly
                   In an engaging and instructive account of his experiences as a Muslim pilgrim to Mecca, California
                   freelance writer, editor and publisher Wolfe lifts the veil for Western readers on this ancient and sacred
                   duty of Islam, simultaneously presenting a lively and sympathetic picture of Muslims. Wolfe, a
                   self-described ``mongrel'' son of a Christian mother and a Jewish father, says he wanted not to ``trade
                   in'' his culture in his recent conversion to Islam, but to find ``access to new meanings'' and ``an escape
                   route from the isolating terms of a materialistic culture.'' He explores new meanings through readings in
                   translation of Islamic literature, religion and history, but most of all in discussions with other men,
                   especially the wise, folksy and enthusiastic Mostopha, with whom he spends Ramadan. (Not
                   surprisingly, the only woman of note in the book is Mostopha's wife Qadisha who, it seems, is always
                   cooking.) The pilgrimage itself is palpably detailed with its intense heat, ardor, bonding, visits to holy
                   sites, multitude of prayers, rules, illnesses and kindnesses, all shared by the more than a million pilgrims
                   who crowd this awesome holy ritual. (Aug.)