Pilgrimage and religious tourism in Islam

Abstract

In recent years scholars have engaged with explorations that tried to account for the pilgrimage vs. tourism conundrum. Among the ideas that emerged was defining an integrative category under the heading of religious tourism. This paper makes the argument that from a purely religious perspective pilgrimage in Islam is nothing but the one mentioned in the Quran; namely the Hajj. Therefore, it is argued, that all other religious Muslim motivated journeys constitute a different category which may be termed; religious tourism. By reframing and reconceptualizing Muslim pilgrimage which is ‘beyond the officially sacred’ as religious tourism the paper accounts for a plethora of religious voyages and the entire spectrum of Muslim religious voyages.