“This is a call from the holy land”: Political and religious anthropology of the Muslim pious visit in the Israeli-Palestinian space: A pilgrimage under constraint
Grugeon, Elsa
“This is a call from the holy land”: Political and religious anthropology of the Muslim pious visit in the Israeli-Palestinian space: A pilgrimage under constraint - 2024.
55
Although today the al-Aqsa Mosque is the archetype of a conflict-ridden holy place, Muslims from all over the world still flock to visit it every year. An age-old phenomenon, this pilgrimage has grown exponentially since the 2010s—despite the religious and political imperatives of the boycott of Israel, which began in the Muslim world in 1948 and continues to this day. Palestinian and foreign religious mobility to the holy site is limited by borders and Israeli policies of territorial fragmentation. Furthermore, the ideological lock-in imposed by the boycott describes any visit, including a religious one, to Jerusalem, in the context of occupation, as an attack on the Palestinian cause. This article presents the results of ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2011 and 2018. This research analyzes the conditions of possibility and current modalities of the pilgrim phenomenon in Jerusalem. It proposes a reflection on the oscillation between practices presented as immemorial and the transformations linked to a recent political context. It aims to shed light on the role and representation of al-Aqsa in the contemporary Muslim ethos. This research examines the consequences of the Israeli occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories on the pilgrimage experience, on the representations of community boundaries that accompany it, and on its framing and codification.
“This is a call from the holy land”: Political and religious anthropology of the Muslim pious visit in the Israeli-Palestinian space: A pilgrimage under constraint - 2024.
55
Although today the al-Aqsa Mosque is the archetype of a conflict-ridden holy place, Muslims from all over the world still flock to visit it every year. An age-old phenomenon, this pilgrimage has grown exponentially since the 2010s—despite the religious and political imperatives of the boycott of Israel, which began in the Muslim world in 1948 and continues to this day. Palestinian and foreign religious mobility to the holy site is limited by borders and Israeli policies of territorial fragmentation. Furthermore, the ideological lock-in imposed by the boycott describes any visit, including a religious one, to Jerusalem, in the context of occupation, as an attack on the Palestinian cause. This article presents the results of ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2011 and 2018. This research analyzes the conditions of possibility and current modalities of the pilgrim phenomenon in Jerusalem. It proposes a reflection on the oscillation between practices presented as immemorial and the transformations linked to a recent political context. It aims to shed light on the role and representation of al-Aqsa in the contemporary Muslim ethos. This research examines the consequences of the Israeli occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories on the pilgrimage experience, on the representations of community boundaries that accompany it, and on its framing and codification.
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