Journey into the Hajj

Back-blip of my visit yesterday to the British Museum's exhibition on the 'fifth pillar' of Islam - pilgrimage to Mecca. Of all the impressive images, this one, entitled Magnetism 2012 has stayed in my mind. The artist, Ahmed Mater al-Ziad, noted that his family members' descriptions of the Hajj emphasised the physical attraction of the central cube known as the Ka'ba, so strong that it felt magnetic. His installation replicates this using iron filings and magnets. It's such a simple idea yet so effective - the resulting image gives the sense of the oneness of all Muslims that is at the heart of the Hajj.

The exhibition, which finishes on 15 April is definitely worth a visit. The layout is designed to give the visitor a taste of what it must be like to experience the Hajj and be caught up in that sense of oneness. I took away a real sense of the long history of pilgrimage and faith and the unchanging rituals. Ultimately, though, I found myself troubled by the idea of a oneness that excludes the other, the non-Muslims. In pre-Islamic times, Mecca was a place that was open to all pilgrims and drew visitors of different faith traditions from all over the Arab world. I felt a sense of regret for that loss and found myself musing on the tendency of our great religious traditions (Christianity has of course done the same) to declare people 'in' or 'out', which undermines the deeper eternal truths of our unity and wholeness.