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Sufism is a wide-ranging tradition of Islamic mysticism practised by many different Sufi orders, all dedicated, through differing practices and beliefs, to the individual experience of divine love through religious ecstasy: by seeking truth and self-knowledge, the human heart strives to heal itself and turn only towards God. Sufism is perhaps most familiar in the West in the person of Jalal ad-Din Mohammed Rumi, the great thirteenth-century Persian Muslim poet, jurist, and theologian, whose poetry speaks of the universal longing to reunite with the lost beloved. After his death, Rumi’s followers founded the Mevlevi Order, long known for worshipping through dance and music as the Whirling Dervishes.
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An estimated two million people now converge on Mecca from around the world to perform the rituals of the hajj, which have become closely scripted to safely shepherd massive crowds through these rites. Each pilgrim must circle the Kaaba counterclockwise seven times; ‘kiss’ (point at) the Black Stone; run between the hills of Safa and Marwah; drink from the Zamzam well; stand vigil on the plains of Mount Arafat; gather pebbles at Muzdalifah; and throw them at walls (‘the devil’) in Mina. Manuals go into minute detail about every aspect of the hajj, noting even the prescribed size of the pebbles for the ‘stoning of the devil’ (1–1½ cm). This lapidation reenacts Abraham’s pilgrimage to Mecca, during which the devil appeared to him at three different heaps of stones; each time, at the Archangel Gabriel’s urging, the patriarch pelted the devil with seven stones until he vanished. The defeat of the devil’s attempts to stop the sacrifice of Ishmael also represents the humbling of each pilgrim’s ‘internal despot,’ or selfhood, which allows the worshipper to draw closer to Allah.
About the Author
TAHAR BEN JELLOUN was born in 1944 in Fez, Morocco, and emigrated to France in 1961. A novelist, essayist, critic, and poet, he is a regular contributor to Le Monde, La Repubblica, El País, and Panorama. His novels include The Sacred Night (winner of the 1987 Prix Goncourt), Corruption, and The Last Friend. Ben Jelloun won the 1994 Prix Maghreb, and in 2004 he won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light.
LINDA COVERDALE has translated more than fifty books, including Tahar Ben Jelloun’s award-winning novel This Blinding Absence of Light. A Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, she won the 2006 Scott Moncrieff Prize and the 1997 and 2008 French-American Foundation Translation Prize. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.