One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing about the Muslim Pilgrimage » (Reprint)

The journey that all Muslims are enjoined to make once in their lifetime, the pilgrimage to Mecca and Islam itself, is discussed and debated in a collection of writings from both the East and West, by authors including Ibn Battuta, Sir Richard Burton, and Malcolm X.

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)