1 Introduction
For the first time in over 40 years, the 2020 edition of the hajj pilgrimage (corresponding to year 1441 of the Muslim lunar calendar) provided a stark contrast to what the hajj usually looks like, with its crowded buses and sea of bodies circumambulating around the Kaʿba. The restrictions imposed on travel and mass gatherings by the Saudi Ministry of hajj were a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged the region and the world: instead of the 2 million people that usually converge each year in the Holy Cities, the hajj welcomed only about one thousand pilgrims. Only Saudi nationals or other nationals who resided in Saudi Arabia were allowed to attend the hajj and complete the rituals (Iftikhar 2020; Saudi Press Agency 2020).
As if to compensate for the absence of pilgrims physically partaking in the hajj rituals, social media was replete with images of this unusual hajj. On Twitter, the hashtags #hajj, #hajj2020 and #hajj1441 were trending with several thousands of people tuning in to catch a glimpse of the scenes of masked cleaners sanitizing the holy premises and the eerie pictures of an almost empty ṭawāf area near the Kaʿba. These images circulating on social media (as provided both by official sources as well as individual pilgrims) stood as the closest proxy for the collective experience of partaking in the rituals typical of that time of year. The scale of the pandemic was indeed amplified by the images of empty airports and the otherworldly visions of the Holy Cities; Muslims (and non-Muslims) the world over devoured the images as they bore witness to the extraordinary circumstances and let out a collective sigh of distress and empathy at the spellbinding images of loss and emptiness.
As Muslims witnessed the trending #hajj1441 images on Twitter and other social media platforms, it was a shared imaginary about the hajj that was disrupted and laid bare. In this chapter, I examine the role of information activities and media practices in community-maintenance rituals. The premise is that pilgrims engage in a range of information practices (e.g., seeking, using and sharing information) as they prepare for their pilgrimage, complete it, and return home. Throughout the process, they engage with information gleaned from various sources, assess the credibility of said information, and partake in documenting and sharing narratives and images of their own. The meaning-making that pilgrims engage in both validates their own notion of what hajj ought to be (e.g., doing it the right way) as well as leads to new texts (stories, images, podcasts) that are circulated online and offline. These, in turn, shape the collective hajj imaginary and contribute to would-be pilgrims’ aspirations and representations about completing hajj in the twenty-first century.
This chapter focuses specifically on an under-studied aspect of the pilgrimage: the post-hajj phase and the associated information practices that pilgrims engage in upon returning home. Among the questions raised by this phase of the pilgrimage are: What happens to pilgrims upon return from hajj? How do pilgrims make sense of their experience at the holy sites that make up the hajj? What are the information-related activities and media practices that pilgrims engage in upon return (and for what purposes)? How do pilgrims sustain their lived experience of completing the pilgrimage? This project brings an information science perspective to elucidate the informational and techno-spiritual practices of global pilgrims and their role in community-maintenance rituals. Pilgrims’ engagement with media (in its multiple forms) is conceptualized in Ito’s sense, where they become ‘reactors, (re)makers and (re)distributors, engaging in shared culture and knowledge through discourse and social exchange as well as through acts of media reception’ (Ito 2008, 3). Three concepts related to information activities—meaning-making, community-maintenance, and building religious capital—emerge out of my findings and the reviewed literature to elucidate how pilgrims make sense of their hajj experience upon return and negotiate their new status as Ḥājji or Ḥājja.
2 Method
This chapter is part of a broader project that examines the expressions of spiritual and religious identities of Muslim youth and is based on a subset of interviews with twelve young Muslims (aged 18–35) who completed hajj. The aim is to examine the everyday information practices of these hajj pilgrims with the hajj being framed as dynamic and constituted through the rich and nuanced interactions that produce pilgrims’ social life (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011). Semi-structured interviews were used to collect detailed information with open-ended questions enabling participants to elaborate on their experiences of hajj. Participants were also asked about their everyday information practices and their perceptions about various media and how these contributed to shaping their pilgrimage experiences.
The twelve participants (P1–P12) in this study included five men and seven women, stemming from a range of locations with most being located in North America (N = 9), 2 in France, and one in Bangladesh. All the participants had completed hajj but two had also completed ʿumra, and one participant had performed a total of two hajj and two ʿumra pilgrimages. The participants were equally divided between two age groups: 25–29 (N = 6) and 30–35 (N = 5), were typically well-educated, and employed professionals (with the exception of one participant who was in the 18–24 age group and was a student living at home). Of the 12 participants, 9 were married, some with young families. While they all spoke English, the participants’ fluency in several languages (Urdu, French, Arabic, Pashto, Bahasa, and Bengali, among others) speaks to their diverse backgrounds (South Asian (N = 7), North African (2), Middle Eastern (1), Indonesian (1), and Afghani (1)), thus reflecting the global nature of the umma.
The interviews were completed in 2018 and were designed to capture pilgrims’ experiences of completing hajj (and associated information practices) before departure, during their time in Saudi Arabia, and upon their return from hajj. It must be noted that the media usage reflects the social media platforms prevalent at the time. I have examined elsewhere the routinized practices and various forms of learning in the accounts of the 12 hajj pilgrims interviewed (Caidi 2020; 2019). In this chapter, I focus on the practices associated with the post-hajj phase—after the pilgrim returns home.
3 Hajj in the Age of Information
In 2019, 2.48 million pilgrims performed hajj, 74 % of whom came from outside Saudi Arabia (General Authority of Statistics 2019). Global mobility, along with affordable and convenient modes of travel are contributing to socio-demographic changes among religious travelers, including younger people completing the pilgrimage. Moreover, the prevalence and ubiquity of mobile devices and sharing platforms have reshaped the pilgrimage landscape in today’s media and technology-intensive environment (Caidi and Karim 2022; Buitelaar 2020; 2015; van der Beek 2019; 2014; Caidi, Beazley and Marquez 2018; Flaskerud and Natvig 2018; Bianchi 2017; Campo 2016; Janmohamed 2016; Jenkins 2016; Hill-Smith 2009).
The twelve participants in this study both actively sought and passively encountered information about hajj through a variety of means: stories about hajj learned in childhood; advice from family members and trusted friends who already performed hajj; guidance from community religious leaders and licensed travel operators; and online browsing. Social information, in particular, pervades every aspect of hajj and relies on the development of trusted social relationships and on the collective imaginary in enabling a shared construct of the hajj. Along the way, new ways of knowing are established to support the pilgrim’s understanding of hajj and the reintegration of the pilgrim into society upon their return.
These emergent social media practices add another layer of context to individuals’ contemporary expressions of spiritual and religious identities. Pilgrims are increasingly plugged into wireless networks and can tweet, blog, and post photos of their experience as it unfolds (Caidi, Beazley and Marquez 2018; Ameli 2009; Lövheim 2004). While photography and video-recording without a licence is prohibited in certain holy sites during the hajj, it is harder to confiscate smartphones, because they are easier to conceal and are often needed by the pilgrims for other, essential purposes. As long as there are pilgrims, there will continue to be stories retold about their experiences. Online blogs and vlogs are only the most recent instantiation of a long tradition of recounting one’s hajj journey and contributing one’s story to the global hajj archive.
4 Curating Post-hajj Memories and Experiences
Pilgrims embark on hajj for a variety of reasons: a search for redemption, authenticity, or sheer curiosity. Most usually return transformed. When exploring pilgrimage rituals that involve (presumably) personal transformation and change, the experiences of return are equally important and have been documented, for example, in the tales of ‘Camino Blues’ (van der Beek 2019). Academic research about the return from hajj, however, remains limited despite the pilgrims in this study keenly pointing out that the post-hajj phase has great significance to them. Indeed, through its intensive spiritual and physical experience, rituals and invocations, the hajj exemplifies Schatzki’s (1996) interpretation of embodied know-how: understandable by those who perform it (a form of experiential learning) and who espouse the same belief framework. The routinized practices and various forms of learning by the 12 hajj pilgrims interviewed have been reported elsewhere (Caidi 2020; 2019). Their hajj practices highlight what Reckwitz (2002, 250) defined as ‘routinized way[s] in which bodies are moved, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood.’ In this chapter, the focus is on what happens upon return from hajj and how pilgrims engage in curating their hajj-related memories and experiences (and for whom?). The findings from the post-hajj phase point to three important dimensions (and associated activities and practices): meaning-making, community-maintenance rituals, and building religious capital. These are discussed below.
4.1 Information Activities as Meaning-Making Processes
You can easily assess people’s spirituality from the stories about hajj they tell when they come back: someone who just did the rituals vs. someone who rediscovered themselves and their īmān (faith) from being there. (P1)
The insight offered by P1 in the quote above hints at the importance of stories as a window onto one’s spiritual and material journey and points to the importance of information sharing as both a documentary and a performative practice. While the 12 pilgrims interviewed recounted diverse aspects of their return (from the feelings of rapture they experienced after reintegrating into the hectic pace and daily grind of everyday life to their strategies for coping with the return), they also reflected on the importance of narrating their experiences as a means of making sense of their journey. P6 states:
It is like a dream for one month [while at hajj, nc], and then we wake up. For two weeks afterwards, I told and shared my story with everyone. So, I felt like I was still there reliving it. But when I came back, with the busy life, it is changed. During the hajj, the whole day, we just read the Qurʾan and pray. There are no worries about anything. Like in a dream. I felt when I was leaving Mecca that something was taken from my heart [pause, nc]. When I am at home, I feel OK. But outside, it is very different and it is hard. So, I sit for a few moments, thinking about that journey; how I practiced there; how my life changed when I was there. (P6)
Like P6, P10 expresses a similar yearning for reconnecting with the state that they were in while at the hajj: ‘I came back depressed. There, we were all surrounded by other Muslims. When I returned, I felt lost, nostalgic, depressed.’ Several pilgrims reported practicing self-care to deal with restlessness and deep nostalgia. Many attempted to re-create this spiritual bubble by channeling the feelings and associated emotions that best described their state while at hajj. Interestingly, many of their strategies to deal with the return from hajj can be considered information-rich. I examine below the practice of documenting as a form of remembering and processing one’s experiences.
Pilgrims’ embodied experiences at the holy sites, which were often described in great detail, seem to have found an expressive release in the practice of documenting one’s hajj. This practice took various forms such as journalling, painting, taking and organizing photographs, as well as sharing their journey through social media postings (e.g., selfies, blogs, vlogs and videos; also see Buitelaar and Al-Ajarma elsewhere in this volume).
Figure 15.1
Intergenerational Hajj selfie (with consent from study participant)
These documentary practices were deemed helpful for the pilgrims to remember and reconnect with the state they were in while performing hajj; and the traces left behind constitute mementoes and reminders of their experiences. For P1, keeping a diary during hajj allowed her to make sense of her journey:
I wanted to understand the spiritual dimensions of hajj: the true meaning of it, beyond the rituals. I kept a journal to remember. I highly recommend it. I made the decision to keep it private and it was a very valuable experience. I got this idea of a journal from a blog actually from a North American woman called ‘Ten things you didn’t expect about hajj.’ It is actually very common to see people write their diaries at hajj. We saw people doing that all the time. It is the small things that you need to absorb while there. That’s why you keep it. (…) I used to keep notes such as: ‘Today I went to ʿArafa. This is how I felt.’ Since I returned, I looked at the diary many times. Every few months, I would read one entry. I highly recommend this. (P1)
Several things stand out in P1’s account: journalling for her is a very private activity, one that is meant to be the entry point into her psyche and her deepest feelings. The temporal element is also an important consideration. P1 accesses her diary ‘every few months’ and the document thus becomes not only an anchor that grounds her in her present condition but also a reminder of what she experienced while at the hajj. Lastly, P1’s impetus to keep a diary was a result of her online browsing and reading behaviour (of another pilgrim’s blog). In addition to journalling, other participants talked about documenting their journey through various means. P8 narrates a special moment that she has shared often with friends, the image and symbolism of which she has transposed into her artistic endeavours post-hajj:
Before hajj, I didn’t do any overly Islamic art form. I started to explore more after my first ʿumra. I started exploring Islam and art together. One of my favorite memories was being on the third floor of the mosque [in Mecca, nc] and looking at the birds making duʿāʾ. I was reminded of sūra al-Fīl [a chapter in the Qurʾan, nc], and I remember thinking: ‘Here I am here, 17, and my Prophet was here!’ You feel connected. This is me. I am so far removed from him [the Prophet Muhammad, nc], but I am not. (P8)
P1 and P8’s accounts illustrate the importance of reminiscing and sharing as a central part of meaning-making and community-building. Whether through Facebook groups, Instagram, YouTube or other social media platforms, my findings from the data highlight the importance of capturing, preserving, and sharing special moments and experiences with a range of publics (Kim, Caidi and Chah 2019; Thomson 2019; Forcier 2017). Sharing these hajj stories contributes both to the development of a personal identity and also signals membership within a broader community of practice. Ultimately, the artifacts created and curated (diaries, scrapbooks, selfies, videos, blogs, tweets, art pieces) are meaningful for those who produce them, and also allow Muslims to have agency in how they want to represent themselves and their relation to Islam, as is evident in the accounts below with their unapologetic tone about young Muslims’ rapport with technology:
We [he and the other pilgrims in his group, nc] didn’t really talk about it [filming, videotaping, nc]. It was just something we did. We had the video camera and the camera and we used it. We saw people filming. Everyone had a cellphone to communicate with the outside. They even took selfies. I did it too. This was an important place and we wanted to document that. (P3)
Now, with cell phones and smartphones, everyone takes pictures or videos. Even selfies. People take tons of selfies. We took one too. We posted the selfie on Facebook. To show friends and family, and also for fun. We were posing with the eye cam or with the site. (…) We are not paper people: we are all digital. We had everything on our phones. (P7)
I had an iPhone. In it, I also had a Qurʾan app and a hadith app. I downloaded these for facility and convenience. I also had a PDF reader because everything we had, like itinerary or forms, was in digital form. The map app was not working. We used the camera a lot: we took videos and pictures. We used Skype to communicate with our family back home. We also used WhatsApp for texting abroad without getting charged. On the Facebook app, I posted a few things while at hajj. Maybe 2–3 pictures. I posted the rest on Facebook when I returned, to share our experience with family and friends. Technology can be used for good or for bad. In our case, it was very good for us. We were able to store all in one place. It would have been too messy to go with paper, so we embraced the technology. (P8)
These examples show that mobile media pervade people’s lives, extending their everyday practices from managing calendars to sustaining remote friendships and accessing local/global news. For pilgrims (and young pilgrims in particular), their identities are increasingly enacted and negotiated online, and social media platforms are fostering environments where individuals of all faiths are expressing their social and religious identities by capitalizing on the power of global networks (de Sousa and da Rosa 2020; Caidi, Beazley and Marquez 2018; Golan and Martini 2018; Echchaibi 2013; El-Nawawy and Khamis 2009; Eickelman and Anderson 2003). Some online blogs and YouTube videos recount personal hajj experiences and provide important information to pilgrims. Local authorities and regional tech-businesses have produced multiple apps that aim to cater to pilgrims’ needs. While documenting one’s hajj is deemed essential for the purpose of meaning-making and remembering, communities of practice also shape the information-related practices, which includes uploading and consuming content but also sharing technology-related tips. P8 recounts:
We were provided with [a] mini-Qurʾan that we could transport in our purses, but it gave me headaches the small fonts. Instead, I had the Qurʾan app. It is great! You can bookmark it, make annotations. Qurʾan is not just a book; it is content that you can access anytime. It is very useful if you know how to use it. We taught my mom how to use the Qurʾan app on her phone but she would still not use it at hajj. She is not as literate with the technology. (P8)
P8’s account is a good example of new media practices and related literacies developed by young pilgrims. The account however also hints at tensions and fault lines (the refusal of P8’s mother to use the Qurʾan app, as to not alter the sanctity of the place or of her own experience). There were several occurrences in the data that displayed this tension between religious and information behaviours. Several participants have echoed P10’s sentiment (below) toward selfie-taking, which she deems disruptive and unworthy of the holy sites:
I am concerned that the Kaʿba will become like the Eiffel Tower. That is not why we go there. I understand that people want to document being in front of the Kaʿba, but I am worried. If it were once or twice, then OK, but I saw people taking pictures and selfies every single day. (P10)
Moreover, the reception of, and reactions toward, these digital artefacts as produced and shared by participants (given the technology available circa 2017) varied a fair bit. P3, who took videos and photographs to document and share his hajj, recalls an unexpected reaction:
I was showing my cousin what I videotaped around the Kaʿba. He said: ‘I thought this was a journey between you and God, why would you show me this? You are showing this on YouTube and to your family on the computer. Why?’ I was angry inside at this comment. My thought was to bring a memory from when I did [hajj, nc]. To show the Kaʿba both for myself and to share. We are living in the age of technology, and we live with it. (P3)
When his cousin questioned his media practices (e.g., filming a video while at the Kaʿba and sharing it with others), P3 felt attacked. His anger stems from the collapsing of one’s faith/spirituality with one’s information practice. P8 provides another example of tensions arising post-hajj. In this case, P8 was coming to terms with a newfound interest in Sufism and was reluctant to share this widely (perhaps out of fear of conflict or negative judgment, given some perceptions about Sufism within Islam):
The essence of the journey remains mysterious. Hajj is a blessing, but I also realized that I was interested in this broader humanity. [participant appears uncomfortable and hesitant for long seconds before resuming his train of thought, nc.] I am fascinated by Sufism. Lately, I have been reading about it. I have even considered going to the Festival of Sacred Music in Morocco. These are things that interest me now. (P8)
For P8, there seems to exist a meaningful link (whether conscious or not) between his pilgrimage journey, his continued spiritual learning, and the growth that ensued even if his path did not fit the standard narrative expected of a new ḥājjī. This quest for meaning post-hajj led P8 and several other participants to seek solace in consuming (even binge-watching at times) various media content. As the quotes below suggest, the purpose is to remember and even reconnect with a state they had experienced while at hajj:
There is this one channel, al-Mubashir [a Saudi livestreaming channel of hajj, nc]. I put it on my computer and concentrate on that, and it makes me very energetic. It helped me a lot since I returned. I see the live transmission of hajj and it reminds me of my own experience there. (P6)
I used the satellite dish to watch Saudi Arabia channels, especially scenes of Mecca, to remember. It was like a sanctuary. (P10)
As per the examples above, audiovisual media (along with live-streaming and YouTube videos) can act as a prompt and a refuge for pilgrims seeking to recall those ephemeral yet profound moments they experienced. Consuming video and other media as a means of reliving sensations has been documented elsewhere. Merchant (2011, 68), for example, reports how scuba diving students who were presented with video footage were able to recall ‘physical responses to sounds and images’ about their diving experiences. Several quotes from the participants in this study offer similar evidence of information activity associated with viscerally remembering pilgrimage, which suggests the important role such activities have on the post-hajj phase. Indeed, it seems that information activities such as seeking, consuming, and sharing content are not just cognitive practices, but are also associated with recalling emotions and sensations, as if one were present there once again. For participants, their engagement with media is an extension of their emotional and embodied experience at the hajj. By recreating this state, participants were able to reflect more deeply on their personal transformation, as exemplified by the quote below:
What really changed me, in me, is that I really detached from the material aspects of life. I have already changed since I returned from hajj, because when you are surrounded by this [post-hajj, nc] environment, you need a tune-up. I see hajj as being like a gas station to allow you to fuel up a bit. There is this life and the life in the hereafter. One should enjoy life’s pleasures but not forget to invest in the hereafter. If I don’t have any gas left, I need to fill the tank again and put more fuel to replenish. Since I have been to hajj, it has become a therapy. I have spoken to friends of mine, and when they ask me about hajj, I always talk to them about these benefits. (P9)
P9’s account illustrates a recasting that is typical of many participants’ accounts. It is most evident when pilgrims draw comparisons, as they frequently do, between hajj and back home. The newly acquired insights and experiences position the pilgrims as valuable sources of information for others. In the next section, I examine how pilgrims’ information practices allow them to not only reflect on their personal transformation post-hajj, but also to navigate and negotiate their social identity as a member of the broader umma.
4.2 Information Activities as Community-Maintenance Rituals
When you are doing prayers with all these Muslims around you, millions are gathered. It is overwhelming and humbling. It is incredible how much this religion has spread over the world and touched so many people. It washes over you when you are there. (P4)
P4’s account of this connected experience with other pilgrims during hajj is a recurring theme in the data and is well documented in pilgrimage scholarship. In the previous section, there was ample evidence of the personal identity work that the 12 pilgrims engaged in upon return from hajj, including how their information practices mediated that phase of their lives (remembering, reflecting, moving forward). Additionally, participants spoke about finding their place in their community and society upon return, especially given their newly acquired status as Ḥājji or Ḥājja. The process of developing a social identity associated with a religious or spiritual activity often unfolds in stages as participants prepare to enter the social world (the hajj), then become socialized into it, and finally participate and perform their identity both in and beyond the social world (Stebbins 2009, 626–627; Green and Jones 2005, 172). Information activities associated with the post-hajj phase include the communication of information and knowledge in the form of community-maintenance rituals, replete with such activities as ‘exchange (or social exchange), interaction, dialogue and conversation’ (Savolainen 2017, 48). I find several indications of such engagement in participants’ accounts, and our data suggest that different modes of engagement are activated, most notably through the pilgrim’s body, as well as through their knowledge-brokering role. The participants shared the myriad ways in which they tended to their bodies:
Before I did the hajj, I used to sometimes miss the prayer times. I no longer do this. I used to be more flexible about avoiding something slightly sinful. Now I keep reminders to avoid. My wife noticed these changes, especially the waking up on time for all fajr (early morning) prayers. (P12)
The status of Ḥājja is important in our community. So, one has to preserve that image, and the responsibilities that come with it: you cannot go dancing, can’t go to mixed gender weddings. One hears of these remarks: ‘She is a Ḥājja’ It becomes problematic for youth, especially girls, because they start thinking that they are not ready to go to hajj because then they will no longer be able to do this or that. (…) So, I was a Ḥājja, yes. It was an even bigger deal in Morocco, when I went to visit. It mattered even more there. It was a prestigious status. But I did hajj for myself, and for Allah. Not to get a Ḥājja status. (P10)
In P12 and P10’s accounts, the work on the body (and the mind) required to wake up for fajr prayers and for effecting change required of a Ḥājja is illustrative of Wacquant (2005)’s notion that the body is ‘not only socially constructed … but socially constructing’ (454). Within the social world of hajj, pilgrims exchange social information through various means including their grooming conventions (growing a beard for the men, wearing the hijab for women), manner of physical presentation (dressing more modestly), and engaging in—or refraining from—certain practices (such as dancing, eating non-halal, or shaking the hand of a member of the opposite sex). These types of activities socially construct and serve to demarcate status (Mackellar 2009; Kane and Zink 2004) within the social world of pilgrims. In other words, pilgrims’ bodies become informational, and they establish their newly acquired social position in a given social context (Wacquant 2011; Lizardo and Strand 2010, 209; Goffman 2008; Howson and Inglis 2001; Bourdieu 1984).
The quote below by one of the female pilgrims (P4) illustrates both how status is acquired within the community and the risk involved in going against set norms and values:
Prior to the trip, I was adamant about not wearing the hijab. I don’t need it to be a Muslim and to believe. After a month of wearing a hijab there, I almost didn’t want to take it off. I wore it after I got back for a while. I wore it on a regular basis for 4–5 months when at work or at my uncle’s house. Then, about a month ago, I stopped wearing it. People asked me what happened, and whether I had lost my faith. No, it is just a piece of fabric on my head. I stopped wearing it because when you come back [from hajj, nc], it is all fresh. You want to be a better person, make Allah happy, etc. A few months went by and you realize it is a lot harder to wear because it is not just about the scarf, it is about how you carry yourself; how you speak to others; how you conduct yourself. I was struggling with that. It was too much. I was thinking I would be at peace, but I did not feel that peace. I struggled with it and it became too stressful. It was too much for me, and I wasn’t happy. I would like to bring it [the hijab, nc] back someday. So, I try to embrace the meaning of the hijab without wearing it. But at least I made some other changes: now I only eat halal food, whereas before I used to love eating burgers at Wendy’s. No more of that. (P4)
In P4’s account, becoming a Ḥājja involved both performing particular embodied tasks, like refraining from certain reprehensible actions (such as eating non-halal meats) and acquiring the habitus or physical disposition of a Ḥājja, as in looking like one (in this case, sporting a hijab). It is expected that, over time, pilgrims develop specific literacies in their practice of their faith, notably when it comes to adhering to conventional or prevalent beliefs around morality or lifestyle. That is, pilgrims establish social position from the acquisition of certain capital that is endowed with status within their particular context (Leschziner and Green 2013; Wacquant 2004; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). By not complying with such rules, P4’s spirituality and religious status are questioned (‘People asked me what happened, and whether I had lost my faith’), and her religious capital appears to be depleted. I elaborate on this notion of religious capital below. Specifically, I seek to augment the notion of religious capital beyond ways of being (Finke and Dougherty 2002) to include ways of knowing, which refers to the extent to which the pilgrim is able to assess the credibility of the information accessed, to navigate complex information environments, and to become a trusted source of meaningful and relevant information for others. This form of knowledge-brokering is thus conceptualized as an important aspect of community-maintenance rituals and an essential dimension of religious capital for twenty-first-century pilgrims (Caidi 2020).
5 Information Activities as a Form of Capital Building
Depictions of hajj have existed for a very long time and remain relatively consistent in their representations of hajj-as-a-sacred place with its sanctity mostly untouched by capital, politics, and class divides (Cooke and Lawrence 2005). This is most evident in the retelling of stories about one’s hajj, but also appears in the framing of online hajj narratives, such as through selfies—with their focus on the sacred sites and symbols and away from the rampant Meccan consumerism (Caidi, Beazley and Marquez 2018). Whether conscious or not, this longing for an otherworldly space is reproduced and disseminated by hajj pilgrims, thus lending legitimacy to the pilgrim and increasing their religious capital.
Scholars have long been discussing different types of capital such as body capital (for example, in sports (Wacquant 1995)) or emotional capital (see Reay 2004 in educational settings). For Bourdieu (1987), religious capital is the amount of knowledge and practice pertaining to religious culture one can bring to bear and the extent to which these determine one’s hierarchical status in the religious field. Finke’s (2003, 3) definition provides nuance: he refers to ‘the degree of mastery of and attachment to a particular religious culture’, which includes both the knowledge needed to participate fully, along with ‘the strengthening of emotional ties’ (see also Baker and Smith 2014; Finke and Dougherty 2002). As a multimodal sensory experience, hajj is hard to fully convey to non-pilgrims. P10 and other pilgrims in our study spoke about the importance of experiential, lived knowledge to fully comprehend this life-altering journey:
The hajj, you do not prepare for it on the day of departure. You have to do a lot of that work of sifting through your life and your soul much earlier and decide on what you want to change and improve in your life. After we came back, we were thinking, my sister and I, of creating a website containing advice and tips about how to truly prepare for hajj. (P10)
P6 recalled the valuable role of information and stories gleaned from family, friends, and the broader umma (online) as they prepared for their hajj:
I heard stories from people about how to manage things. Some had done it recently, but others did it maybe 4–5 years ago. These other pilgrims gave me information: they told me about the Maqām Ibrāhīm and al-Ḥajar al-Aswad (Black Stone). (P6)
Cooke and Lawrence (2005) point to the travel literature genre from the tenth to fifteenth centuries that emerged as a means of describing the hajj to those unable to otherwise perform it for themselves—an early form of a proxy (Sourdel and Sourdel-Thomine 2006). Social media provide an extension for this tradition in that they facilitate access to, and sharing of, hajj-related information as a means of perpetuating the collective imaginary about hajj (Caidi and Karim 2022). Whether face to face or through social media, participants capitalized on a range of channels and platforms to share their experiences with a broad set of publics, using stories, images, and metadata (captions or tags) to describe the mood of the moment, thus documenting the temporal, spatial, and spiritual experiences of pilgrims. Because social media artefacts are also designed for public consumption, they stand as evidence of the pilgrim’s religious positioning and membership into the faith: the hajj pilgrim is in effect ‘outed’ as Muslim by the mere fact of posting such information. This was most evident in North American participants’ accounts, who seemed more aware of privacy settings when sharing their pictures and videos online (perhaps as a result of being a Muslim in the West post 9/11).
Participants shared many accounts of how they became mentors and sources of information for friends and would-be pilgrims online and in their community:
Some of my friends have wanted to talk to me. For something more personal and spiritual. My own, real account of my experiences there. Because we are similar, maybe they trust me. I know that the technical things, they can get elsewhere. So, I tell them: it is not easy. There is a reason Allah wipes away your sins: because it is not easy. As time goes by, we want instant gratification, and when things don’t go the way we want, we get upset. So, I tell them: ‘It is not a vacation, it is God’s invitation. Not something that you can get your own invitation to. It is a big deal; it is an honor.’ (P8)
What the participants engaged in is a tailoring of information to their specific audience. I noted several instances of this practice throughout the data. At times, the audience is live, as in the case of P8; at other times, though, the audience is imagined, as when pilgrims share blog entries, photos, and videos online. Either way, pilgrims become facilitators and intermediaries for others. This role of knowledge-broker (with its emphasis on the curation and filtering aspects) refers to the ability of a pilgrim to provide vetted and trusted information based on one’s lived experiences. This form of capital is not only one that is derived from one’s knowledge about the hajj, but also from one’s ability and skills to navigate the information environment and provide usable and meaningful information on a needed basis. The value added by each specific pilgrims’ account is their personal insights, the references to the various sources mentioned, and the willingness to both inform and inspire others. Some go even further, such as P5 who recounts how he became aware of his own bias (as a Western-born and raised Muslim) against what he perceived to be an overly materialistic and consumeristic Mecca. P5’s account encapsulates his own meaning-making around his situated hajj experience.
From a Western perspective, we are coming from a particular standing. We don’t necessarily want to see our own reality and lifestyle replicated when we are going to do the hajj. Whereas, for people from other parts of the world, that pilgrim will have positive experience of the hajj also because of the tiled floors, the AC, the McDonald’s, the tall hotels. For some of us, that is a negative thing. We don’t want to see so much similarity with our daily environment. For others, it is not. I can imagine it being quite incredible for people coming from elsewhere, a poorer country, and for them this would be a positive thing, a part of the hajj experience. (P5)
When reflecting on their post-hajj experience, several female participants related the ways in which their religious capital was often linked to (or enabled by) their bodies (as in wearing a hijab, or behaving in expected ways). This mediation seemed important for effectively bridging into their knowledge-brokering roles. P1 recalls:
I talked to many women and friends, and I encourage people to do hajj when they are young and healthy. Spiritually and physically, the hajj is very demanding. Better to do it when one is able and healthy. My wearing hijab triggered lots of interest and conversation. Women are not well informed about wearing or not hijab after hajj. Even I did not speak to people other than my parents and my husband’s parents before hajj, because I didn’t want any pressure: if you go to hajj, you will have to wear hijab, or do this or do that. Doing hajj is actually easy in North America. It is also less judgmental. At my age, in Pakistan, people would have said: ‘Wear the hijab, no sleeveless outfits, etc.’ Here, you can have access to resources and advice without being judged. Our imams are well educated, and have no qualms about being open and liberal about things. (P1)
When I returned from hajj, people asked me about my hijab out of curiosity. I am comfortable with who I am. My clothes are also slightly more modest than before. Most of my friends have not gone yet to hajj. Many are not planning to go until they are married. I became their source for information about hajj preparation. Like me, people thought that hajj was only ṭawāf, then they saw me posting pictures, like when in Muzdalifa, they could see there are lots of things that you have to do in hajj. (P7)
All the tour leaders are men. This did not make sense to me. I didn’t like that. (…) Having men as tour leaders is also an issue when you have to ask about what is to be done when, for example, you have your periods [and what to do in terms of rituals when menstruating, nc]. There was one lady available for questions like that, so of course the information took longer to obtain because many wanted to speak with her or felt more comfortable approaching her than a man. (P7)
As these examples illustrate, participants’ lived experiences make them ideally suited for disseminating insights and information within their circles. Their knowledge practices contribute to the shaping of the next generation of pilgrims in the same way that the experiences of those who came before them affected their expectations and associated information practices. Despite the limited size of the sample, it is evident that pilgrims’ literacies and modes of engagement continue to incorporate, even after return from hajj, the communicative and social aspect of human information activities (Irvine-Smith 2017). Other potential pilgrims’ learning is critically shaped by the imageries of hajj presented in narrative and practice by those who have returned from hajj.
6 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have examined different examples of pilgrims’ information activities upon return from hajj, as the core activity of making sense of their journey. It is also clear that information practices are important not just for one’s personal growth and identity-building but also for the construction of one’s social identity. Too often, studies of information behaviour have paid attention to specific, short-term interactions rather than the evolving information environment over time and how this contributes to the (re)shaping of one’s identity (see Guzik 2018; 2017). As my data suggest, upon return Ḥājjīs and Ḥājjas are tasked with developing both a personal and social identity through different modes of engagement: through their body, their actions, and their ability to curate and impart knowledge onto others. Becoming a pilgrim is thus constituted holistically within situated rituals and embodied practices that transcend both individual (cognitive, affective) and social processes (through shared imaginaries and a wide network of people and resources). I argue that trust and community bonds shape the flow of information thus reconstituting capital, and I invite a deeper reflection on how community membership through the status of Ḥājji or Ḥājja is a form of religious capital that requires evidence of particular ways of being and of knowing.
This chapter contributes to a growing interest in understanding the role of information practices for larger sociological processes that include interpretations of the meanings held by communities, and the ways in which information practices persist and build capital. These insights highlight the importance of studying how people engage in knowledge production and collective learning within communities. In analysing the embeddedness of information and communication technologies in the spiritual realms, this research reveals the social nature of these contexts and the various shared practices and routinized behaviours that pilgrims are ingrained in and that help constitute their existence in ways that are both social and intimate.
References
Baker, Christopher, and Greg Smith. 2014. ‘Spiritual, religious and social capital—Exploring their dimensions and their relationship with faith-based motivation and participation in UK civil society.’ Accessed May 1, 2020. https://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Spiritual-Religious-Social-Capital-Baker-Smith.pdf.
General Authority of Statistics, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 2019. ‘Haj Statistics’. Accessed August 12, 2020. https://www.stats.gov.sa/en/28.