The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded a research project at the British Museum that underpinned their 2012 international exhibition Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam. Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam was the first major exhibition dedicated to the Hajj; the pilgrimage to Mecca which is central to the Muslim faith.
The AHRC funding enabled Dr Venetia Porter, Curator of the exhibition and based in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, to undertake multidisciplinary research particularly focusing on the history of the Hajj, the material culture associated with it and its contemporary religious and social aspects. This research project resulted in the information that is visible in the exhibition (textual information and in the multi-media guide) and in a multi-authored publication by leading scholars, and related academic papers.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/hajj
Photographer Peter Sanders goes in search of Lady Evelyn 'Zainab' Cobbold. Zainab Cobbold converted to Islam in the 1915s and came from a British aristocratic family. She remarked that she considered Islam "the religion most calculated to solve the world's many perplexing problems, and to bring t...
Masjid al Haram, or the Great Mosque of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, is the holiest site in the Muslim world. “In Arabic, Harām means sinful or forbidden, but with a slight inflection in pronunciation it also means sanctuary and sacred,” says filmmaker and creative director Kazim Rashid. “It is this c...
Swiss broadcaster, RTS - Radio Télévision Suisse, present rare archive footage from the Haram al Sharif during the Hajji pilgrimage in 1970. A fascinating view of the sacred precinct in comparison with the modernisation, development and transformation that as taken place over the decades.
