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 to humanity peace and happiness". She requested permission to perform the Hajj from King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, the ruler of Saudi Arabia. In 1933 at the age of 65 she visited Mecca, Madinah and attended the Hajj.
On seeing the Ka'aba, she recorded her experience in her diary. “We walk on the smooth marble towards the Holy of Holies, the House of Allah, the great black cube rising in simple majesty, the goal for which millions have forfeited their lives and yet more millions have found heaven in beholding it … the ‘Tawaf’ is a symbol, to use the words of the poet, of a lover making a circuit round the house of his beloved, completely surrendering himself and sacrificing all his interests for the sake of the Beloved. It is in that spirit of self-surrender that the pilgrim makes the ‘Tawaf’”
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.
A film by the Khalili Collection depicting the arts and crafts associated with the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
https://www.khalilicollections.org/islamic-arts/
