TY - JOUR
TI - Among the Pilgrims, but Not of Them – Individualist Intellectuals on Their Pilgrimage to Mecca
AU - Badry, Roswitha
TI - Among the Pilgrims, but Not of Them – Individualist Intellectuals on Their Pilgrimage to Mecca
AB - 
	How does an individualist and skeptical intellectual who is not religious in the usual sense experience the pilgrimage to Mecca in modern times, when he or she is only one among a huge mass of pilgrims? In order to offer an answer to this question, this contribution will look at two literary texts which are quite different in terms of author, time, and genre, but show a number of similarities in terms of observations, impressions, reflections, and feelings. The first is Lost in the Crowd, the travel diary published by the Iranian thinker Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923–1969) in 1966 on his Hajj experiences in 1964; the second is the novel Fitna by the Emirati author Amira al-Qahtani, which appeared in 2007 and takes the pilgrimage as a frame-story. It will be argued that Al-e Ahmad established a discursive tradition that had an impact on religious doubters in Iran and beyond. 
VL - 2020
IS - Volume 15, Issue 3
PY - 2020
SN - 1897-3035
C1 - 2084-3933
SP - 165
EP - 178
DO - 10.4467/20843933ST.20.013.12175
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/studia-litteraria-uic/article/among-the-pilgrims-but-not-of-them-individualist-intellectuals-on-their-pilgrimage-to-mecca
KW - Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj)
KW - Jalal Al-e Ahmad
KW - Lost in the Crowd
KW - Amira al-Qahtani
KW - Fitna
KW - religious skepticism
KW - socio-political criticism