Young - The Kaba, Gender, and The Rites of Pilgrimage PDF

The Kaba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage
Author(s): William C. Young

Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 285-
300
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 25 (1993), 285-300. Printed in the United States of America
William C. Young
THE KACBA, GENDER, AND THE RITES

OF PILGRIMAGE
This article examines the role gender plays in the pilgrimage

turn of this century. I argue, as a student of local cultures r
universalistic Islamic beliefs, that portions of the hajj at
significance for Arab Muslims in and near the Hijaz. Ara
dressed, and even dressed the Kacba like a bride. By ascri
teristics to the Kacba, they temporarily transformed h
constructed an alternative model of gender that could be util
and renegotiating gender roles in everyday life.
My argument extends the research on gender that is centra
nographies of Islamic Arab societies, some of which offer de
links between ritual and gender.' Most of these studies docum
ual inequality in Islamic societies, looking for a connect
equalities and Islam.2 One important idea emerging from
connection cannot be based on religious texts. Earlier writers
tive Muslims and European Orientalists, ascribed the patte
tween the sexes in the Muslim world to the Qur'an, construc
based image of gender in Islamic societies. Muslim men,
with Qur'anic patriarchal authority, were said to have pus
out of every important position and space.3 But this image d
textual variation and made "Muslim patriarchy" appear un
less. Modern scholars recognize that the extent to which I
implement Qur'anic prescriptions varies greatly, and that
authority in some particular can be ignored or countered wit
is important to observe actual behavior when studying gende
the messages about gender that are transmitted in Islamic ri
Although gender in pilgrimage rites in other parts of the I
studied, almost no research about gender in the pilgrim
done.5 One article, by Delaney,6 does describe rituals of depa
from the hajj that were performed in Turkey. Delaney show
are assigned peripheral roles in these rites and concludes from
pilgrimage reinforces women's marginality. But this concl
William C. Young teaches anthropology at the Institute of Archaeology an

University, Irbid, Jordan.
? 1993 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/93 $5.00 + .00
286 William C. Young
One could also argue that women's mundane roles in Turkey differ from their rit-
ual roles while in Mecca and that the Turkish rites of return are designed to reim-
pose these mundane, marginal roles on women after their pilgrimage. Altorki,
another anthropologist, describes the reinterpretation of hajj traditions, showing
how elite Saudi women have gained greater freedom to make the hajj unaccompa-
nied by close male relatives.7 She does not, however, analyze the rite itself.
Victor Turner, an anthropologist who studied pilgrimage, argued that the hajj
belongs to a class of rituals defined by Van Gennep as "rites of passage." Accord-
ing to Turner, rites of passage invert or contradict the norms of ordinary social
life; they temporarily transform the "structure" of society into "antistructure."8 It
is tempting to regard the hajj as antistructural, not the least because Muslim exeg-
ists themselves sometimes stress features of the rite that overturn social distinc-
tions (between rich and poor and governors and governed) and replace them with
the hierarchy of piety (ex., imam vs. ma'mum during salat). Turner deserves credit
for raising the issue of how the hajj is related to the social order. But for a detailed
analysis of the hajj, Turner's perspective is too global.
First, Turner found rites of passage almost everywhere, claiming that every tran-
sition from one state to another entails an intermediary, liminal phase that has an-
tistructural characteristics.9 Thus, he ultimately blurred the distinction between
ritual and other patterned forms of social interaction. This vitiates analysis; one can
hardly ask about the relationship between ritual and nonritual if no clear distinction
between them is established. Second, he defined antistructure by opposing it to a
global "social structure," which includes any and all features of social organ-
ization. But there is no reason to assume that every social institution or cultural pat-
tern is reflected (or reversed) in each of a society's rites of passage. A single ritual
might refer to only a small range of social relations. A more discriminating ap-
proach to the hajj would focus on a clearly bounded set of ritual elements and then
examine their implications for a particular social phenomenon.
To do this I have drawn upon Van Gennep's notion of the liminal phase, a stage
in a rite of passage when ordinary social conventions are suspended. I argue that
the objects and spaces used during the liminal phase of the hajj formed a structure
(as conceived by Levi-Strauss, Dumont, El Guindi, Valeri, and other structuralist
writers).10 Then I relate this structure to gender during the hajj in the early 20th
century. I have chosen this particular period because it produced some of the most
complete eyewitness accounts of what pilgrims actually did, as opposed to what
normative manuals told them to do.
My focus is on specifically Arab constructions of gender during the pilgrimage.
Although the hajj is full of meaning for all Muslims, it is not understood in ex-
actly the same way by Muslims everywhere and at every time. Muslims with
different cultural backgrounds inevitably view it differently," and the hajj itself
changes over time, at least in some details.12 So it is proper to concentrate on its
significance for one Islamic culture during one historical period. Arabs played the
largest part in organizing the pilgrimage at the start of this century. Although
Turkish-speaking Ottomans were also involved and understood the aspects of the
hajj mentioned in the Qur'an, they could not learn its gender-specific details-
such as the Arabic names for the parts of the kiswa, the colors and types of cloth
The Kacba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage 287
used to make it, the duties of the male attendants of the haram, and so on-
without mastery of Arabic and careful study of specialized traditions. Thus, the
gender-linked phases of the hajj fell to Arab specialists.
If we grant that Arabs (rather than Turkish or Persian speakers) named, made,
and decorated the kiswa and directed the gender-linked activities of the hajj, the
question is, which Arabs? I do not wish to speak only of the Arabs of Mecca or
the Hijaz, since the hajj was not produced by only one city or province; Syrian
and Egyptian officials also had important roles in it. There are good reasons for in-
cluding the Arabs of Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine as well. These areas were all
once parts of the Mamluk empire, the last pre-Ottoman state to rule Mecca and the
one which introduced the mahmal and the still-current conventions for decorating
the Kacba.1'3 Thus, these Arab lands formed a historical unit with a certain conti-
nuity of tradition. Another reason for singling out this area (and broadening it to
include Najd and Yemen) is that it was directly in contact with Mecca. People liv-
ing close to the Hijaz (in Egypt, Jordan, southern Syria, and so on) were more
likely to learn about the pilgrimage from personal experience or from neighbors
and relatives who had gone to Mecca than were Arabs living elsewhere. Because
the gender-linked details of the hajj were not prescribed by any authoritative text
they were not often learned through reading. This kind of knowledge was based
on direct experience, which meant that its spread was limited by distance.
If these were the Arabs who constructed special gender roles for the pilgrimage,
what were these roles? They involved decorating, addressing, and naming the ob-
jects and spaces inside the haram, as well as interacting with the opposite sex.
GENDER AND THE KACBA
The Kiswa
The Kacba was the center of a number of annual rites: the transport of the mahm
and kiswa from Cairo, the replacement of the old kiswa with a new one, and
ihram of the Kacba. The kiswa, clearly, was a key element in these rites. Most Eu
ropean studies of the kiswa are descriptive and do not attempt to explain why it
hung on the Kacba. Three exceptions are studies by Wellhausen, Wensinck, a
Burton.
Wellhausen suggested that Muslims draped the Kacba with black cloth in order
symbolically to claim that God still dwelled in a tent, a belief supposedly rooted
in the Arabs' bedouin past and nomadic religious traditions which, in turn, were
supposed to be analogous to Jewish religious traditions at an early, nomadic stage
in history.14 These ideas were based entirely on his reading of 2 Samuel 7:5-6:
"Shalt thou build Me a house for me to dwell in? for I have not dwelt in a house
since the day that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to th
day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle." But this comparison of th
kiswa with the tabernacle is not valid. It assumes that the tribes of Israel wor-
shiped in a portable cloth tabernacle because they were nomads. This is not
case. Before the exodus, nomadic Jewish worshipers often constructed immovabl
stone altars wherever they pitched their tents (see Genesis 12:8, 33:19-20). It
only during the exodus that the tabernacle was constructed (Exodus 25:8), and that
period was not a nomadic stage in Jewish sacred history but a time of penance.
Because the tabernacle served as a guide during the penitential wanderings of the
Jews in the wilderness (Exodus 40:36-38), it signified penance, not nomadism;
the replacement of the tabernacle by the temple signified the end of penance.
Wensinck's explanation of the kiswa suggested that the Kacba was covered with
colored cloth as a reference to "the sun shining in the heavens."'5 This interpreta-
tion, which Wensinck supports by referring to the Kacba's pre-Islamic astral sym-
bolism, harks back to Max Mueller's search for the origins of religion in the
deification of the sun, stars, and other awe-inspiring natural phenomena. It too is
not convincing. First of all, it focuses exclusively on the comparatively small part
of the kiswa that is colored; there are, it is true, shining panels of embroidery in
the kiswa made of gold thread, but most of the kiswa is black. Second, it invokes
a connection with pre-Islamic astral symbols without explaining why these sym-
bols would be retained for fourteen centuries after the emergence of Islam. Fi-
nally, it relies on a link between this isolated feature (color) and natural objects
that are completely external to the Muslim pilgrimage. Indeed, this assertion of an
arbitrary connection between one aspect of the Ka'ba and some external phe-
nomenon is also found in Wellhausen's explanation. Both leap abruptly from one
datum (the fact that the kiswa is made of cloth, in Wellhausen's case, and the color
of the kiswa in Wensinck's) to some unrelated object (nomadism, stars) without
seeking to relate this datum to any other aspect of the Ka'ba.
Richard Burton was perhaps the first Western observer to see the kiswa as an
element in a symbolic system. He noticed other symbolic objects that were parts
of the kiswa, such as the "belts" (ahzima) and "veil" (burqu'), and realized that
the Kacba was "dressed" as if it were a bride. This important insight was obscured
by his laconic explanation; he said that "the origin of this custom must be sought
in the ancient practice of typifying the church visible by a virgin or bride."'6 Bur-
ton's one-sentence interpretation reminds us of a metaphor common to both the
Christian and Jewish traditions, according to which the relation between bride and
groom is homologous to the relation between the community of believers and God
(or His visible manifestation). For Christians, the church is a "bride" under the au-
thority of a "groom," that is, Christ; for Jews, the Jewish community is a "bride"
under the authority of the Torah. In both metaphors, men and women are members
of a sacred community-a collective "bride" that is obedient to God-while the
profane authority of men over women is reduced. The metaphors are built on a set
of relationships and equivalences. The relationship between God's manifestation
(Christ, the Torah) and the (sexually undifferentiated) community of believers is
like the relationship between groom and bride, in that the latter is supposed to be
obedient to the former:
God's manifestation / men + women ::

groom / bride ::
authority / obedient worshipers
Obviously, the bride or "church visible" in this metaphor is a community, not a

building. So to fit Burton's formula, the Kacba would have to be symbolically
identified as God's manifestation in opposition to a bride (the Muslim commu-

nity). But the hajj ascribes "bridelike" features to the Ka'ba, not the community.
Despite the failure of Burton's interpretation, it was an advance over the others
because it focused on the relations among elements in a symbolic system rather
than on the elements in isolation. Can Burton's explanation be salvaged? Yes, but
this requires a more careful examination of three kinds of ritual acts: those which
(1) "serve" the Kacba, (2) "dress" the Kacba, and (3) "address" the Kacba.
The First Data Set: Serving the Ka'ba
Each year, some forty days before the hajj, an elaborate procession through the
streets of Cairo was organized which began the transfer of the kiswa (garment)
from Cairo to Mecca. Ibrahim Rifcat Basha, the amir al-hajj in 1903, 1904, and
1908, described it in detail:
On the twenty-sixth of Shawwal the mahmal was taken out of its storage place at the Ministry
of Finance and was moved in boxes mounted on wheels to the 'Inn of the Lady' (wakailat al-
sitt) in [the neighborhood ofl al-Jamaliyya ... the kiswa of the Kacba was also moved ...
from the place where it is manufactured, in al-Khurunfish, to a stone platform in Salah al-Din
Square.... The kiswa was transported on the shoulders of porters. It was surrounded by
guards and . . . accompanied by a band that was playing melodious tunes and by Egyptian
mizmdr [flute] players who had been appointed to travel along with the mahmal.... [Earlier
the author says that these mizmar players are known as al-furayhiyya, "the people of joy."]
The procession went ... to the sabll of Katkhoda, close to al-Nahhasin, where it was met by
the mahmal, . . . which ordinarily would be coming from the 'Inn of the Lady' ... on the back
of a camel.... The mahmal was made ... in the shape of a hawdaj....
This procession was one of many in which the mahmal and kiswa were conveyed to
Cairo's railway station, from which it would be sent to Suez and thence to Mecca.'7
Rifcat's text contains three possible references to women. The first is in the name
of the place where the mahmal was displayed, the "Inn of the Lady." Rifcat writes
this name in quotation marks to indicate that it is a colloquialism, but gives no ex-
planation of it. His description of the streets through which the procession passed,
however, allows us to identify the place. It is a small building with the official
name of wakalat waqf al-haramayn (the travel agency/inn of the pious endowment
for the two sanctuaries), now designated number 598 by the Egyptian Department
of Antiquities, about eighty meters due west of the mosque of Sultan Barquq. Pil-
grim caravans used to depart from Cairo at a point not far from this building.'8
If we grant that this building is the wakalat al-sitt, who is "the lady" to whom
its colloquial name referred? One would expect that if the lady were a historical
personage her name would be preserved along with her title. This was certainly
the case for Sayyida Zaynab, for example, whose name is attached to a mosque in
Cairo. Since the building's official name referred to travel to the haramayn, it
seems possible that the colloquial name did, also. Perhaps the people of Cairo
spoke of the mahmal, the "traveler" to Mecca, as if it were a lady.
A second reference to gender in Rifcat's description was the name for the musi-
cians accompanying the mahmal: al-furayhiyya. This name was one of a set of terms
that literally meant "joy" but in Egypt denoted weddings. The word for "wedding"
was farah; "wedding clothes" were libs farayhi.19 Wedding processions in Egypt
were always accompanied by musicians,20 so by applying the term al-furayhiyya to
the musicians walking next to the mahmal, Rif'at was associating them with both
joy and wedding processions. This terminological association was not the only con-
nection; the mahmal was also decorated with the same materials used in a wedding.
It was covered with black silk and festooned with ostrich plumes, the same mate-
rials used to clothe a bride in Cairo when she was escorted in procession to her new
home.21 The use of these decorations in the two processions suggest an analogy, as
if the mahmal procession, like a wedding procession, conveyed a bride (the mah-
mal?) to her new home (Mecca?). Rifcat's final indirect reference to gender was his
comment that the mahmal was a kind of hawdaj. The word hawdaj has a strong se-
mantic link with women; standard Arabic dictionaries define hawdaj as "a mahmal
[palanquin] with a dome on top in which women [al-nisa'] ride."22
None of these folk traditions affirmed in a literal sense that the Kacba was a
woman or a bride. At most, they assigned feminine names to the objects associ
ated with the Kacba (such as the "inn," the kiswa, and the mahmal) to make them
appear feminine in contrast to the spectators and celebrants. It was the contrast be
tween feminized and nonfeminized elements that was significant. This contra
also emerged in the rites performed in Mecca at the turn of the century.
On 15 Dhu al-Qacda, after the mahmal had arrived in Mecca, the door of the
Kacba was opened for visitors. Only men were allowed to enter during the day-
time, and only women entered at night.23 This rite did not ascribe female gender to
the Ka'ba but merely separated males from females in space and time. There was
no comparable separation of the sexes at any other point in the hajj. During its
other phases, men and women were kept apart by other means: they were sepa-
rated by the aghawat. The aghawat were ritual specialists attached to the haram.
They were responsible for performing forty-two distinct services, most of which
involved cleaning the area near the Ka'ba and ritually purifying the walkway
around it when it became polluted. They would also greet foreign dignitaries who
came to perform the hajj and generally act as hosts.
During the pilgrimage the aghawdt had five other tasks: (1) keeping men and
women apart when they were circumambulating the Ka'ba; (2) moving women
outside of the walkway (ma.df) where circumambulation was done when the
prayer was being performed there (men were allotted space for prayer in the rows
close to the Ka'ba, while women worshiped farther away from it); (3) directing
women who were circumambulating the Ka'ba to leave the walkway whenever the
call to prayer was made; (4) standing in front of the preacher (khatib) while he
was speaking; and (5) collecting entrance fees from the men and women pilgrims
who sought to enter the Ka'ba on the days when it was opened. These specialists
were eunuchs, originally purchased as slaves by the Ottoman government in Ethi-
opia and Sudan. They were called aghiiawdt out of respect; the word is Turkish for
"elder siblings" and, by analogy, "elders, chiefs, masters." The Ottomans also
used it to designate the eunuchs of the sultan's palace.24
The aghdwdat's services during the hajj fell into two sets: (1) services performed
for pilgrims who were in a state of ritual liminality (ihriim), and (2) services per-
formed for pilgrims who were both liminal (muhrimiin) and ritually purified
(mutawaddiiun).
Liminality (ihrdm) began for the pilgrims at designated points (al-miqdt) out-
side of Mecca and continued for the duration of the pilgrimage. Men replaced
their ordinary clothing with two unsewn wraps, the izdr (which fell from the waist
to the feet) and rida' (which covered one shoulder and the upper body). A woman,
also, had to change her clothing. If she usually wore a face veil (niqdb) she re-
moved it, but continued to cover her head and hair; it was recommended, how-
ever, that her head covering be long enough to fall down around her face. While
her male counterpart tied his ihriam garments to keep them on, she could wear
sewn garments such as a shirt and pants. Men could not cover their heads or faces.
Both sexes wore white, both wore sandals rather than stitched footwear, and both
removed their jewelry and refrained from using perfume. It was recommended that
both sexes take a ritual bath (ghusl) before putting on the ihrdm garments, be-
cause they would not be able to bathe again until their pilgrimage was over. While
in ihrdm the pilgrim could not hunt animals, kill insects, or even shield himself
from the sun, and could not engage in sexual intercourse.25 The ihram was thus a
set of ritual proscriptions that defined the pilgrim's liminal condition, a condition
that lasted for an extended period, during which he was isolated from profane ac-
tivities and mundane social relations.
Ritual purification (tawaddu'), by contrast, lasted for only a short time. It usu-
ally involved washing only a few parts of the body such as the face, hands, feet
and neck. Pollutants such as blood and semen, however, had to be removed by
means of a ritual bath (ghusl), which in effect subsumed the tawa.ddu'. Any Mus-
lim who wished to pray had to be in a state of ritual purity (wudu'). Women wh
were menstruating could not perform their ablutions and could not pray or circum-
ambulate the Kacba.26
There was, and is, a close connection between ritual purity and sexuality. When
a man performs his ablutions, he must be careful not to touch his genitals because
this would invalidate his wudii. Also, men who are in a state of ritual purity
sometimes hesitate even to touch a woman. Men who engage in illegitimate sexual
relations become painfully aware of their own state of pollution and avoid enter-
ing mosques and conversing with religious figures. Women in wudii' might
equally well fear that a man's polluting seminal emissions might invalidate their
wuduii and hence also hesitate to touch men.27 Since there is no discussion of this
in the literature, it is difficult to guess what their attitudes might be. At any rate, it
is evident that men and women in wuduii' prefer not to touch each other.
The aghdwdt mediated between men and women at times when any physical
contact between the sexes was ritually polluting, that is, during prayer and tawdf.
The same state of ritual purity that was required of the believer for performing the
prayer was also required of the pilgrim for the tawif:28 cleanliness, covering the
Cawra (private parts), and physical separation from the opposite sex. What is
more, it was customary for the pilgrim to pray two rak'as (prostrations) immedi-
ately after the tawdf, for which he or she had to be mutawaddi' (ritually
purified).29 These were precisely the times, however, when the haram was the
most crowded and the physical separation of the sexes was most difficult.30 In
actual practice the aghawat could not physically divide the crowd by sex, but they
could stand for a neutral category, separating and coordinating the categories of
men and women.31 Their castrated state made it possible for them to touch women
without breaking their ritual purity (wudui3).
At other times, when the pilgrims maintained their state of ihrdm (ritual limi-
nality) but did not maintain their wuduii (ritual purity), the aghawdt did not sepa-
rate the sexes. Rather, they mediated between the community of pilgrims and the
Kacba itself, protecting the house of God from polluting contacts with the pilgrims
and conducting the pilgrims (both men and women) in and out of the Ka'ba when
it was opened. During periods of simple liminality (ihrdm), then, the aghawat
only mediated between the pilgrims (of both sexes) and the Kacba. But why were
the aghdwdt given this mediating role? One answer might be that their consecra-
tion to the House32 made them uniquely qualified to protect it. But this still does
not explain why they had to be eunuchs. I suggest that the opposition between the
pilgrims and the Kacba was understood, in some contexts, as an opposition be-
tween male and female, and that for this reason the castrated or neutered men who
served the Ka'ba were particularly appropriate mediators.33 I have already pre-
sented some data that indicate that the Kacba was given feminine attributes but
have yet to show that these feminine attributes stood in opposition to the mascu-
line characteristics of the crowd of pilgrims.
The Second Data Set: Dressing the Kacba
The "garment" (kiswa) of the Kacba consisted of eight panels, two for each side of
the Kacba, made of black silk. To make each panel, a number of long, narrow
strips of cloth, called "dresses" (athwdb), were sewn together. Because the Ka'ba
was not a perfect cube, its four faces varied in width. There were eighteen dresses
for the two panels on one side, sixteen for the second side pair of panels, fifteen
for the third, and thirteen for the fourth pair of panels. The eight panels formed the
base on which exterior decorative elements were mounted.
The largest decorative element was the band of gold brocade that encircled the
Kacba about one-third of the way down from its top. This band consisted of eight
"belts" (ahzima), each belt mounted on one of the supporting panels. Verses from
the Qur'an were sewn onto the belts with gold thread. The second major decora-
tive element was the "married woman's veil" (burquc), which was placed directly
over the door of the Kacba.34 The burquc was embroidered with gold and silve
thread and was made of black silk and red and green satin. Numerous black and
colored tassels, also embroidered with gold and silver thread, were attached to it
The inside of the Kacba was also "dressed" with an interior kiswa made of red
satin decorated with silver thread. The gold and silver decoration of the exterior
and interior kiswas was called hull (golden jewelry).35
For many of the Arab Muslims living near the Hijaz the colors and materials
of the kiswa were evocative of women's clothing. For example, among the
Rashaayda bedouin, who lived in the Hijaz, southern Sinai, southern Egypt, and
eastern Sudan, a married woman's clothing consisted of a black outer dress with
colored decorations, black face-and-head coverings with gold and silver decora-
tions, and a red underskirt. Men, however, wore white.36 A slightly different color
pattern was found among the other bedouin in the Hijaz. Although only women
wore black, bedouin men wore red as well as white; white cloth checked with red
was preferred for covering the head; sometimes even the thawb (overgarment)
would be dyed light red. In the cities and towns, however, men's overgarments
were usually white, although men also wore brown coats and mantles. Bright col-
ors were favored by young women and unmarried girls indoors, while black over-
garments were worn outdoors. In the entire area bordering the Hijaz it was very
uncommon for men to wear solid red or black.37 Thus, the combination of black
and red in the kiswa was strongly reminiscent of women's dress in the region.
exterior kiswa / interior kiswa ::

black / red ::
married woman's overgarment / married woman's undergarment
The materials out of which the kiswa were made also had strong feminine con-
notations. Gold thread, silk, and satin were seldom used in men's clothing; it was
Cayb (inappropriate for one's age and sex) for a man to wear them. Men did wear
gold and silver (in the forms of rings and watches) in the Hijaz at the turn of the
century but seldom wore cloth decorated with gold thread (the main exception be-
ing the brown Cabaya, which sometimes was trimmed with gold thread on the
edges). Wealthy Hijazi merchants wore imported fabric made of silk mixed with
other fibers as a status symbol, but only after first obtaining a fatwa from a reli-
gious authority; the mufti ruled that it was permissable because the cloth was not
pure silk. But women were expected to decorate their clothing with gold thread; in
the Hijaz, for example, married women embroidered their head coverings (maha-
rim) with it, while in Egypt they used it for their veils (bardqi').38 Even the word
for gold jewelry, hull, usually referred to a woman's gold jewelry.39
The link between femininity and gold thread, silk, and similar shiny materials
held only in ordinary, profane contexts, however. According to the Qur'an, the
clothing worn in paradise by both men and women will be made of silk, gold, and
pearls. We read in the sura that describes the pilgrimage (al-IHajj 23):
God will admit those who believe . .. into gardens beneath which rivers flow. They shall be
adorned therein with bracelets of gold [yuhalliina ftha min asdwira min dhahab] and pearls,
and their garments there will be of silk.
and in Siirat al-Kahf, dya 31, "They will be adorned therein with bracelets of
gold, and they will wear green garments of fine silk and brocade...." Taken to-
gether, the Qur'an's description of the clothing of paradise, the styles of clothing
during the liminal stage between this world and the next, and the profane conven-
tions about clothing in ordinary life all constitute a paradigm:
sacred existence: both sexes wear gold, bright colors, and silk
liminality (ihram): both sexes remove their jewelry and wear white, dull cloth
profane existence: men wear a little gold and white, dull cloth; women wear more gold and
black or colored, shiny cloth
It is with reference to this paradigm that the next rite of the Ka'ba-in which the
ihrdm garments are placed on it-should be considered.
In Ibn Battuta's time this rite was held on the twenty-seventh day of Dhu al-
Qacda. In his words, "the curtains of the Kacba are tucked up (tushammar) ... and
people call this ihrdm al-KaCba.... The holy Ka'ba is not opened again from that
day until the day of Standing at [Mount] 'Arafa.... " The verb yushammir means
"to tuck up a garment in order to free the legs for quick walking or running."40
Thus the Kacba was likened to a pilgrim visually, by "dressing" it in pilgrimage
garments, and was compared to a pilgrim verbally, in that a verb that is only ap-
propriate for a person was used to describe it.
Rifcat gives a similar account of the same rite at the beginning of this century: "On
the 27th of Dhu al-Qa'da of every year a pilgrim's waist garment [izar] of white
cloth ... is put on top of the kiswa; it goes around the Ka'ba at its lowest part.. .. This
is a sign that the Kacba is in ihrdm, as they claim...." Because there is no Qur'anic
sanction for this interpretation, Rif'at regards it with skepticism. He continues:
In reality, the [head of the] al-Shaybi [family], the trustee of the key to the Kacba, cuts
about two meters of cloth from the bottom of the kiswa and puts the iziir in its place. He
sells the piece that has been cut off to the pilgrims. Some people claim that the white iztar is
put there to protect the kiswa from the hands of those who want to play with it frivolously
or cut off a piece of it to obtain its blessing. . . . 41
Yet neither of Rifat's explanations is convincing. If this rite, which had been car-
ried out annually for over 500 years, were merely a meaningless ploy designed to
satisfy the cupidity of the al-Shaybi family, it seems unlikely that the Muslim
community would have permitted it to continue year after year. The notion that
the izdr was placed over the kiswa solely to keep it from becoming dirty or dam-
aged also makes little sense, because this kiswa had already hung on the Kacba for
an entire year and in about ten days would be replaced by a new one. Why trouble
to protect it at this late date? Further, if the white cloth were only a guard, why re-
fer to it as a pilgrim's garment (izar)? It seems preferable to accept the notion that
this ritual put the Kacba in ihrdm, as if it were a pilgrim.
What did this mean? The only obvious interpretation is that on the twenty-
seventh day of Dhu al-Qa'da the Kacba was symbolically equated with a person,
as if it were a counterpart and equivalent of the pilgrims who came to visit it. Both
the pilgrims and the house wore ihram garments, which did not strongly mark the
gender of either. After this day, however, when the white izadr was removed, the
Kacba was taken out of ihram and its feminine garments were revealed. If we turn
back to the paradigm for clothing, we can see that when the Kacba "descended"
from ihrdm to the more mundane garment that it wore throughout the year, it also
descended from the more spiritual level of ihrdm toward the more temporal level
of ordinary existence. At this level the Kacba, garbed in black and gold, stood in
opposition to the pilgrims, clothed in white; this opposition was homologous to
the opposition between a woman and a man in ordinary life:
liminal stage: gender neutral Kacba in ihrdim / gender neutral pilgrims in ihraim
post-liminal stage:
Kacba in red, black, and gold / pilgrims in white ::
veiled / unveiled ::
married woman / adult man
The only participants in the pilgrimage who were not in ihram were the aghawat,
who continued to wear their turbans and ordinary clothing.42 They served as medi-
ators between the "feminized" Kacba and the "masculinized" pilgrims.
Ibn Battuta's description of the last rite that concerned the Ka'ba reads as fol-
lows: "On the Day of Immolation [yawm al-nahr, i.e., 10 Dhu al-Hijja] the kiswa
of the noble Kacba is sent from the Egyptian caravan to the House and is placed
on its upper surface, and three days after this the Banu Shayba start draping it
down around the Kacba." Essentially the same ritual was still being carried out
some five centuries later, when Rifat saw it. According to Rifat, however, the
new kiswa was draped over the Kacba in only one day, not three.43 The tenth day
of Dhu al-Hijja was when the pilgrims ended their hajj, replaced their ihram gar-
ments with their ordinary clothing, and celebrated by sacrificing an animal and
eating its meat. At the same time, Muslims throughout the world celebrated the
CId al-Adha, when it was customary for every male Muslim head of a household to
give "holiday clothing" (kiswat al-'ld) to the other members of the household.
Thus, at the same time that the Kacba was given a new kiswa, the wife, unmarried
brothers and sisters, and children of each male household head were given new
clothes.44 For both the Kacba and the believers, the pilgrimage season was opened
and closed with clothing:
ihram of the Kacba / kiswa for the Kaba ::
ihraim of the believer / kiswa for the believer ::
opening of the hajj / closing of the hajj
The Third Data Set: Addressing the Kacba
Rifcat records many popular references to the Kacba and briefly discusses them:
The Kacba has many names, among them... the little girl (al-bunayya); the bedouin fre-
quently make oaths in the name of "the Lord of this Little Girl." . .. I heard a conversation
between two bedouin women. One said to the Kacba: "O Lady Night [yd sitt layla]"-and
perhaps they call it night because it is black and its kiswa is black-"if rain comes to our
territories I will bring you a leather container full of clarified butter for anointing your
bangs"-for the bedouin claim that the Kacba is a woman who anoints her hair.45
THE "FEMININITY" OF THE KACBA
My examination of five rites performed during the late-19th-century hajj sugge

that many Arab pilgrims treated the Ka'ba like a bride.46 Thus, my analysis par
supports Burton's interpretation. But Burton's reliance on a Christian analo
which contrasts one of God's manifestations (Christ) with the community o
faithful (the bride) was misplaced. In Arab Muslim tradition, it was the K
which was likened to a bride, the community of believers to a groom. The
tionship of authority between bride and groom (believers and Christ) in Bur
analogy was replaced, in the Arab Muslim case, with a relationship of obliga
The groom (pilgrims, both men and women) was responsible for protecting
bride (the Ka'ba):
men + women / God's manifestation ::

pilgrims / Kaba ::
groom / bride ::
protector / protected
Thus, we can recover the key insights behind Burton's explanation of the kiswa:
that time and space during the pilgrimage were structured and that ritual structure
integrated gender with worship.47 While the pilgrims were in Mecca in a state of
ritual liminality, ordinary conventions for the physical separation of the sexes (by
veiling, seclusion, or other means) were eliminated and the polarity between the
sexes was reduced. Men discarded the articles of clothing that were traditional
symbols of authority (e.g., their turbans) and adopted a garb of humility, while
women discarded the signs of their inaccessibility (their face veils).48 Both men
and women joined in the same task-worship-and mingled in the crowd with
only symbolic (rather than physical) barriers between them. In solidarity with a
gender-neutral Kacba that was also in ihram, both sexes drew closer to the next
world. In opposition to a "feminine" Kacba that wore the garments of a married
woman, the ritually "masculine" pilgrims (both men and women) celebrated in
public space, in men's space,49 when the pilgrimage had been completed. By con-
ceptualizing the Ka'ba as a woman, the differences between men and women were
momentarily transcended and the mundane "battle of the sexes" concerning pro-
fane affairs was for a short time called off.
CONCLUSION
I have argued that when Arab Muslims put the Kacba in ihrdm
a bride, they were constructing a model of gender and sp
profane models of gender in ordinary life. This ritual mod
of the ordinary gender hierarchy: (1) women's seclusion,5
women from positions of authority, and (3) the exclusion
merce. During the hajj women were not secluded, were not su
of men (other than that of the neutered aghdawdt), and were
commerce than men.5' Hence, the pilgrimage provided an
equality between the sexes.
If this was the case, then the hajj experience must have h
men and women after they returned to their home countr
sexual equality were not the only ones available to reform
woman pilgrim, the hajja, was also present. The ritual model g
and authority to women, if only temporarily, and might h
logical resource-one of the "weapons of the weak"52-that
when arguing for the right to leave their homes, assume posi
engage in trade and wage employment. To understand the tran
roles in the eastern Arab lands during the early 20th cent
whether or not this image made a difference in women's f
men. How many Arab women made the pilgrimage to Mec
were they, why did they go rather than other members of the
paid their expenses? What were the social consequences of
The Ka'ba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage 297
I have tried to show that the source for some gender-linked aspects of the pil-
grimage was a culture rather than a text, that these elements formed a coherent
system, that the hajj did not itself reinforce women's subordination but presented a
more egalitarian model of relations between the sexes, and that the hajj may have
shaped these relations in nonritual contexts. Nothing in the model itself would
have prevented it from being transferred to ordinary life. Whether or not this was
actually done is an empirical question that can only be answered through research.
If we discover that the hajj model had no impact, we cannot rest content with this
but must ask, why?
NOTES
Author's note: It is my pleasure to thank Fadwa El Guindi, not only for her reaction
of this article, but also for the many insights she has shared with me over the years.
responsible for any errors in the article's main thesis, she deserves credit for many o
tinctions that I have applied. I also thank Abdlaziz Shebl for his comments on the
able assistance in locating key sources. Finally, I express my gratitude to the seven
of this article, whose thoughtful and constructive criticisms greatly helped me to
'The new ethnographies of Arab gender are represented by Lila Abu-Lughod's
(Berkeley, Calif., 1986); Soraya Altorki's Women in Saudi Arabia (New York, 1
Women of 'Amran (Salt Lake City, Ut., 1986); Christine Eickelman's Women and C
(New York, 1984); and Julie Peteet's Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian
ment (New York, 1991). Those that focus on gender in ritual include Janice Bodd
Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (Madison, Wisc., 19
Schilling's Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality and Sacrifice (New York, 1989); Fadwa El Guindi's
El Sebouc: Egyptian Birth Ritual (an ethnographic film) (Los Angeles, 1987).
2Fatna Sabbah's recent polemic represents the most extreme argument that Islam causes sexual in-
equality. Citing "evidence" from Arabic pornography, Sabbah claims that male Islamic writers view
women as voracious sexual animals, and that "in the discourse of orthodox Islam . . . the relationship
between the sexes is nothing but a reflection and incarnation of the ... relationship between God, the
Master, and his slave, the believer." Fatna Sabbah, Women in the Muslim Unconscious (New York,
1984), 81. Although her analogy (man/woman :: master/slave :: God/believer) is similar in form to an
analogy which I will make later in this paper (groom/bride :: protector/protected :: pilgrims/Ka'ba), it
is very different in content. Her analogy assumes a noncontextualized relationship of limitless author-
ity; mine describes a relationship of obligation in only ritual contexts.
3Sondra Hale, "The Politics of Gender in the Middle East," in Gender and Anthropology, ed.
S. Morgen (Washington, D.C., 1990), 246-49; Suad Joseph, "Working Class Women's Networks in a
Sectarian State: A Political Paradox," American Ethnologist 10,1 (Winter 1983): 2-3; David Waines,
"Through a Veil Darkly: The Study of Women in Muslim Societies," Comparative Studies in Society
and History 24,4 (Fall 1982): 643.
4Beck, for instance, cautions us not to view women's status as a direct expression of Islamic reli-
gious and legal systems, arguing that "the central issues are the structure and organization of class in-
equality in the Middle East." Lois Beck, "The Religious Lives of Muslim Women," in Women in
Contemporary Muslim Societies, ed. Jane I. Smith (Cranbury, N.J., 1980), 31, 33, 37, 39-50. Mernissi
notes with approval the positive view of sexuality in the hadith literature but argues that "sexual ine-
quality is the basis" of Islam (and Christianity as well). Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil (Blooming-
ton, Ind., 1987), xxviii, 8, 107, 165-77.
5Denny complains that almost all available studies are of the mandsik al-hajj (prescriptive manual)
genre; see Frederick Denny, "Islamic Ritual: Perspectives and Theories," in Approaches to Islam in Re-
ligious Studies, ed. R. Martin (Tucson, 1985), 67-71. Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori's Muslim
Travellers: Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination (Berkeley, Calif., 1990) is to my
knowledge the only full-length study of the hajj by anthropologists. It focuses more on travel to Mecca
than on the pilgrimage rite itself, however. Three studies of Muslim pilgrimage elsewhere that deal
with gender are Elaine Combs-Schilling, Sacred Performances (New York, 1990), Dale Eickelman,
Moroccan Islam (Austin, Tex., 1976), and Fadwa El Guindi, El Moulid: Egyptian Religious Festival, an
ethnographic film (Los Angeles, 1990).
6Carol Delaney, "The Hajj: Sacred and Secular," American Ethnologist 17,3 (Summer 1990): 513-30.
7Altorki, Women in Saudi Arabia, 45-47.
8Victor Turner, The Ritual Process (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969); idem, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1974), 166-230; idem, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York, 1978).
9Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, 272-74, 276.
10Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (Garden City, N.Y., 1967), 202-38; idem, The Raw
and the Cooked (New York, 1975), 341; idem, The Naked Man (New York, 1981), 668-84. See also
Louis Dumont, "A Structural Definition of a Folk Deity of Tamil Nad: Aiyanar, the Lord," in his Reli-
gion/Politics and History in India (Paris, 1970); Fadwa El Guindi, "Internal and External Constraints
on Structure," in The Logic of Culture, ed. I. Rossi (New York, 1981); Valerio Valeri, Kinship and Sac-
rifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii (Chicago, 1985).
llDelaney's discussion of how Turkish Sunni Muslims perceive the hajj illustrates both unity and di-
versity in Muslim thinking. The villagers whom she interviewed believe that Mecca is the part of the
earth closest to the "other world," obiir dunya, from which they originally came and to which they will
return; see Delaney, "The Hajj," 516-17. By itself this notion is not far from those found in the Qur'an
(see Suirat al-AnCiim 36; Surat Maryam 40; Surat Yai Sin 83). But Delaney's informants add to it the no-
tion that the believer lives in a state of exile (ghurbet, cf. Arabic ghurba) from his heavenly place of
origin and thus, to an extent, from Mecca as well. The idea that believers are in exile from Paradise and
from Mecca is foreign to the many Arabic-speaking Muslims that I have known.
12For example, the number of aghawat (eunuchs) present during the hajj was much larger in 1900
than it is today. See C. Huart, "Agha," in Encyclopaedia of Islam (El), 1st ed. (Leiden, 1987), 1:180;
Tawfiq Nasr Allah, "Nasl 'munqati' al-nazir" (A Progeny Whose Like Is "Unmatched/Severed")
Majallat al-Yamima (Riyadh), 1092 (7 February 1990): 42-45, for further details.
13Richard T. Mortel, "The Kiswa: Its Origins and Development From Pre-Islamic Times Until the
End of the Mamluk Period," Ages: A Semi-Annual Journal of Historical, Archaeological and Civiliza-
tional Studies (Riyadh) 3,2 (July 1988): 38-43.
14Julius Wellhausen, Reste arabische Heidentums (Berlin, 1897), 73.
15A. J. Wensinck, "Ka'ba," in El, 1st ed., 4:591.
16Richard F. Burton, A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to al-Madina & Meccah (New York,
1964 [1855]), 1:212.
7Ibrahim Rifat Basha, Mir'dt al-Haramayn (Cairo, 1925), 1:5, 9-12; 2:304.
18Survey Department of Egypt, Fihris al-dthdr al-isldmiyya bi-madlnat al-Qdhira (Index of Islamic
Antiquities in the City of Cairo) (Cairo, 1951), map (scale of 5,000:1) and index; see also Janet Abu-
Lughod, Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious (Princeton, N.J., 1971), 64, 84, 175.
19Socrates Spiro, Dictionary of the Colloquial Egyptian Dialect, Arabic-English (Beirut, 1973), 448.
20Hani Fakhouri, Kafr El-Elow, 2nd ed. (Prospect Heights, Ill., 1987), 66-69; Edward Lane, An
Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (London, 1978), 254.
21F. Buhl, "Mahmal," in El, 1st ed., 5:123-24; Lane, An Account, 168, 254-55.
22Rifcat, Mirdt al-Haramayn, 2:304; J. G. Hava, al-Fara'id Arabic-English Dictionary (Beirut,
1970), 819; Khalil al-Jurr, Larousse: Modern Arabic Dictionary (Paris, 1973), 1262.
23Rifat, Mir-dt al-Haramayn, 1:41.
24Mirza Mohammad Hosayn, A Shi'ite Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1885-1886, ed., trans., annot. H. Far-
mayan and E. L. Daniel (Austin, Tex., 1990), 215, n. 55; Huart, "Agha," 180; Nasr Allah, "Nasl," 45,
who says there are still a few eunuchs serving the haram in Mecca.
25Abui Bakr Jabir al-Jaza'iri, Minhaj al-Muslim (Beirut, 1976), 276-80; Rif'at, Mir'dt al-Haramayn,
1:100-104.
26Al-Jaza'iri, Minhdj al-Muslim, 174-90.
27Ibid., 178; Michael Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam (New York, 1982), 117-20. I am not claim
that this is everywhere the case. However, during my fieldwork among the Rashaayda bedouin of S
I noticed that men in wudu' would not shake hands with women to greet them unless the women first
wrapped their hands in their loose, wide sleeves. The men said that touching a woman would invalidate
their wudu'. But this does not mean that they believed one sex to be more polluting than the other. As
The KaCba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage 299
I have pointed out, women can also argue that the touch of a polluting man invalidates a woman's
wudil'; American friends of mine working in Egypt heard this from women informants in 1985 (Bur-
bage and Moore, personal communication). I am sure that my informants, male and female, thought
that the sexes should be physically separate during prayer, but I doubt that there was general agreement
about the reasons for this.
28According to hadith, "circumambulation around the House is like the prayer"; see al-Jaza'iri, Min-
hij al-Muslim, 279.
29Al-Jaza'iri, Minhaj al-Muslim, 278-79.
30In Ibn Battuta's time, the ritual specialists tried to solve this problem by dividing the matdf into
sex-specific areas, spreading white sand over the peripheral portion and designating it for women; see
Karam al-Bustani, ed., Rihlat Ibn Battiuta (Beirut, 1963), 138. Shicitic tradition solves it by setting
aside a period during the hajj for women to make the tawaf; see Farmayan and Daniel, eds. A Shicite
Pilgrimage, 210. Neither of these solutions was accepted by the majority of pilgrims at the beginning
of the present century, however.
31For a discussion of ritual mediation, see Fadwa El Guindi and Henry Selby, "Dialectics in Zapotec
Thinking," in Meaning in Anthropology, ed. K. Basso and H. Selby (Albuquerque, N.M., 1976).
32Junior aghdwdt were required to remain inside the haram for seven years continuously, serving the
Kacba, before they could be confirmed in their roles and be advanced to more senior positions; see Nasr
Allah, "Nasl," 44.
33There are other traditions that identify castration, not consecration, as the primary qualification for
such "servants of the House." Ibn Battuta, writing about the aghawat of the tomb of the Prophet in Me-
dina, relates the following story: "The resident master is ... Abu 'Abd Allah.... He is the one who
castrated himself, out of fear offitna [sexual temptation]. ... He was the slave of a shaykh named 'Abd
al-Hamid ..., who would leave him in his house whenever he was away.... One time he went on a
trip and left him ... in his home. The shaykh's wife took hold of him and tried to seduce him.... He
became afraid for his soul and so castrated himself and fainted. The people found him in this condition
and nursed him back to health, and he became one of the servants of the noble mosque . . ."; al-Bustani,
Rihlat Ibn Battuta, 121.
34Jomier did not recognize that the decorated cloth over the door was called al-burqu'. He said that
the entire kiswa was called al-burqu', but only in Egypt; see J. Jomier, "Ka'ba," El, 2nd ed. (Leiden,
1978), 4:317. Perhaps he was misled by Rifat's vague wording in MirPdt al-Haramayn (1:7), where he
uses the same word, sitdra ("curtain"), to refer to both the kiswa and the part of the kiswa known as the
burqu'. Later in the same volume (1:291), however, he gives the door covering its correct name
(burqu'). Ibn Battuta also called the covering of the door al-burqu' (al-Bustani, Rihlat Ibn Battuita,
134), and Lane also reports that al-burqu' is "the curtain of the door of the Kaabeh; a thing with which
a woman veils her face." See Edward Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1984), 1:192.
35Rifcat, MirDat al-Haramayn, 1:7-8, 265, 277-78, 291-94.
36William C. Young, "Decorated Bedouin Clothing." Paper presented at the Middle East Studies As-
sociation Meeting, Philadelphia, 1982. In recent years the Rashaayda have shifted from a subsistence
economy to wage-labor. Now that they can afford to buy a greater variety of clothing, some men wear
pastel colors. This innovation was probably not known ninety years ago. Men still do not wear red or
black.
37See cAwad Sacid cAwad, "al-Zakharif wa-al-nuquish fi al-thawb al-Filastini," Al-Ma'thiurat al-
Shacbiyya, 13 (1989): 29-37; Muhammad cAli Maghribi, Maldmih al-hayat al-ijtimdciyya fi al-Hijaz fi
al-qarn al-rdbi' cashar lil-hijra (Jidda, 1985), 73-74, 81-89; Rautenstrauch-Jost-Museum der Stadt
Koln, Pracht und Geheimnis: Kleidung und Schmuck aus Palastina und Jordanien (Cologne, 1987);
Andrea Rugh, Reveal and Conceal: Dress in Contemporary Egypt (Syracuse, N.Y., 1986), 77-101;
Shelagh Weir, Palestinian Costume (Austin, Tex., 1989), 45-72, 79-157.
38Maghribi, Malimih al-Hayat, 76, 84-85; Spiro, Dictionary, 489.
39Verbs derived from the root h-l-y have various denotations, depending on how it is vowelled. The
verb halii/yahli is transitive and can have either a masculine or feminine subject, as in hald sayfahu
halyan (he adorned his sword) or halat bintahd halyan (she adorned her daughter), but haliya/yahli is
intransitive and can have only a feminine subject: haliyat al-imra'atu halyan (the woman adorned
herself); see Hava, al-Fara'id, 140; al-Jurr, Larousse, 462. The feminine connotation of the word is so
strong that some authors hesitate to apply it to men's jewelry. Maghribi, for instance, when describing
the gold watches and rings worn by men in the Hijaz around 1900, says "The most important jewelry
[hull] used by men, if it is correct to apply the word hull to something that men wear, was the ring,"
Maghribi, Malamih al-Hayat, 92.
40Al-Bustani, Rihlat Ibn Battuta, 168; al-Jurr, Larousse, 723.
41Rifcat, MirDat al-IHaramayn, 1:265.
42Nasr Allah, "Nasl," 45.
43Al-Bustani, Rihlat Ibn Battuta, 171; Rifcat writes: "The kiswa of the Kacba ... is put on the Kacba
at the same time as the covering for the station of Abraham, on the tenth day of Dhiu al-Hijja, when the
people are at Mina," MirPat al-Haramayn, 1:265. This is partly incorrect; the pilgrims go to Mina on
the eighth day of the month, not the tenth. See al-Jaza'iri, Minhdj al-Muslim, 276.
44See Maghribi, Malamih al-Hayit, 49. In Palestinian tradition the definition of kiswa as a man's
obligatory gift of clothing to his wife is explicit. The portion of a bride's wedding trousseau (jihdz) that
she is given by the groom is called the kiswa. See Weir, Palestinian Costume, 74.
45Rifcat, Mir'adt al-Haramayn, 1:35. There are also instances of the Kacba being likened to a woman.
For example, when al-Tabari wrote about the destruction of the Kacba by Umayyad armies in A.D. 683,
he said that the house looked "like the torn bosoms of mourning women." See Philip Hitti, A History of
the Arabs (London, 1970), 192.
46Non-Arab pilgrims-from Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, and elsewhere-may not have per-
ceived the feminine traits of the Kacba, since they did not view it through the filters of Arab traditions
and the Arabic language.
47Perhaps this structure is replicated at the level of the Arabic ritual lexicon. The words haram
(sanctuary) and haram (forbidden, as in the phrase bayt Allah al-hardm, "God's forbidden house," i.e.,
the Kacba and the mosque surrounding it) are derived from the same root as harim (women; the section
of the house forbidden to men who are not related to its women). Other ethnographers of Islamic socie-
ties (Ahmad Abou Zeid, "Honour and Shame among the Bedouins of Egypt," in Honour and Shame,
ed. J. G. Peristiany [Chicago, 1965]; Pierre Bourdieu, "La maison kabyle ou le monde renverse," in
Echanges et Communications: Melanges offerts a Claude Levi-Strauss a l occasion de son 60eme anni-
versaire, ed. J. Pouillon and P. Maranda [Paris, 1968]) have suggested that the "feminine" part of the
house is sacred; it may be that, in Mecca, the sacred part of the house is feminine.
48Burton (A Personal Narrative, 141) says that, although the face veil was formally prohibited dur-
ing pilgrimage, some Turkish women pilgrims got around this prohibition by donning a mask during
ihrdm that did not actually touch their faces. Rifat, however, clearly disapproves of veiling during the
hajj. For example, he complains that "For the bedouin men, ihrdm is only a matter of uncovering their
forearms and their heads; the rest of their bodies remain covered. Their hair is tangled and uncombed,
and most of them have long hair that is braided in a way that more resembles the hair of our women. As
for their women, they are veiled, so that almost nothing of their features is visible" (Rifat, Mir'at al-
Haramayn, 1:35). So it seems that the prohibition on veiling during the pilgrimage was taken seriously,
at least by Rifat. For a description of the textual ban on veiling during the hajj, see Muhammad
cAtiyya Khamis, Fiqh al-nisda fi al-hajj (The Islamic Canon for Women during the Pilgrimage) (n.p.,
1982), 64-66.
49See Mernissi, Beyond the Veil, 137-38.
50That is, the constant confinement of elite women to houses. This is not to be confused with the
sexual division of space, which can be imposed on any area or setting dynamically and which requires
complementarity between women's and men's roles.
5lIn profane contexts, women's ordinary apparel, with its gold and jewelry, reflected to some extent
their removal from commerce; rather than manage wealth they wore it. But during the hajj neither men
nor women had any special connection with trade.
52See James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven,
Conn., 1985).

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The Kaba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage

Author(s): William C. Young

THE KACBA, GENDER, AND THE RITES

This article examines the role gender plays in the pilgrimage

William C. Young teaches anthropology at the Institute of Archaeology an

? 1993 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/93 $5.00 + .00

GENDER AND THE KACBA

God's manifestation / men + women ::

Obviously, the bride or "church visible" in this metaphor is a community, not a

identified as God's manifestation in opposition to a bride (the Muslim commu-

The First Data Set: Serving the Ka'ba

The Second Data Set: Dressing the Kacba

exterior kiswa / interior kiswa ::

married woman's overgarment / married woman's undergarment

The Third Data Set: Addressing the Kacba

THE "FEMININITY" OF THE KACBA

My examination of five rites performed during the late-19th-century hajj sugge

men + women / God's manifestation ::

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