The Nomadic Alternative – Page 116

Kaaba with his left shoulder to the shrine. Thus he reverses the path of the loathsome Sun. At other ceremonies he ritually stones the Sun-Demon to death in its ancient Pre-Islamic sanctuary. Then breathlessly he hurtles up and down the sacred mountains as-Safa and al-Marwah, and, before returning home, sacrifices a first born animal - giving to God what God would have taken for himself on the migration.

Yet within a hundred miles of Mecca Arab Bedouin still follow their ancient migration paths - or did so till recently - ignorant of the Five Pillars of Islam. Like the Rechabites, some of Moham-med's followers rejected his authoritarian ambitions. They returned to the wild places and they stayed there. Their descendants failed to find in Islam the Way of Unity and Truth. They knew it already.

Rather the Hadj provided them with a lucrative source of income and amusement in the form of protection rackets. From the Sherifs of Mecca they extorted large sums of money and then only guaranteed the free passage of pilgrims through the desert. The Pilgrimage was indeed a punishment - a physical and mental road of trials. As he circled the shrines, the pilgrim did not simply jubilate to tread the path of the Prophet. He was happy to escape with his life.

If, for the desert dweller, Hell is a cloudless sky, the peoples of northern lands gaze in superstitious awe at the High Blue Heaven and speculate on what lies beyond, and wherever the influence of Indo-Aryan pastoralists has been felt, the circumambulation of shrines proceeds in a clockwise direction. The pilgrim who treads the path of the Buddha does so with his right shoulder to the shrine, stupa or chorten, and follows the path of the life-giving sun, thus reaffirming the original cosmic harmony. On the Roof of the World the ferocity of winter pens the Tibetans up in monasteries or felt tents for nearly half the year. And this enforced idleness by smoky fires causes multiple chest complaints, stomach ulcers and depression. So with the first touch of spring they answer an imperative call to exercise their lungs and legs in the open air. "To come alive", "to be human" and "to move in a circuit" are synonymous