Searching for the Green Man: Researching Pilgrimage in Israel/Palestine and Egypt

Authors

Mary Thurlkill, University of MississippiFollow

Abstract

This article examines contemporary pilgrimage in Israel / Palestine and Egypt, based upon field work conducted December 2017-February 2018 and personal narrative. My argument is twofold: first, I contend that Pilgrimage Studies allows scholars to move beyond reductive labels and consider the implicit ‘messiness’ of religious faith and ritual praxis. I introduce the Islamic al-Khidr and Moses story from Qur’an 18.60-82, as an interpretative model, suggesting that rigid categorization—especially concerning religious identity and sectarian division—promotes a false narrative of monolithic faith traditions that, upon closer examination, does not fully exist. Second, by referencing my ethnographic experiences, I consider pilgrimage as fundamentally located in the body, often fraught with moral ambiguity and physical trauma.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Thurlkill, Mary (2019) "Searching for the Green Man: Researching Pilgrimage in Israel/Palestine and Egypt," International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: Vol. 7: Iss. 3, Article 3.
doi:https://doi.org/10.21427/3pmx-q005
Available at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol7/iss3/3

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/3pmx-q005