The Fifth international lecture of the pre-con events of the international conference on Theology of Pilgrimage was held online on October 29, 2023. At this session, Mr. Julio César Cárdenas Arenas, a researcher in comparative religion-Ph. D candidate in the science of religions at the Complutense University of Madrid, delivered his speech in Arabic under the title “Jurisprudential, Social and Theological Relations Between Jews, Christians and Muslims in Two Books of  Ibn Taymiyyah: “Qāʿidah fī Ziyārah Bayt al-Maqdis” and “Iqtiḍa' as-Ṣirāt al-Mustaqīm”. 

Here is the video of the session accompanied by the presentation file and English abstract:

Presentation File

Video File

From a religious perspective, the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina is associated with the journey to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Therefore, this article provides a critical analysis of the jurisprudential rulings on travel/pilgrimage to these holy places, and its impact on the relations between Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the thirteenth century AD. This case study focuses on investigating the jurisprudential, theological, and social relations of traveling to Jerusalem from Ibn Taymiyyah's point of view. Ibn Taymiyyah states his rulings about these relations in his 9-page treatise entitled "Qāʿidah fī Ziyārah Bayt al-Maqdis". He also provides a comparison between Islamic jurisprudential and theological rulings with issues that have some similarity with Jews and Christians and their feasts in his famous book "Iqtiḍa' as-Ṣirāt al-Mustaqīm" (a book which deals with the relations of Muslims with the People of the Book. Therefore, the present research intends to critically examine the jurisprudential traditions and religious customs raised in these two books in four axes: 1. Definition of Hajj, pilgrimage, and the main terms in this field and comparison of them with Semitic languages; 2. Pilgrimage sites and their rulings (mosques, Dome of the Rock, and the tombs of prophets); 3. Pilgrimage cities and their rulings (Jerusalem, Medina, and Mecca); 4. Lawful and forbidden worship in pilgrimage sites (prayer and supplications). Finally, this research explains the characteristics of pilgrimage by Muslims and their connection with other religious-social groups, and thus specifies their definition and rulings from the perspective of Ibn Taymiyyah; rulings such as encouraging travel to Jerusalem and visiting it, the virtue of visiting the three mosques, the prohibition of visiting graves as a religious place, the jurisprudential rulings related to lawful and unlawful worships during the pilgrimage to the city of Jerusalem and its various places, as well as other cities.

Translator: Mahdi Qasemi