How Islam Reworked the Ancient Arabian Pilgrimage Tradition

Image: The Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha (1835) by French artist Eugène Delacroix

The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and is regarded by Muslims as a divinely ordained act of worship. Yet, from a historical perspective, the pilgrimage to the Kaaba did not begin with the emergence of Islam in the seventh century. Pilgrimage, ritual circumambulation, sacrifice, sacred clothing and visits to holy sites were already part of religious life in pre-Islamic Arabia. What Islam did was not simply invent Hajj from nothing, but take an existing Arabian pilgrimage tradition and radically redefine its religious meaning, rituals and theological purpose.

Historical scholarship increasingly describes this process as one of both continuity and rupture. Research based on pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions and poetry indicates that pilgrimage was practiced in Arabia before Muhammad, and that the pre-Islamic Hajj could resemble the later Muslim pilgrimage in several important respects. At the same time, Islam rejected or transformed practices associated with polytheism and redirected the pilgrimage toward the worship of one God.

Before Islam, the Kaaba in Mecca was already an important sanctuary. The Quraysh controlled the shrine and benefited economically and socially from the pilgrimage and associated markets. Pre-Islamic Arabs performed circumambulation around sacred structures, visited sanctuaries, observed periods of ritual restriction and participated in animal sacrifice. Some traditions also involved journeys to sacred locations around Mecca, including Arafat, Muzdalifah and Mina. Academic studies have found evidence that several elements later incorporated into Islamic Hajj had precedents in pre-Islamic Arabian religious practices.

The existence of these earlier practices creates an important historical distinction. Saying that Islam "copied" Hajj from Arab pagans oversimplifies the evidence. Muslims themselves do not generally understand Hajj as a pagan institution adopted by Islam. Islamic tradition presents the Kaaba as a sanctuary associated with Abraham and Ishmael and regards Muhammad as restoring an earlier monotheistic tradition that had been corrupted by idolatry. The Qur'an connects the Kaaba with Abraham and Ishmael and commands believers to undertake pilgrimage to the House. Thus, within Islamic theology, the relationship is one of restoration rather than borrowing.

From a secular historical perspective, however, the picture is different. Researchers can identify continuity between pre-Islamic Arabian pilgrimage and Islamic Hajj without accepting or rejecting the theological claim that Abraham originally established the rituals. A 2023 study by historian Suleyman Dost, for example, compared Qur'anic descriptions of Hajj and Umrah with Arabian inscriptions and found parallels between Islamic pilgrimage and earlier Arabian pilgrimage traditions. The study argues that the Qur'an retained some earlier practices while rejecting or modifying others.

One of the clearest examples is tawaf, the circumambulation of the Kaaba. Circumambulating sacred structures was not unique to Islam, and pre-Islamic Arabs performed circumambulation around the Kaaba. Islam retained the basic movement but changed its meaning: instead of being connected with multiple gods and idols associated with the sanctuary, the circumambulation became an act of worship directed exclusively toward Allah.

The same pattern can be seen with Safa and Marwa. The Qur'an explicitly mentions the two hills and permits believers performing Hajj or Umrah to make the ritual journey between them. Modern Islamic tradition connects the ritual, known as sa'i, with Hagar's search for water for her son Ishmael. Historically, however, scholarship has found that movement between sacred hills was part of Arabian religious practice before Islam. Rather than eliminating the practice, Islam incorporated it into its own theological narrative.

Ihram, the special ritual state and clothing associated with pilgrimage, also has pre-Islamic parallels. Pilgrims in Arabia observed restrictions while entering sacred territory, including limitations on activities such as hunting and changes in dress and personal grooming. Islamic Hajj retained the concept of entering a special sacred state but placed it within a strictly monotheistic framework.

Animal sacrifice provides another example of continuity and transformation. Sacrifice was widespread in pre-Islamic Arabian religion and could be associated with offerings to deities and sacred places. Islam retained animal sacrifice as part of the pilgrimage tradition but fundamentally changed its theological justification. Instead of being an offering to idols or local gods, the sacrifice became an act of devotion to Allah. Modern scholarship has specifically examined the relationship between pre-Islamic sacrificial customs and the Islamic Hajj sacrifice.

At the same time, Islam did not preserve every pre-Islamic practice. The Qur'an explicitly challenged aspects of the existing pilgrimage culture. Research by Suleyman Dost argues that the Qur'an, for example, expressed disapproval of certain ritual hunting practices while approving the procession between Safa and Marwa. The Qur'anic treatment therefore appears selective: some practices were retained, others modified, and still others rejected.

This transformation became particularly significant when Muhammad established Muslim control over Mecca. According to Islamic tradition, the idols surrounding the Kaaba were removed and the sanctuary was dedicated exclusively to Allah. The Kaaba therefore remained, but its religious identity was fundamentally redefined. What had been a sanctuary operating within a polytheistic religious environment became the central sanctuary of an explicitly monotheistic faith.

The transformation also turned Hajj from a primarily regional Arabian pilgrimage into a defining institution of a global religion. Scholars studying pre-Islamic poetry have argued that the earlier pilgrimage was relatively localized, primarily involving communities living around Mecca. Under Islam, however, pilgrimage became a central mechanism of Muslim collective identity, eventually drawing believers from across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and, later, the entire world.

Therefore, the historical relationship between pagan Arabia and Islamic Hajj is better described as adaptation, purification and transformation rather than simple invention or simple copying. Islam inherited a religious landscape that already contained sacred places, pilgrimage routes and ritual practices. It then reorganized those traditions around strict monotheism, removed their associations with idols and competing deities, and incorporated selected rituals into a new theological framework.

The subject is particularly interesting because it demonstrates how religions can emerge within existing cultural environments while simultaneously challenging those environments. From the Islamic theological perspective, Hajj represents the restoration of Abrahamic monotheism. From the perspective of historians studying the development of religious rituals, it demonstrates substantial continuity between pre-Islamic Arabian practices and the rituals that became standardized within Islam.

In that sense, the history of Hajj is neither simply a story of an entirely new Islamic invention nor merely a story of pagan rituals being copied. It is a story of religious transformation: an existing Arabian pilgrimage tradition was given a new theological foundation, new boundaries and a much broader communal significance.