Study Says Hajj Makes Muslims More Tolerant

Man, EVERY Muslim should go to hajj!

Read it all here.

Highlights:

Muslims who undertake the hajj "return with more positive views towards people from other countries," are more likely to say "that people of different religions are equal," and are twice as likely as other religious Muslims to condemn Osama bin Laden, the study found.

"People become more orthodox yet more tolerant," one of the study's authors, Asim Ijaz Khwaja of Harvard University, said of hajjis -- those who make the pilgrimage.

Hajjis are also more likely to back education for girls and work for women, the study found.

Going on the hajj, which all Muslims must do at least once if they are able, can also embolden women to challenge religious authority when they return home.

"A woman may not be encouraged to go to the mosque or seek education or work in Pakistan -- in fact, she may face resistance in doing so, particularly by local clergy," Khwaja said.

Khwaja said if she has not been on the hajj, "she has no authority for challenging that."

"But on the hajj, she might see a woman who is leading her group, in control of a group, in this most holy of places. If she sees that this is allowed in Mecca and Medina, now she is armed to say to her local cleric, 'I saw this in Mecca, so who are you to tell me it is wrong?' " Khwaja said.

"Higher levels of religious observance tend to make people more tolerant of different religions," Green said. Religious people also tend to be more accepting of other ethnic groups, he said.

But being deeply religious is not commonly associated with women's empowerment, he said, expressing surprise at that aspect of Khwaja's study, which he said he had not read.

"That would be a very powerful finding, and it would suggest that there is something unique going on with the hajj," Green said.

Khwaja chuckled at the Mark Twain quote: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." But Khwaja said it was not simply travel that changed pilgrims -- it was seeing unfamiliar practices in the holiest of settings.

"That this is happening in a highly religious context may give them the ability to accept diversity. If you see people praying differently, you will say that [a given local practice] can't really be the only acceptable way to pray -- wearing a hat, or keeping your pants above your ankles," he said, citing two common Pakistani customs.

Makes me think of Malcolm X's thoughts on hajj... I need to re-read the autobiography.