Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Camilla P. Adang, Muslim Writers on 

Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn 

Hazm (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996); Jane D. McAuliffe, “The 

Quranic Context of Muslim Biblical Scholarship.” Islam 

and Christian-Muslim Relations 7 (1996): 141–158; 

Brannon M. Wheeler, “Israel and the Torah of Muham-

mad.” In Bible and Quran: Essays in Scriptural Intertextu-

Torah

  

671  J

---

ality, edited by John C. Reeves, 61–85 (Atlanta: Society 

for Biblical Literature, 2003).

tradition

  See 

customary

 

law

; 

hadith

; 

ijmaa

; 

ijti

-

had

; 

sharia

; 

sunna

.

travel

Muslims have traveled the world for centuries to 

visit holy sites and search for knowledge. Travel 

has played an important role in the Islamic world. 

Natural inclinations to travel have been reinforced 

with Islamic traditions inciting Muslims to jour-

ney for knowledge and pilgrimage. A central tenet 

of i

slam

 has been the 

haJJ

, the annual pilgrimage 

to  m

ecca

. As one of the F

ive

  p

illars

  of Islam,

many Muslims over the generations have made 

the journey to fulfill their religious duty and 

strengthen their commitment to the 

Faith

. Large 

annual pilgrimage caravans would be formed 

and sponsored by local rulers to help pilgrims 

make their way to their destination. This tradi-

tion has been a powerful unifying force for the 

Islamic community, drawing together Muslims 

from diverse regions for a common purpose.

The prophet m

Uhammad

 (d. 632) also urged his 

followers to travel in search of knowledge, “even 

as far as China” and many Muslims wandered from 

m

orocco

 to China and beyond in their quest for 

deeper insight and spiritual wisdom. Gradually, 

a mobile network of religious scholars (

Ulama

) 

developed throughout the Islamic world. Edu-

cated men such as i

bn

  b

attUta

 (d. 1377) would 

travel from one center of learning to another, lis-

tening to lectures, attending classes, and gaining 

employment as teachers, judges, and bureaucrats. 

A literary genre of travel accounts developed, 

attesting to the popularity of this activity. This 

network has been damaged in the modern period, 

when colonial powers established hard nationalist 

borders in a world that had been more porous. 

With the imposition of controls such as passports 

and visas, the traditions of traveling across the 

Islamic world became more limited, although this 

has been partially offset by technological advances 

such as the train and the airplane. Nonetheless, 

the tradition of travel remains an important tenet 

of Islam as Muslims continue to make the hajj in 

the millions and Islamic scholars from everywhere 

flock to study in the Islamic universities of c

airo

, 

d

amascUs

, F

ez

, and Saudi Arabia.

See also 

boat

; 

camel

; 

colonialism

; 

horse

; 

tariqa

.

Eric Staples