This exhibition is all done and dusted now: it was a great success by all accounts. However, the reason I include it not for the exhibition per – se but for this article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/25/hajj-exhibition-british-museum

I read this part of the article about one of the curators of the exhibition trying to get as close to Mecca as possible and it made me really sad;

”Porter, an internationally recognised expert on the history and culture of Islam, could go no closer than the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the site where medieval pilgrims landed by dhow …

She followed the paths through the old town to Mecca Gate, where she stood looking wistfully down the road towards the city only 40 miles away”

It makes me think that in her existence maybe ‘Mecca’ represents God, she got as close as she could through her own effort but that was as far as she could go. Perhaps faith is a gift and no one can attain it without Allah’s help to go ‘all the way’. Maybe if Allah did not help us we would be like her, looking in wistfully from the outside.