In Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance: The Muslim Pilgrims’ Paradox, Mikhail A. Alexseev and Sufian N. Zhemukhov explore the question of how an intense religious experience can translate to social tolerance toward out-groups. While they develop their argument in the context of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj), the authors describe how their theory is applicable to Muslim immigrants in the United States and Europe and Latino associations in the United States. Previous work on the Hajj observes that pilgrims often return from this religious activity with higher religiosity but also an unexpected increased tolerance toward non-Muslims. Alexseev and Zhemukhov recognize that while scholars have noted this finding, no one has gone beyond this empirical result to advance a comprehensive theory for why and how tolerance occurs. Through a mixed-methods approach of process-tracing, in-depth interviews, content analysis, and participant observations, Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance is a welcome addition that convincingly resolves the paradox of how religious fervor can lead to out-group acceptance.
The authors introduce us to Russia’s North Caucasus and specifically the experiences of Muslims in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic. Their research design uses in-depth interviews and content analysis comparing pilgrims from Kabardino-Balkaria with non-pilgrims who possess similar levels of religiosity and intentions to perform the Hajj. Through the construction of four focus group interviews, the authors were able to attribute differences in individual views between the two groups to the Hajj experience rather than age, gender, education, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. They find that despite participating in an intense religious activity with other Muslims, pilgrims were more tolerant toward outgroups and open to diverse interpretations of Islam compared to similar non-pilgrims.
Beyond a simple empirical observation, the authors use process-tracing from interviews and Zhemukhov’s observations of participants on the Hajj to develop and illustrate a model of repositioning, recategorization, and repersonalization (3 R’s) to explain the pilgrims’ paradox. Alexseev and Zhemukhov identify the Axis Mundi effect or repositioning whereby group settings can lay a foundation for tolerance when the setting has both high common identity value and high subgroup diversity. The Hajj fulfills both requirements. It is an intrinsically valued and prestigious experience for Muslims (high identity value) and involves the congregating of a diverse set of nationalities, schools of thought, and ethnicities under a unifying identity (high subgroup diversity). While the high diversity quality of the Hajj is noted by others, Alexseev and Zhemukhov introduce the idea of identity value as a relevant requirement for increased tolerance.
Recategorization is the act of identifying oneself with a larger, more inclusive social category when multiple identity groups are available. In the Hajj context, individuals choose to do this not because of positive interactions with non-Muslims on the pilgrimage as is expected by traditional social identity and social capital theories. Instead, the authors detail how pilgrims experience a negative culture shock by seeing imperfect social behavior in the Holy Land (complaining about accommodations, cheating shopkeepers and taxi drivers, etc.). This betrayed expectation allows them to accommodate imperfections and inconsistencies, ultimately expressing stronger tolerance for diversity. Alexseev and Zhemukhov demonstrate through interviews and participant observation that negative social contact not only exists in mass religious rituals, but it also stimulates a pilgrim’s recategorization to an inclusive social category.
Repersonalization occurs when one develops a stronger sense of individuality and a more inclusive common group identity. Alexseev and Zhemukhov elucidate the pilgrims’ struggles with whether or not their Hajj is accepted by God. This causes the Hajjis to closely analyze themselves and their actions to determine whether they have conducted the pilgrimage in an acceptable way. The close inspection promotes a stronger appreciation for closer identification with a “superordinate social category—i.e. humanity” (131). While most scholars focus on the experience during the Hajj, the authors transcend this to incorporate individual struggles that pilgrims grapple with even after their time in Mecca.
Most scholarship on Islam treats the religion as a theological corpus and studies the effect of the religion—as a broad category—on a particular phenomenon such as democracy or violence. Alexseev and Zhemukhov take a different approach offering a useful way forward for scholars to study Islam. First, they focus on Islamic practices—specifically the Hajj—rather than attempting to examine the religion broadly. The authors’ approach encourages scholars to disentangle the attributes of the religion to understand the independent effects of practices and rituals. This choice permits Alexseev and Zhemukhov to avoid having to define Islam and identify the religion’s adherents—an obstacle that many studies do not effectively maneuver. Second, instead of considering only a narrow outcome, Alexseev and Zhemukhov examine tolerance through the context of Islamic inclusiveness, diversity of rituals, and civic engagement among others. They ask a range of questions in their focus groups concerning specific practices such as wearing a headscarf, maintaining a beard, and performing the Hajj according to different schools of thought.
Alexseev and Zhemukhov reference John Esposito’s books on Islam and politics and David Clingingsmith, Asim Khwaja, and Michael Kremer’s study of the Hajj through a survey in Pakistan. These two works not only contend that the Hajj can lead to tolerance toward diverse groups but also argue that the Hajj can promote gender nondiscrimination. While Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance presents a model to explain broader out-group tolerance, there is little discussion of the effect of the Hajj on attitudes and actions toward women. While the focus groups do ask all women about wearing a headscarf, it does not probe Hajji and non-Hajji men’s views on women. Future work to understand the effects of the Hajj and other mass religious rituals should confirm the positive effects on attitudes toward women and describe how the 3 R’s model can be used to explain increased gender nondiscrimination among pilgrims.
Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance is an important contribution in what the study of the “social in the religious” can tell us about society and religion. The theory presented has unique implications across fields from political science and sociology to religion and anthropology. Through the development of an argument about intense religious experience and out-group tolerance in the context of the Hajj, the authors elucidate key pathways to increased intergroup tolerance. Beyond the Hajj and the additional contexts the authors explore, Alexseev and Zhemukhov’s broader social tolerance model is sure to encourage and enlighten scholarly work on how groups created by various cleavages can leverage intense in-group experiences to develop out-group acceptance.
