**1. Introduction**

One day before leaving Mecca in October 2015, Abu Bakr, a Moroccan teacher in his early sixties, prayed: "O God, I pay You farewell with my tongue, but not with my heart." He then left Mecca to return to Morocco, having completed the rites of the Hajj. At the airport in Casablanca, his family waited in anticipation of his safe return. At home, food was prepared for a banquet for family and friends. The living room was cleaned and scented, and plates of sweets were placed on a centrally positioned, large, round table. The preparations at home seemed akin to a purification ritual, making ready the house to welcome the returning pilgrim and the many visitors who would come to congratulate him on his safe return.

In a later conversation with Abu Bakr, he used a telling image to describe the condition of those who perform a pilgrimage, saying: "[Pilgrims] now are like newborn babies: cleansed from sins and full of goodness." He estimated that Hajj precipitates a

1 *Hajj al-Mabrur¯* refers to an accepted pilgrimage (cf. Muslim, book 15, hadith 493). major transformation in selfhood and a change on spiritual and moral levels. However, according to Abu Bakr's wife, once pilgrims return home, the real test begins: "would they transform so fully and live up to the morals developed during Hajj and how would they live upon return?"

The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) is one of the five pillars of Islam and a duty which adult Muslims must perform—once in a lifetime—if they are physically and financially able to do so (Aziz 2001; Bianchi 2004; Peters 1994). During the days of Hajj, pilgrims perform a series of religious and symbolic rites, following the footsteps of the prophets Abraham and Muhammad (cf. Wolfe 1997; Peters 1994; Mawdudi 1982). The Hajj is not only an individual religious undertaking of devotion for Muslims but is also a global annual event that embraces political, social, economic, and intellectual aspects (Ryad 2017). For Muslims, the Hajj often represents the culmination of years of preparation and planning, both spiritual and logistical (cf. Gatrad and Sheikh 2005, p. 133). During Hajj, the behavior of pilgrims should be dominated by piety and morality, by abstention from all temptations, by tolerance when dealing with others and by the avoidance of disputes (Bianchi 2004). The significance of the Hajj and the impact of its rites assume grea<sup>t</sup> importance throughout the lives of pilgrims, which can be seen in numerous studies about the Hajj (cf. Bianchi 2004; Wolfe 1997; Peters 1994; Scupin 1982).

As if to mark its personal and social significance, once they have completed the Hajj, pilgrims are given the honorific title alh. ajj, for males, or al- ¯ h. ajja, for females and the ¯ legacy of Hajj manifests itself in their everyday lives. In Morocco, from where thousands of pilgrims travel to Mecca every year, and where I conducted research for eighteen months among Moroccan pilgrims, many of my interlocutors described the Hajj as a transformative experience on both personal and social levels. When they returned from Mecca, my interlocutors spoke about their aspirations to transform and live up to their new status at home. Nonetheless, this desired transformation is not automatically acquired simply by virtue of having completed the pilgrimage. To maximize spiritual benefit, pilgrims must strive to lead pious lives amidst the ambivalences, contradictions and inconsistencies of their everyday lives (cf. Al-Ajarma 2020).

On the worldly level, there are benefits associated with pilgrimage such as good reputation that might impact a pilgrim's social interactions or commercial activities. For example, a businessman who has been to Hajj is expected by community members to be trustworthy and truthful which positively impacts his business (example provided by Abu Bakr, fieldnotes). Pilgrims are often invited as witnesses to marriages and to act as judges in cases of dispute as their opinions and ideas are highly respected in the community (Al-Ajarma 2020). Returning pilgrims, share the community expectations of morally elevated comportment in their daily lives after their return, while, at the same time, admitting a realistic sense of human imperfection. Thus, the question that is often expressed by pilgrims and non-pilgrims alike about the transformative qualities of Hajj remains: what happens on return to the mundane rhythms of the daily life of pilgrims?

In this article, I explore the putative spiritual and social benefits for pilgrims upon their return from the Hajj and particularly address some of the more complex ambiguities they encounter. I do this by making close reference to the testimonies of Moroccans whom I interviewed during long-term fieldwork conducted between the summer of 2015 and the winter of 2017. I argue that the daily lives of those who have performed the Hajj involve an array of practices to which pilgrims are expected to be dedicated. The very fact that people who have performed the Hajj are addressed with the honorific title alh. ajj/al- ¯ h. ajja points to ¯ expectations of how the experience must, by inference, have changed them. The enactment of what is deemed to be a correct performance of religious duties involves specific ideals or normative expectations, which are dictated by a religious authority or, alternatively, by a faith community's understanding of Islamic tradition. I argue that pilgrims strive to become pious, virtuous, or 'correct' Muslims, as they understand that term, in a process which ultimately becomes the continuous crafting of a religious self. However, this process of crafting a religious self takes place within a context where a pilgrim's morality is

both displayed and assessed in the public sphere and is not merely a matter of religious observance and private conduct. Pilgrims have to negotiate their new status—and the expectations that come with being a h. ajj/ ¯ h. ajja—within the mundane and complex reality ¯ of everyday life. Therefore, there are many ambivalences and tensions that pilgrims have to deal with upon their return to Morocco. By focusing on the lives of pilgrims after the pilgrimage is completed, this article aims to contribute to the anthropological study of pilgrimage as part of Muslims' everyday life (cf. Schielke 2010). In this research, everyday life is explored through participant observation, by following a group of Moroccan pilgrims mainly through the public and private domains which make up their everyday realms of existence. This study scrutinizes the religious, social, and personal ramifications for pilgrims after the completion of Hajj and how they engage in processes of continuous self-formation that sometimes include moments of success and at other times experiences of doubt brought by the ambiguities, contradictions, ambivalences of everyday life.

#### **2. The Impact of the Pilgrimage on the 'Everyday Life' of Muslims**

There is a range of academic studies that look at Muslim pilgrimage through various lenses, for instance in relation to tourism (Jamal et al. 2018; Timothy and Olsen 2006), historical encounters (Ryad 2017; Peters 1994, 2017), and globalization (Hyndman-Rizk 2012; Bianchi 2004).<sup>2</sup> Considerably less work, however, has been performed on the sociocultural dimensions of the Hajj in the lives of Muslims (cf. Clingingsmith et al. 2009; Donnan 1995; Haq and Jackson 2009; McLoughlin 2009). In a study carried out by David Clingingsmith, Asim Khawaja, and Michael Kremer (Clingingsmith et al. 2009) to estimate the impact of performing the Hajj on pilgrims, the authors focus on how performing the Hajj affected religious beliefs and social attitudes of Muslims including feelings of unity with fellow Muslims, increased observance of Islamic practices, such as prayer and fasting, and increased belief in equality and harmony among ethnic groups, in addition to favorable attitudes toward women. In *Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance: The Muslim Pilgrims' Paradox,* Alexseev and Zhemukhov (2017) explore how the pilgrimage experience can translate into social tolerance toward out groups. Through studying the experiences of Muslims in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, the authors argue that pilgrims were more tolerant toward outgroups and open to diverse interpretations of Islam than were similar non-pilgrims. Alexseev and Zhemukhov further discuss the pilgrims' struggles with whether or not their Hajj was accepted by God, leading them to analyze their actions during the pilgrimage. In personal accounts of the Meccan pilgrimage, Moroccans—with whom my study was conducted—speak about how they see themselves as Muslims, individuals who seek spiritual quest and members of a Muslim community following their pilgrimage (cf. Cooper 1999; Donnan 1995). The Hajj is significant in shaping individual moral conduct and bestowing an aura of religious merit on those who successfully completed it (cf. Joll 2011). Christopher M. Joll, in his study of Muslim merit making in Thailand, refers to the Hajj as the biggest merit-making event of a lifetime (Joll 2011, pp. 171–80). Even the title alh. ajj or al- ¯ h. ajja is highly significant on both personal and social levels as form of social, ¯ religious and moral capital (cf. Bourdieu 1986; Cooper 1999, p. 93). However, to study how pilgrims bring their understanding of the pilgrimage to reframing the ways in which they engage with religious, social, and cultural practices *after* the Hajj, in my view, one should examine pilgrims' everyday lives including their behavior, interactions, and other discourses—both personal and social.

<sup>2</sup> Other studies have examined the pilgrimage of Muslims in the West, especially in relation to diaspora communities. Some examples include the work of Seán McLoughlin (2009, 2010, 2013) on the pilgrimage of Pakistani Muslims in Great Britain, the research of Farooq Haq and John Jackson on the Hajj experiences of Pakistani and Pakistani-Australians pilgrims (Haq and Jackson 2009), as well as Carol Delaney's study on the pilgrimage of Turkish migrants in Germany (Delaney 1990). There is also several edited volumes on the Hajj including *Hajj: Global Interactions through Pilgrimage* edited by Luitgard Mols and Marjo Buitelaar (Mols and Buitelaar 2015) which includes several case studies on the Hajj, the more recent volume *Muslim Pilgrimage in the Modern World* edited by Babak Rahimi and Peyman Eshaghi (Rahimi and Eshaghi 2019), and most recently, *Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond: Reconfiguring Gender, Religion and Mobility* edited by Marjo Buitelaar, Manja Stephan-Emmrich and Viola Thimm (Buitelaar et al. 2020). Personal accounts on Hajj (from Morocco) include Abdlellah Hammoudi's *A Season in Mecca* (Hammoudi 2006) and Hassan Aourid's *Riwa¯<sup>Ҵ</sup>uu Makka* [The Waves of Mecca] (Aourid 2019).

A point of departure for the study of everyday life—in general—might be Michel de Certeau's *The Practice of Everyday Life* (De Certeau 1988), which examines life as it is lived and daily exchanges as a rich source of meaning for scholarly analysis. De Certeau turns focuses on what he sees as the creative poetics of the 'common man' in his patterns of interactions, offering a microanalysis of the daily enactments and renegotiations which people undertake. The study of everyday life focuses on what people do and say in a specific context and how they experience, express, and shape their 'lived religion' (McGuire 2008, p. 12; cf. Schielke and Debevec 2012; Dessing et al. 2013; Ammerman 2007). Understanding religion, Nancy Ammerman argues, requires attention to both the 'micro' practices of everyday interaction, and the 'macro' social structures among which one lives (Ammerman 2007, p. 234). Meredith McGuire follows a similar argumen<sup>t</sup> in her work where she focuses on religion as it is practiced, experienced, and expressed by 'ordinary people' (McGuire 2008, p. 12). People's actual everyday experiences, she argues, reflect their personal understanding and daily negotiation of their religion (McGuire 2008). Assuming that individuals continuously engage in making and remaking religion by undertaking religious activities, the religious lives of people are co-constituted by various, sometimes competing, priorities and experiences involving all dimensions of life (cf. Ammerman 2007). This makes everyday life a key tool in the study of religion (Toguslu 2015).

For Muslims, Mecca is the most sacred city on earth, and it has a powerful presence in their everyday life. Many Muslims consider the pilgrimage to Mecca to be the ultimate realization of one's religious development and a way of achieving moral fulfilment or becoming a good, or better, Muslim. Being and becoming a good pilgrim for many people includes the perfection of virtuous behavior, morality, and demonstration of piety (cf. Mahmood 2005). In general, pilgrimage in the everyday life of Moroccans epitomizes the meaning of Islam as "a grand scheme" (cf. Schielke 2010, p. 14). This means that the pilgrimage to Mecca becomes a guideline for life, a spiritual 'watch' and 'compass', providing meaning and direction to everyday concerns and experiences (cf. Tweed 2006). Taking into consideration the complexities in people's everyday lives and their motivations, experiences, practices, and uncertainties in dealing with such complexities, the study of everyday aspects of religion as lived by ordinary people can reveal the "plural, complex, and essentially unsystematic nature of religion" (Schielke and Debevec 2012, p. 3). Since the religious lives of most Muslims are not necessarily governed by an internally coherent set of ethics or by a certainty about the place of religion in both public and private spheres, anthropologists working on Muslim societies have highlighted the prevalence of moral ambivalence, the ways in which individuals deal with conflicting "moral registers" (Schielke 2015, p. 53ff), or "multidimensional" selves (Simon 2014). Thus, struggle, ambivalence, incoherence and failure must receive attention in the study of everyday religiosity (cf. Schielke 2010; Deeb 2015).

In the introduction to the edited volume *Straying from the Straight Path: How Senses of Failure Invigorate Lived Religion*, David Kloos and Daan Beekers argue that the struggles inherent in everyday life can, in fact, contribute to productive avenues in the processes of ethical formation rather than be seen as setbacks or obstacles to it, given the appropriate, constructive reading of, and learning from, the perceived 'failure'. Therefore, as Kloos and Beekers argue, a comprehensive approach towards the religious subject should include both questions about religious commitment, success, social mobility and progress as well as questions about drawbacks, doubt, and sinfulness. What I find in the narratives of my interlocutors in Morocco is that, although they are sometimes uncertain, doubtful, or— indeed—their daily lives show ambivalence, they nonetheless frame their religious lives in terms of an effort to be 'good Muslims' as individuals and members of larger Muslim community. The self-image of a pilgrim is constructed within his or her socio-cultural community, where particular religiously defined ideals of the pilgrimage to Mecca—and of those who perform it—are presented and taught (cf. Sadiqi 2018). A pilgrim is often seen by the community as a person who should apply the highest ideals possible in order to achieve the ideal religious selfhood within the context of their everyday life

(Al-Ajarma 2020). Nonetheless, a pilgrim is also an individual who has to deal with the ambivalence of everyday life including one's path to piety, drawbacks, doubt, and struggles of 'staying on the right path' or straying from it, as I argue in this article (cf. Beekers and Kloos 2017).
