"What sets Islam apart from other religious traditions, including Judaism and Christianity, is that its founder elevated a pilgrimage into a binding obligation for all able-bodied believers who can afford it."
"Apart"? Judaism obliges every adult male to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem thrice yearly ("Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD", Exodus 23:17; "All are bound to appear [at the Temple]", Haggigah 2:1) and before that the the Tabernacle in Shiloh, as did Elkanah. By the way, in the third sentence below, what is the subject of "its"?
...the Hajj does much more than answer a need for spiritual obliteration. It has a declamatory function, and that is to state the political and historical truth of Muhammad’s mission. The Hajj is a summons to orthodoxy and a reminder of Islam’s ownership of its origins.
Is it the Haj? The orthodoxy? Islam?
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