JALAL AL-E AHMAD'S LOST IN THE CROWD

Accounts by pilgrims traveling to Mecca date back a thousand years. Although sharp criticism of the hard journey to Mecca is common, critical Muslim exposés of the actual Hajj rites and of their administration are rare and relatively recent.

In 1966, Jalal Al-e Ahmad published his diaristic account, Lost in the Crowd. In this short work, Al-e Ahmad, one of Iran's most valued social analysts, consistently championing reason against blind orthodoxy, takes to task the sweeping, sometimes thoughtless changes of the early Saudi Hajj managers, and chastises Iranian intellectuals for slighting the importance of religion. He is, in other words, an equal opportunity critic and gadfly. Irreligious most of his life, a Marxist, then an existentialist, Al-e Ahmad's Islamic credentials nonetheless run deep. His family was closely related to a prominent ayatollah. His father, an important Teheran cleric, later ran afoul of the Shah's bureaucracy. His elder brother, two brothers-in-law, and a nephew all were clerics.

Al-e Ahmad's skepticism concerning organized religion may be traced to a series of early traumatic experiences. The most striking occurred as a schoolboy, when a traditionally minded sister died at home of breast cancer after refusing “to submit to a medical examination and treatment by a male physician, on the grounds that it would constitute a religious impropriety.” One day, the young Jalal was sent to the bazaar to bring back a bucket of lead filings. He brought them home without guessing their purpose, after which a local female expert in folk remedies placed them red-hot on Jalal's sister's breasts. She died.

Part of Al-e Ahmad's strength as an author is his use of such personal material, including conflicts with superstition and paternal authority. As we see in his Hajj account, Ale-Ahmad's pilgrimage was a family affair, intensely personal. He went to Mecca, he writes, to accompany several close relatives, his sister, two brothers-in-law, and an uncle.