Religious Tourism: The Way to Santiago

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2.1 Different Pilgrimage sites
According to Collins-Kreiner (2006), Pilgrimage is one of the well-known
phenomena in religion and it exists in all the main religions of the world:
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.
For Christianity, places as Jerusalem, Rome, or Santiago de Compostela, remain as
the three more important place of pilgrimage. Lourdes in France is considered as
well as one of the most important pilgrimage sites.
For Islam, Mecca, and Medina are still the places of pilgrimage, in this case not
volunteered but obliged for every Muslim to go to Mecca at least once in their lives.
For Judaism, the main site of pilgrimage for Jewish religion was the Temple of
Jerusalem until it was destroyed in 70 AD. Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall also in
Jerusalem are the most important places of pilgrimage for the Jews.
For Buddhism, there are four different places of pilgrimage, but the most important is
the birthplace of Buddha at Kapilavastu in Nepal.
2.2.2 Missionary
Lewis (2004) explains that beside the pilgrims, there were other kinds of religiously-
inspired travellers, especially in the Christians, and they are called missioners. From
early times, Christian missions were active on and beyond the frontiers of
Christendom.
For centuries this missionary did not include the lands of Islam because apostasy in
Muslim law is a capital offence and therefore it involves the execution of the
apostate and the seducer.
David Mashhadigholam Rojo 10