British Museum, London
A pilgrimage is an epic human journey, a great assertion of life, community and ordinary people's courage. In a painting made in Iraq in AD1237, medieval pilgrims head for Mecca in a boisterous cavalcade, with musicians mounted on camels beating drums while turbanned trumpeters lead the caravan. These pilgrims have come from Timbuktu across the Sahara, from Baghdad and the Caucasus, braving bandits and deserts to perform a duty that every Muslim should undertake at least once, if he or she is able.
Today's pilgrims go from Britain and elsewhere, often on a journey planned by specialist Hajj travel agents. These modern pilgrimages are documented here alongside their predecessors. The eloquent diary of 10-year-old Saleena Nurmohamed records her first sight of the Ka'ba, the ancient black stone cube at the centre of the rituals at Mecca. "Words cannot describe the emotions that are created when one looks for the first time at the Ka'ba," she writes.
This is one of the most brilliant exhibitions the British Museum has put on – and certainly the most confrontational, in its enthusiasm for a religion regularly represented in the British media as violent and extreme. Its power lies in the way it brings together history and archaeology with contemporary images and stories (even plane tickets are included) to give an immediate, graspable sense of religious experience. Liberal-minded non-Muslims, who are more than happy to admire Islamic art, may be challenged by what is a forthright celebration of Islamic belief itself, an argument for the beauty of Islam as a religion. Following the exhibition's reconstructions of the great pilgrim routes, you are led to your destination – an attempt to recreate the intense experience awaiting pilgrims at Mecca, where no one can say they have performed the Hajj until they have completed a series of exhausting and arduous ceremonial activities.
On this journey we meet individuals; at Mecca, we see a collectivity. Images of the vast enclosure that surrounds the Ka'ba emphasise the sheer scale of the crowds. The most provocative of several contemporary artworks in the show, Abdulnasser Gharem's painting Road to Makkah, shows a road sign outside the holy city, with the route marked "Muslims only"; a bypass route is signposted "FOR NON MUSLIMS".
But non-Muslims have made the journey to Mecca. The Victorian adventurer Richard Burton undertook the Hajj disguised as an Afghan doctor. He, and the other interlopers who feature in this exhibition, went there in a spirit of genuine fascination with the religion and culture of Islam; Burton is best known for translating the Arabian Nights.
Meanwhile, powerful rulers across the centuries have lavished financial support and protection on this great gathering. For a long time, the Ottoman empire played the part the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does today. A beautiful drawing from the Ottoman era shows an elderly pilgrim on the route – a reminder of the agonies involved in making this journey before modern transport. When the Ottomans tried to build a railway for pilgrims, it became a military asset and was sabotaged by Arab forces aided by TE Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia").
Hajj is yet another great idea from the British Museum: an exhibition that mixes past and present to illuminate a central force in the world. I left with a powerful sense of the spiritual simplicity and beauty that seduced Englishmen such as Burton and Lawrence.