From Mecca With Tolerance Religion Social Recategorisation and Social Capital

Religion, State and Society
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From Mecca with tolerance: religion, social

recategorisation and social capital
Mikhail A. Alexseev & Sufian N. Zhemukhov
To cite this article: Mikhail A. Alexseev & Sufian N. Zhemukhov (2015) From Mecca with
tolerance: religion, social recategorisation and social capital, Religion, State and Society, 43:4,
371-391
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Religion, State & Society, 2015
Vol. 43, No. 4, 371391, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2015.1127672
From Mecca with tolerance: religion, social recategorisation and social

capital
Mikhail A. Alexseeva* and Sufian N. Zhemukhovb
a
Political Science Department, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Dr., San Diego, CA
92182-4427, USA; bInstitute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington
University, 1957 E Street NW, Suite 412, Washington, DC 20052, USA
(Received 9 February 2015; accepted 3 June 2015)
Downloaded by [Universiti Sains Malaysia] at 18:50 20 May 2016
Does participation in mass religious rituals promote intergroup conflict or does it

promote intergroup tolerance? We assess these claims by examining the effects of
the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) on sociopolitical views of Muslims in
Russias North Caucasus. Participant observation during the hajj and a quasi-experi-
mental focus group study of pilgrims and non-pilgrims produced paradoxical findings.
While the hajj strengthened their ingroup pride as Muslims, the pilgrims came through
as more outgroup-tolerant and prosocial than the non-pilgrims. We develop a synthetic
theoretical solution: in high-identity-value, high-diversity common group settings
social recategorisation and social capital become transitive that is, inclusive views
and social capital effects within an ingroup extend to outgroups. This means that
intergroup conflict could be reduced by not only maximising contact across conflicting
groups, but also by bringing together as many subgroups as possible within each
conflicting group in settings where their common identity is positively affirmed in a
non-discriminatory fashion.
Keywords: Islam; hajj; pilgrimage; Russia; North Caucasus; Kabardino-Balkaria;
tolerance; identity; social categorisation; social capital; ethnicity; politics; focus groups
Introduction
How and why might participation in the annual mass pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca
(the hajj) affect their sociopolitical orientations towards other schools within Islam,
other religions, other ethnic and social groups and secular governments? Would the hajj
experience contribute more to intergroup prejudice, intolerance and conflict or to inter-
group understanding, tolerance and cooperation? Would it promote social alienation or
engagement? This question set is important for at least four reasons.
First, it focuses on a socially and politically significant real-world phenomenon.
Through more than two million pilgrims each year, the hajj may nontrivially affect
interreligious and statechurch relations worldwide. These issues are particularly acute
in countries where significant Muslim populations contest the nature of sovereignty,
security and government. Second, as a doctrinally foundational practice being one of
the five pillars of Islamic faith the hajj experiences pertain to long-standing social
science debates on the relationship between religious identity and intergroup relations.
Third, one may also think of the hajj as a mass common identity-affirming ritual in
*Corresponding author. Email: alexseev@mail.sdsu.edu
2016 Taylor & Francis

372 M.A. Alexseev and S.N. Zhemukhov
general and thus a window on intergroup perceptions and behaviour outside religion.
Moreover, given its high symbolic value and procedural intensity, the hajj is likely to have
lasting imprints on individual perceptions and behaviour. The hajj is therefore particularly
suited for an investigation of the impacts of group identity change. In addition, as a
public, regular and celebratory event, the hajj is a better proxy of common group identity
rituals overall than most existing measures typically focusing on traumatic and violent
practices, particularly religious initiation rites (Whitehouse and McQuinn 2013; Alcorta
and Sosis 2013). Finally, from the methodology standpoint, the hajj offers an improve-
ment over typically static cross-sectional assessments of the sociopolitical impacts of
religious practice, with standard measures such as the Religious Orientation Scale (Allport
and Ross 1967), the Religious Fundamentalism Scale (Altemeyer and Hunsberger 1992),
the Christian Orthodoxy Scale (Fullerton and Hunsberger 1982) and, most recently,
religious infusion (Neuberg et al. 2014).
Substantively important as they are, the questions we ask defy straightforward

answers. Popular views and prominent theories of identity frequently expect intense
religious experiences like the hajj to promote ingroup favouritism and outgroup hostility,
yet studies of socialisation in religious practice have established that such experiences
tend to reduce outgroup hostility. We next examine in detail these contending perspectives
on religious identity and participation, and show why they are inadequate to system-
atically explain this paradox.
Theoretical debates on sociopolitical impacts of religious identity: the Pilgrims

Paradox
The first perspective is rooted in closely related psychological theories of social identity
and social categorisation (subsequently SIT). They posit that ingroup identification among
individuals increases ingroup conformity and engenders negative bias, intolerance and
hostility towards outgroups (Postmes and Branscombe 2010; Tajfel and Turner 1986;
Turner et al. 1994). Empirical research in comparative politics much of it drawing on
multicountry, multiyear data strongly suggests that by emphasising multiple, reinforcing
group identity cleavages religious practice helps overcome the collective action problems
that stand in the way of organised intergroup conflict (Basedau, Pfeiffer, and Vllers
2014; Gubler and Selway 2012; Stewart 2008; Selway 2011). This logic arguably explains
much about violent intergroup and interstate conflict (Horowitz 1986; Huntington 1996;
Seul 1999), racism and ethnocentrism (Hall, Matz, and Wood 2010; LeVine and Campbell
1972; Norris and Inglehart 2004); intergroup prejudice and discrimination (Neuberg et al.
2014); and fundamentalism (for a review, see Gill 2001). Fighting over religious ideas
typically makes armed conflicts longer and deadlier (Fox 2004; Pearce 2005; Svensson
2012; Toft 2007). Moreover, uncertainty about the relative position of religious groups in
politics and society enhances intergroup bias (Bettencourt et al. 2001) as in contests for
power and resources through social networks within governments (Sidel 2006), global
religious networks (Kippenberg 2010), religionalisation of politics (Helbardt, Hellmann-
Rajanayagam, and Korff 2013) and the rise of theocratic values (Karpov 2002). From
the evolutionary standpoint, religious rituals such as the hajj are costly signals of
commitment that enable groups to stay cohesive, survive and expand (Whitehouse and
McQuinn 2013; Alcorta and Sosis 2013).
Sociological analyses of the hajj have been consistent with these arguments in
important respects. The pilgrimage has been shown to nonrandomly enhance ingroup
religious identity. A survey of 1605 respondents in Pakistan found that the pilgrims were
Religion, State & Society 373
nonrandomly more likely than the non-pilgrims to self-identify as a religious person, to

pray five times a day, to recite the Quran, to take part in religious commemorations, to fast
during and outside the obligatory month of Ramadan, and to perform supererogatory
Tahajjud prayers (Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and Kremer 2009). An ethnographic study of
second-generation Bengalis in London found that the hajjis among them had a stronger
commitment to Islam (DeHanas 2013). The hajj also raises a Muslims social status. A
2007 Gallup poll found that the hajj was a rare but strongly desired practice among
Russian Muslims (Gradirovski and Esipova 2008). Outside Islam in prestate Chaco
Canyon region in southwestern USA and Cahuachi in Perus Nazca region sacral
pilgrimages maintained ingroup cohesion, probably as costly signals of identity commit-
ment (Kantner and Vaughn 2012).
Throughout history, governments feared that through religious motivation, the hajj
boosted social support for insurgency, rebellions and terrorism (Alexanderson 2014; Low
2008). These apprehensions surged worldwide after 9/11 (Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and
Kremer 2009, 1). One Russian officials rationale in 1872 pre-dated but nevertheless
cogently illustrated the logic of SIT vis-a-vis the hajj: The pilgrimage of the Caucasian
Muslims for prayers [in Mecca] develops in them fanaticism, which sustains among them
constant hostility towards the [Russian] government and serves as the only obstacle for
them to reconcile with the current state of affairs (Kumykov 2001, 249). This interpreta-
tion has persisted among Russias public and policymakers through to the present (King
2008; Bullough 2010; Bram and Gammer 2013; Shterin and Yarlykapov 2011).
The second theoretical perspective social capital contradicts these arguments and
evidence. To be human is to socialise. What matters then about religion is that it promotes
sociability, social contact, civic skills and norms, trust and civic engagement (McKenzie
2004; Putnam 2000; de Tocqueville ([1835] 2003); Verba, Lehman Scholzman, and Brady
1995; Wilson and Janoski 1995). A meta-analysis of 515 studies found that social contact
reduced ethnic, racial and religious prejudice (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). Through a sweep-
ing historical data analysis, Robert Putnam concluded that church attendance in the USA was
arguably the most important repository of social capital (Putnam 2000, 66). Religious
participation has been found to be a conduit to non-religious civic participation among
Christians in North America (Ammerman 1997; Lam 2002; Moberg 1962; Wilson and
Janoski 1995; Wilson and Musick 1997; Wuthnow 1999) and religious tolerance worldwide
including in Muslim countries (Greeley 1997; Sarkissian 2012). Embeddedness in familial
and social networks explained the growth of both religious commitment and religious
pluralism in the USA (Putnam and Campbell 2010). The rise of civil Islam in Indonesia
and the Arab world showed how voluntary Islamic religious associations strengthened a civic
culture of tolerance (Gerges 2013; Hefner 2000). Intergroup rituals of respect improved
relations between the Sufis and Catholics in Senegal (Stepan 2012). Transnational Christian
pilgrimages have promoted cosmopolitan sociability (Halemba 2011).
Consistently with this perspective, it has been shown that through the hajj Muslims
generally improved their views of Christians, downplayed ingroup uniformity, accentu-
ated intergroup similarities, bolstered their sense of individuality and saw heterogeneity as
a source of ingroup strength regardless of how intensively they practised during the hajj
(Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and Kremer 2009). Male pilgrims also turned out to be more
inclusive towards women than male non-pilgrims (Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and Kremer
2009). Particularly indicative of social capital effects was that pilgrims from Pakistan who
travelled in smaller groups and therefore had a greater incentive to socialise with
outsiders exhibited significantly higher awareness of religious diversity, gender inequal-
ity and global issues than the pilgrims who travelled in larger groups (most groups ranged
in size from 1 to 20 people) (Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and Kremer 2009, 25).

Independently, content analysis of chronicles narrating the hajj experiences of three
medieval Muslim luminaries generated similar findings. Nasir Khasraw (10041077),
Ibn Jubayr (11451217) and Ibn Battuta (13041378) represented different social origins,
cultural backgrounds and Islamic religious schools. After the hajj all three more strongly
advocated peaceful relations among Muslims, Christians and Jews (Mohammed-Marzouk
2012).
The third view rooted in the secularist tradition is that religious identity is
sociopolitically marginal or epiphenomenal (Fox 2004, 539). Statistical analysis of
large-N multiyear data has been used in evidence that weak government, material
incentives, power and opportunity to act drive intergroup conflicts regardless of specific
identity cleavages or avowed cause (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Collier and Hoeffler 2004).
Surveys in Croatia found that ethnic intolerance and religiosity were jointly determined by
the sense of competition for scarce resource (Kunovich and Hodson 1999). Religious
suicide terrorism in the Middle East has been argued to embody the strategic logic of
material gain, organised campaigns and action-retaliation (Pape 2005). The vast literature
of the religious economy school, while recognising the importance of religion in politics,
emphasises the role of institutional incentives (or rules of the game in a polity) in the
shaping of individual religious identity (Gill 2001). Consistently with this view, religious
leaders warn pilgrims that the hajj should not become just a form of tourism or entertain-
ment or illicit trade, serving mostly personal gratification (Chirkavi 2002, 7576). That
said, we found only one empirical study implying the hajj was primarily not about
religious identity, but about economic gain and social status: an ethnography of predo-
minantly animist Bori women from Northern Nigeria using the hajj as a vehicle to sell
healing and sex services in Saudi Arabia while earning a respectful pilgrim status among
Nigerias Muslims upon return (OBrien 1999).1
In summary, the simultaneous increase of ingroup pride (consistent with the divisive
us/them logic) and outgroup tolerance (consistent with the social capital logic) is at the
heart of what we call the Pilgrims Paradox. It is double-edged. Regarding the SIT, why
would more devout Muslims be more sociopolitically tolerant? Regarding social capital,
why should the pilgrims become more tolerant towards non-Muslims, even though they
typically have no contact with them during the hajj?
Resolving the paradox: group identity and social capital across sacred and profane
We offer a synthetic explanation. We start with Mircea Eliades sociology of the sacred
and profane to assess the identity implications of the hajj as intrinsically high-value
physical and symbolic repositioning in high-diversity settings (Eliade 1987). Second,
we examine its effects on recategorisation into common ingroups and on social capital.
We specify how recategorisation could engender not only common-ingroup but also
outgroup tolerance and why benign socialisation effects could be transitive. Third, we
explain how a renewed sense of individuality repersonalisation promotes sociopoli-
tical tolerance. As we next theorise the repositioningrecategorisationrepersonalisation
(three-Rs) model explaining the Pilgrims Paradox, we draw, in part, on our participant
observation and interview studies in the Middle East and the North Caucasus. We then
probe the models plausibility with a quasi-experimentally designed content analysis of
focus groups comparing the views of the hajj pilgrims and non-pilgrims in Russias
Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. In conclusion we assess and summarise the theoretical
and empirical implications of the findings.
Repositioning: migration and sacred spaces

For the majority of pilgrims the hajj is a long-distance bidirectional (return) migration in
three stages: a journey from the homeland to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia, a one-month-
or-so stay in Saudi Arabia performing sacred rituals, and a return to the homeland. More
than ordinary travel, it means repositioning crossing and re-crossing of physical and
symbolic boundaries across states, across social groups, and, vitally, between the sacred
and the profane. Two aspects of repositioning are critical for developing a generalisable
explanation of the Pilgrims Paradox.
The first is its high intrinsic value to individuals. The ultimate physical destination of
the pilgrims, the Kaaba in Mecca, is the Axis Mundi of Islam, in Eliades terms: their axis
of the universe, their centre of Heaven, their hub of the world. It is also a symbolic
repositioning in time: a regeneration through the return to the times of origins, a festival
time entailing reproduction of the paradigmatic acts of the Gods (Eliade 1987, 8084,
87). Eliades nontrivial counterintuitive contribution is that such repositioning orients

individuals in the world, liberates them from the illusory and the fantastic and makes
their individual space comprehensible, secure and orderly. It is repositioning to the initial
point of orientation of ones entire faith, more likely than not to be remembered and
cherished ones entire life.
The second aspect is exposure to high diversity, social and religious. Reaching the
Axis Mundi typically requires crossing multiple religious group boundaries (going
through non-Islamic countries and regions or, at the very minimum, using transportation
infrastructure where the modus operandi is predominantly secular). Eliades important
insight is that believers would most likely view their own religious ingroup as our world
and all other populations as the other world. The former is orderly, familiar, compre-
hensible and secure. The latter is chaotic, strange, incomprehensible and insecure.
Breaking through from one to the other is hard. However, the hajj not only makes the
pilgrims do so, but it gives this experience a sacred that is, high symbolic meaning.
Intergroup breakthroughs become possible and repeatable (Eliade 1987, 30).
These two aspects of repositioning lay down the necessary conditions of two
perceptual mechanisms that explain the Pilgrims Paradox: recategorisation and
repersonalisation.
Recategorisation: reverse social projection and social capital transitivity

In SITs Common In-Group Identity Model, recategorisation occurs when members
of different subgroups identify primarily with a more inclusive (superordinate) group
say, when people of different races see each other first and foremost as fans of the
same football team. Empirical evidence shows that recategorisation promotes proso-
cial behaviour (Gaertner and Dovidio 2000; for a review, see Dovidio et al. 2009).
The Muslim pilgrim identity could be viewed as a more inclusive common identity
superordinate to Islamic subgroup and social identities. However, non-Islamic reli-
gions would be common outgroups to the pilgrims. One would then expect the hajjis
to view them more negatively. In fact, it is not even guaranteed that recategorisation
would improve social relations within a common group. One school of thought
within SIT holds that whether relations among subgroups (for example ethnic sub-
groups) improve or worsen as a result of sharing a common, more inclusive primary
identity (for example as pilgrims) depends on social projection that is, how
strongly individuals believe their subgroup values and standards are prototypical of
the common ingroup identity. The more they believe they are prototypical the more
they are likely to view other subgroups as deviant and inferior. If this is the case,
recategorisation will translate into social intolerance (Mummendey and Wenzel
1999).
Our theoretical contribution is that social projection is also likely to work in reverse
when common ingroup identity is highly valued and no subgroup is a majority, as we
argue happens through repositioning during the hajj. Social projection reversal would
occur when individuals placed in a more diverse common group become less confident
that their own subgroup standards and values are prototypical of the common group
identity. Other subgroups would appear less deviant and outgroup differences would
become less salient. Consequently, both subgroup and outgroup bias would diminish
and outgroup tolerance would increase.
The hajj experiences and impressions we recorded illustrate the logic of social
projection reversal. Devout Muslims from the North Caucasus who had never been to
Saudi Arabia typically imagined that perfect Muslims living perfect Muslim lives
populated Islamic countries. Having internalised this idealised image, they became
intolerant of what they saw as incompatible with it in the everyday life of local North
Caucasus Muslims. In fact, most pilgrims interviewed during our participant observa-
tion study of the hajj expected to meet only honest people in Mecca. However, when
they experienced Mecca, they became less sure what prototypical ideal Muslims
should be and to what prototypical Muslim identity to subscribe. Encountering diver-
sity of global Islam played a part, but even more so did the negative culture shocks.
Pilgrims from Nalchik, among whom one of the authors was a participant observer,
complained passionately about dishonesty, impurity, swindling and deviance they
never believed had a place in the Holy Land. A higher taxi price during the busiest
hours or at night was unbelievable injustice. Seeing a man spit on a street in Mecca
caused an outrage. Observing a believer finish a prayer and refuse to yield his place to
a fellow believer who needed it at the overcrowded Kaaba made one pilgrim seethe
with anger.
And yet, the pilgrims did not downgrade the hajj significance as religious practice. Its
intrinsic value to them was high. Doing so in Islams Axis Mundi would be tantamount to
challenging the existence of God. Later, in focus groups, the idea that negative culture
shocks could devalue the hajj as religious experience was not even raised. Instead, in
response to these shocks, the pilgrims broadened the perceived boundaries of condonable
behaviour. They extended the imagined boundaries of ideal common Muslim prototypi-
cality and downplayed their individual prototypicality. Thus they reversed social projec-
tion. If what they thought was unacceptable in their own behaviour could be acceptable
from the standpoint of their God, then what they thought was unacceptable in others
views, beliefs or behaviours could be acceptable as well. They told the participant
observer: If this happens in the most sacred space, God must be more tolerant, less strict
than I thought, so I should be the same.
Our second theoretical proposition is that sociability is transitive. Social capital is not
only about group joining, networking and intergroup contact, but about the symbolic
value of sociability. It is transitive not only in a sense that the more individuals socialise in
one setting (bowling or church) the more they would socialise in other settings (civic
associations) as previous research found. It is that first-time socialisation in high-intrinsic-
value settings is also likely to contribute to prosocial views even among the regular non-
joiners, non-networkers or non-socialites and even when intergroup boundaries are not
crossed.
This is crucial. During the hajj most pilgrims are logistically segregated by country
and region of origin. Socialisation is not as cosmopolitan as it may appear. According to
one ethnographer
. . . the duality exists in the heart of Mecca. . . . the various national contingents and their local
constituents are housed and guided through the rituals and sacred territory separately. Such
segregation erodes the theme of unity and brotherhood as it heightens national differences.
(Delaney 1990, 521)
However, the pilgrims treasured this socialisation. Whether they socialised little or a lot before
the pilgrimage, the hajjis upon return established and maintained friendship networks with
former group members and other local pilgrims. A Kabardino-Balkarian non-hajji, Ismail
Teppeyev, who attended one of the typical pilgrim group reunions in his village, reported:
When we got together, I listened to the amazing stories our old-timers shared. I felt I was
flying (Focus group interview, Nalchik, Russia, 27 April 2009). His words clearly illustrate
the social capital effects the pilgrims experienced, but which the non-pilgrims missed.
Repersonalisation: outward bound

Social projection reversal and social capital transitivity also call into question whether
common group identification necessarily results in depersonalisation (Turner et al. 1994).
If perceived common ingroup boundaries and prototypicality expand as a person commits
more to that same common identity, it is plausible that the same person would develop an
increasing sense of both individuality and commonality. In John Turners terms, they will
not have to choose to be either unique personalities or the interchangeable exemplars of
a social category (Turner et al. 1994, 50). They can be both. We call it repersonalisation:
a stronger sense of individuality alongside a more inclusive common group identification.
The hajj experiences illustrate this logic. One of the strong themes in our interviews
and focus groups was the sense of empowerment the pilgrims felt to analyse, to under-
stand better and to celebrate their identities as unique individuals. With everyone wearing
white ihram robes to walk around the Kaaba and to spend a night in the open air at
Muzdalifah, the hajjis reported feeling unified as a group, yet they also were cognisant
that whether the hajj including all these unifying group experiences counts depends on
each individual alone. Only God, according to the Islamic faith, decides on that, in each
particular, individual case. And thus, while performing the unifying group rituals, the
hajjis all looked deeper inward to replay things they had done throughout their whole
lives, things they felt would ultimately determine if their hajj counted. This was, in other
words, a thoroughly individuating common group experience.
More generally, the hajjs embeddedness in Eliades sacral space and time of origin
helps explain why a stronger ingroup identification goes hand in hand with repersonalisa-
tion: . . . religious man wishes to be other than he is on the plane of his profane
experience. Religious man is not given; he makes himself, by approaching the divine
models (Eliade 1987, 100). And, following the earlier logic, just as immersing oneself
into the sacred space is a way to be real, to find the centre around which a person can
orient him or herself, the imitation of divine models (such as retracing the deeds of
Prophet Muhammad during the hajj) is a way to be human, individual, unique. As a result,
Eliade argues, Religious man assumes a humanity that has a transhuman, transcendent
model (Eliade 1987, 99). But no matter how close to the ideal-type divine model, each
model re-enactment in a ritual is an individually inspired and profoundly idiosyncratic act.
In the language of social psychology, this means that through intense self-analysis during
the hajj the pilgrims come to identify more closely with the social category superordinate
to ethnicity, nationality and religion: that is, humanity.
Plausibility probe: the hajj and the North Caucasus

Russias North Caucasus offers an excellent setting for exploring the impact of the hajj
pilgrimage on intergroup relations. Pilgrimage to Mecca has strong roots in that region,
including Kabardino-Balkaria (Zhemukhov 2011). Circassians a broader regional ethnic
identification that includes Kabardins, or 57% of Kabardino-Balkarias population have
more than a hundred given names connected to the hajj. After seven decades of the
atheistic Soviet rule, the hajj re-emerged as part of the return to the sacred. Following
Gorbachevs glasnost reforms of the late 1980s, the government of Saudi Arabia began
allocating hajj quotas to Russia. However, the resumption of the hajj tradition, even in
traditionally Muslim areas such as the North Caucasus, took over a decade. Only about a
hundred people from Kabardino-Balkaria populated by nearly one million people went
to Mecca between 1987 and 2000. This slow start was due partly to the impact of Soviet
rule that suppressed Islamic practices and partly to lack of information access. The
invitations to perform the hajj free of charge were distributed mostly among the local
bureaucrats. Since the turn of the millennium, the social context of the pilgrimage has
changed profoundly. It is mostly common citizens who have been performing the hajj. In
the first decade of the 2000s, as in the pre-Soviet past, most pilgrims pursued only one
goal to perform a ritual honouring one of the five pillars of Islam. At present, few hajjis
from the North Caucasus bring to Mecca goods for sale to generate extra income. Some
pilgrims brought back from Mecca the sanctified Zamzam water, perhaps the most
common item the pilgrims transported back home, but in all cases known to these authors,
it was not for resale at a profit, but for ritual use or gifts.
Sociopolitical tolerance our outcome variable has been a salient issue in
Kabardino-Balkaria. Relations among the Kabardins (Circassians), the Turkic Balkars
and the Russians have been marked by tensions and conflicts, some of which have turned
violent. The republic has been a battleground between the separatist and Islamic militant
insurgents and the Russian military and security forces since 2005. The increase in the hajj
pilgrimage has raised security concerns.
The present study started with exploratory structured interviews in Adygea and
Kabardino-Balkaria, constituent republics of the Russian Federation in the North
Caucasus region with a large percentage of traditionally Muslim ethnic Circassian
(Adyge) populations, in the summer of 2008. We then conducted focus groups in
Kabardino-Balkaria in June 2009 and April 2010. Our analysis has also drawn on
ethnographic observations and interviews with the pilgrims from these and other republics
of the North Caucasus during the pilgrimage to Mecca by one of the authors in the autumn
of 2009. Overall, we conducted 50 focused, structured interviews that informed our
theoretical insights. To probe their plausibility more systematically, we held four focus
group sessions with a total of 28 participants.
Of our two pilgrim groups, one had five and the other seven participants. Two other
groups, one with seven and one with nine participants, were non-pilgrims. To control for
self-selection bias (that the pilgrims differed from the non-pilgrims predominantly on the
degree of prior commitment to and interest in Islam as religion rather than on the hajj
experience per se), we selected for our non-hajji focus groups only Muslims who
expressed a strong wish to complete the pilgrimage and who credibly had not had the
opportunity to do so (mostly because of lack of funding, passport issues or family

problems). The hajjis in the focus groups performed the pilgrimage between 2000 and
2008. Their focus groups were about equally mixed on how recently participants made
their pilgrimages. This enabled us to control for possible differences between immediate
and long-lasting impressions of the hajj among focus group participants. These design
elements increased the likelihood that putative differences in the views between the
pilgrims and non-pilgrims would not be an artefact of the differences in initial motivation
and religious commitment or time elapsed since they did the hajj.
We introduced three major themes in focus group discussions and interviews. The first
theme was the meaning of the hajj to individual participants. We solicited participants
impressions and non-participants ideas on how the pilgrimage might affect a Muslim
believer. (In this way we also opened up our analysis to the possibility that the biggest
impressions about the hajj could come from anticipation or post-return effects.) The
second theme dealt with the participants views of other social groups (religion, ethnicity,
gender) and the state. To initiate discussion on these topics, we invited participants to tell
us how they viewed an ideal family and ideal society. The third theme was public life. We
solicited views on the media, civic engagement and travel. Focus group discussions were
open-ended. We did not insist on participants covering every subtheme we raised in other
group discussions, but let the conversations evolve on their own. One drawback of this
approach was that we typically had less time for the third theme, which is reflected in the
quantitative data. However, each group had an opportunity to develop that theme.
Importantly, this issue affected all focus groups, thus being an unlikely source of
substantive bias between the hajji and the non-hajji groups. Our main focus was on the
discussion duration and the participants level of engagement pertaining to specific topics
that developed from these three broad themes. We recorded and transcribed these discus-
sions and coded how much time the participants devoted to specific themes using the
word count in the transcript as a proxy.
To minimise substantive inter-author biases that could conceivably arise from differ-
ences in their religious views as well as socio-economic and cultural backgrounds we
deployed the method of delegated or split participant observation, with one scholar
participating in the hajj pilgrimage and the other asking control questions to reduce the
going native effect and to boost recollection. We extended this approach to evaluation of
interviews and focus group analysis.
By and large, we held constant ethnic composition and intra-Islam doctrinal differ-
entiation across our focus groups. Of the 28 participants 25 were ethnic Kabardins
(Circassians). Three participants were ethnic Balkars, all of them in the hajji group that
had the total of seven pilgrim participants. All participants were of the Hanafi school
(Madhhab) of Sunni Islam.2
One challenge we had to deal with in our focus group design was the systematic
imbalance by age and sex among the hajj pilgrims. The number of men going to Mecca is
typically twice that of women. This is not mainly because of gender relations in the
Caucasus, but because of the law in Saudi Arabia that prohibits women under 45 to
perform the pilgrimage alone: those under 45 may do so only with close male relatives.
This influenced the age and sex composition of the pilgrim groups examined. Most female
pilgrims were over 50, while young and old males were more or less equally represented.
In fact, in 2008 and 2009 more women than men over 60 performed the hajj to Mecca
from Nalchik. Women made up 69% of pilgrims in that age group in 2009 and 62% in
2008. Conversely, among those under 50, men made up 82% of the pilgrims in the
Nalchik groups in 2009 and 77% in 2008. This in general represents the situation across
the North Caucasus region.
Partly reflecting the demographics, the hajjis in our focus groups were predominantly
male and all female hajjis were over 50. Within the limitations of our four-group design
dictated by available resources and local custom (making it hard to have an open
exchange of views in mixed-gender groups), we controlled for gender differentiation
and, partially, for the age effects. By splitting the pilgrim groups (all of whom were
over 50) by sex we could partially test for gender-based influences by holding pilgrimage
and age constant. This also allowed us to compare the hajj and non-hajj groups with sex
held constant, but age partly different. Additionally, we recruited participants of mixed
age in one non-hajji group (with three participants in their 30s, two in their 40s, two in
their 50s, one 20 and one 60). On condition that gender-based influences were small in the
first set of control tests, we could also more systematically examine the influence of age
on identity by analysing whether discussion content in a mixed-age non-pilgrim male

group differed more from a younger female non-pilgrim group or from an older male
pilgrim group.
Focus group content analysis

We used perhaps the most basic method of focus group content analysis: approximate
proportion of discussion time in each group on broad themes of theoretical interest. To
reduce substantive bias we opted out of coding of individual participants attitudes
towards a theme (theme valence). All focus group discussions were transcribed in
their entirety verbatim in Russian. The texts include translation into Russian of discus-
sions that took place in Circassian (under 10% of the total duration). We used word counts
of excerpts on specific themes as proxies for discussion duration. Theme identification
was based on key terms identified deductively and supplemented with terms identified
inductively during coding.3 If a term was added to the list based on one focus group
transcript, it was also searched in all other group transcripts. The principal coding units
were paragraphs and strings of dialogue on a given theme.
The repositioning theme centred on terms pertaining to core semantic components of
Eliades Axis Mundi namely, words pertaining to sacred entities and locations in Islam
(its Axis) such as Allah, Mecca, Medina, Prophet, Kaaba, hajj, sacred,
blessed; words describing the global significance of the hajj (the Mundi), such as
nations, world, global, diversity, Earth, meaning, and country names; and words
pertaining to participation in the sacred activities, such as tawaf, experience, going
around (the Kaaba). We excluded typically short discussions of routine local logistics that
some of the hajjis shared with each other unrelated to the hajj such as obtaining visas or
arranging bus rides. As recategorisation we coded the discussion of Islamic values and
standards in visual appearance (such as hair or dress, including terms like beard, shave,
hat, skirt, headscarf, jewellery, amulet); in religious beliefs (vis-a-vis other reli-
gions and different schools within Islam, with terms including sharia, Madhhab, Shia,
monotheism, God-abiding, Bible, Christian, Jew); in relation to ethnic culture
(terms such as ethnic, tradition, nationality, mountain (people), Adyge, Kabard,
Balkar, Circassian, Russian, Dagestani), as well as discussions of religionstate
relations (terms such as state, government, law, rules, police, education) and
social equality (terms such as income, rich, poor, cost, price, status). As
indicators of repersonalisation we marked conversations on the appropriateness of self-
expression in public (such as being photographed, filmed or interviewed), interest in civic/
public life (terms such as media, programme, television, internet, conference,

public speech) and foreign travel preferences. From the latter, a distinct sub-theme
emerged: interest in the USA (as a distinctly secular state frequently perceived by locals
as hostile to Islam). We used the percentage of word count per theme relative to the word
count for all the above themes within each focus group as an indicator of discussion
duration that could be compared across groups.4
We marked separately four content types not included above: (1) statements made by
the authors (unless they were short comments embedded in the group discussions); (2)
statements of two non-hajjis who sat in on focus group discussions featuring the pilgrims;
(3) formulaic or general praise of Allah and Islam unrelated to the hajj meaning; and (4)
discussions of interpersonal relationships in family and marriage. The first three types of
text were excluded from the total word counts. The fourth theme was used as a partial
control for the impact of age and gender on theme choice, as its prominence was distinctly
related to these factors. For that purpose we calculated the percentage of the word count
for this theme relative to the total word count minus the statements by the authors and the
non-hajjis.
The coding scheme was straightforward. All key themes were identified on the basis
of search term use and text marked on the first pass. No more than 3% of the text was
recoded upon inter-coder checks for consistency among the authors. Texts of all focus
group transcripts were coded in their entirety (that is, we have no indeterminate or
uncoded text).
Our Pilgrims Paradox model predicted that the hajjis would spend more time than the
non-hajjis discussing the sacred and global nature of the pilgrimage, religionstate rela-
tions, social equality, the USA, and the media and social activism. The same model also
predicted the hajjis would spend less time than the non-hajjis discussing the importance of
common Islamic standards in personal appearance (looks) as well as religious beliefs and
rituals.
Principal findings
Given the small-n limitation of focus groups, we opted for a quasi-experimental 2 2
cross-category design. This enabled us not only to compare averages across the hajj versus
non-hajj groups, but also to check if differences in word counts were more pronounced
between the two hajj groups than between the two non-hajj groups. We could thus have
higher confidence in our inferences based on findings in Figure 1.
The results fail to falsify the central arguments of the three-R model, while suggesting
some important nuances. As expected, the hajjis, on average, spent more time discussing
the sacred nature of the pilgrimage and its global diversity (Axis Mundi of repositioning
theme). They were more open to discussing religionstate relations and social equality as
well as the media and public activism. They were, on the whole, more open to discussing
the possibility of travelling to and living in the USA. Moreover, topic salience generally
varied more across the hajj versus non-hajj groups than across two hajj versus two non-
hajj groups. A powerful way to ascertain this is to compare how much the mean share of
discussion time differed from each groups share of discussion time per theme across as
opposed to within the hajj and non-hajj groups. The data on religionstate relations offer a
telling illustration. The average share of discussion time on this theme for hajj-1 and hajj-
2 groups was 27%. The average share of discussion time on the same theme for the non-
hajj-1 and non-hajj-2 groups was 3.5%. The difference between 27 and 3.5 is larger than
the difference between either hajj-1 or hajj-2 and their average. It is also larger than the
Figure 1. Focus group themes related to the hajj effects in Kabardino-Balkaria.
difference between either non-hajj-1 or non-hajj-2 and their average. The only exception
from this pattern was the discussion of social equality (mostly, the importance of incomes and
money), where the difference between the two non-hajj groups was larger than the difference
between the average for the hajj and non-hajj groups. In Figure 1, this pattern is clear if one
compares the total length of the top stacked bar for each theme versus the bottom stacked bar
for each theme columns and the size of the light- and dark-shaded portions within them
relative to each other and across top and bottom stacked bars for each theme.
The most pronounced difference between the hajj and non-hajj groups aside from
the discussion of the hajj meaning, given the obvious difference in life experiences was
the much stronger attention among the non-hajjis to the importance of maintaining uni-
form standards of belief and ritual in Islam, based on the Quran, the Sunna and sharia law.
Participants in these groups devoted about 43.5% (4.5%) of discussion on the three-R
themes to the importance of the uniformity of their faith, compared to just 6.5% of
discussion time (3.5%) on the same topic among the hajji groups. This suggests the
hajjis were less religiously and socially intolerant, or at least that they were less interested
in spending time discussing the importance of religious uniformity and social compliance
with religious norms. Conversely, as shown in the earlier example of the differences
within and across groups, content analysis revealed that the pilgrims felt significantly
more comfortable discussing religionstate relations than the non-pilgrims did.
The latter pattern was also manifest in the discussion of repersonalisation. The
pilgrims showed greater propensity to express or present themselves in public. The non-
pilgrims mostly spoke about ideas they learned from Islamic literature or sermons.
Crucially, the non-pilgrims said or implied that they trusted books or local Islamic leaders
opinions more than their own life experiences. Yet, perhaps paradoxically, the fact that
they obtained most of their religious knowledge from books or opinion leaders usually
made them more confident and rigid in their beliefs compared to the pilgrims. The latter,
in contrast, drew more extensively on their experiences. They were generally more
flexible and open to alternative viewpoints during the discussions. Content analysis of
focus group transcripts offers an insightful quantitative illustration of this pattern.
Whereas references to Allah and the Quran Islams primary sources of faith were
only somewhat more frequent among the non-pilgrims than among the pilgrims, refer-
ences to additional sources (the Prophet, the Sunna, Hadiths) were significantly more
frequent. We recorded just over 14 references to the primary sources per 1000 words
among the non-hajjis and about 8 among the hajjis. References to additional sources were
made 6.5 times per 1000 words among the non-hajjis, but only about 0.9 times among the
hajjis.
This means that repersonalisation included de-idolisation: those who performed the
hajj became less likely to be swayed by indirect or mediated knowledge, something that
would include fundamentalist literature and local radical Muslim idols or sheiks. It
follows that the hajjis would also be less likely to be swayed by local militant Islamist
activists and therefore less likely to join the ongoing armed anti-government insurgency in
the North Caucasus.
Control tests
Additional examination showed that age, sex and socio-economic status of participants
had not as strong an impact on the differences across focus groups as having performed
the hajj.
First, compared to non-pilgrims, all pilgrims regardless of gender devoted more
than twice as much time to the hajj as Axis Mundi as well as to mass media, public
activism and the USA; more than nine times as much time to religionstate relations; but
less than one-fifth of the time to the importance of Islamic uniformity in personal
appearance, creed and rites (see Figure 2a and 2b).
Second, among non-pilgrims gender and, probably, age had less effect than hajj
participation did across all groups. As shown in Figure 2c, non-pilgrim men of mixed
age and non-pilgrim women of predominantly younger age both spent most of their
discussion outside family issues on the sacred nature of the hajj and on the importance
of uniformity in Islam, devoting a near identical share of group discussion time to these
Figure 2. Controlling for age and gender effects in focus groups (% word count by group).
Note: *These results are near identical for the hajj women (over age 50) versus the non-hajj women
(under age 45).
key topics. Religionstate relations and repersonalisation issues (media, public life, inter-
est in the USA) were little discussed and almost exclusively by men. This is consistent
with the overall more active stance of males on these issues in Islamic societies. However,
the overall pattern on the latter two themes by volume differs substantially from the one
that obtained among all pilgrims versus non-pilgrims (see Figure 2a).
Third, we found differences by gender when pilgrimage and age were held
constant yet, again, they can hardly explain the differences among pilgrims and
non-pilgrims (compare Figure 2a and 2c). Overall, when the hajj experience is held
constant, age and sex differences do not have as strong an impact on theme salience
as the hajj/non-hajj difference does when gender differences are held constant
(compare Figure 2a and 2b with Figure 2c and 2d). Overall, the age distributions
across focus groups were stacked against our principal hypothesis. The average age
was 62 in the hajj groups (standard deviation = 7.7) and 35 in the non-hajj groups
(standard deviation = 13.4). Sociologists, however, typically find that older people
are less tolerant than younger people (for a comprehensive cross-generational ana-
lysis with 40 years of data, see Twenge, Carter, and Campbell 2015). Also, if age
differences were decisive, we should not observe the difference between the male
hajj and non-hajj groups being almost identical to the difference between the
pilgrims and the non-pilgrims (Figure 2a and 2b). These male groups were the
closest by age across the hajjis and the non-hajjis.5
Tallies of group discussion time devoted to interpersonal family relations relative
to the total focus group time increased confidence in our findings. Variation on this
theme showed what our data would have probably looked like if the results in
Figure 2 were predominantly due to age and gender differences across groups. The
relationship theme appeared to be more popular among younger and female partici-
pants and, conversely, less popular among older and male participants. It was not
raised at all in the group of older men pilgrims. (Family issues were raised in that
group, but only as part of discussing state policy, education and media influences.)
In the group of older women pilgrims, interpersonal relations took up about 10% of
total discussion time and in the group of mixed age men 18%. Among younger
women this theme accounted for 33% of discussion time. However, this cross-group
pattern distinctly did not obtain on the three-R themes (Figure 2), as one would
expect if the results we report were largely due to age and gender differences across
groups than to the hajj versus non-hajj difference.
Personal incomes that we estimated on the basis of the participants statements about
their occupation were relatively homogenous across groups. The average monthly perso-
nal income among the hajjis was about US $338 with the standard deviation of $156. The
average monthly personal income among the non-hajjis was about $488 with the standard
deviation of $263. If anything, this difference worked against our principal arguments.
Notable scholars of Islam have argued that higher income levels among Muslims in
America than in Europe explain why the former have been generally more socially
tolerant (Esposito 2010; Roy 2004). As for occupation, we observed approximately the
same level of difference in social attitudes among two relatively homogenous groups of
the hajjis (pensioners) and the non-hajjis (students and teachers) (Hajj-1 and Hajj-2 in
Figure 1) as we did among mixed-occupation hajj and non-hajj groups, suggesting that
neither occupational homogeneity nor occupational differences among participants
accounted for the major differences in social views.6
Semantic watersheds
Textual analysis and behavioural observations of discussions on Islamic norms, religion
state relations and civic life showed that the hajjis had a more inclusive concept of
common Muslim identity, were more inclined to socialise and had a stronger proclivity
for public engagement than the non-hajjis.
Faith
The non-pilgrims emphasised Islams exclusivity. In one group everybody agreed with
one participants claim:
The world is divided into two parts pure Muslims worshipping only the Almighty Allah and
the rest Shiites, Jews, and whatever . . . If even one word someone believes in contradicts
the Quran, they are not Muslims. Their views cannot be shared.
The pilgrims emphasised commonalities between schools (Madhhabs) within Islam as

well as between Islam and other major world religions. It was acceptable, they said, for
the Muslims of the Shafii Madhhab to perform the hajj using the more forgiving Hanafi
Madhhab rules. They noted that the Prophet Muhammad did not persecute people of other
faiths. One participant, Khasan Gedgafov, 65, said: According to Islam, you are not a
Muslim if you dont believe in Jesus Christ and Moses. They were also both prophets and
messengers. Allah spoke with Moses. We need to learn religious tolerance.
Prayer
The non-pilgrims insisted that Muslims could not make up for the sin of missing any of
the five daily prayers by praying twice or more at the next preset prayer time. They argued
the make-up prayers did not count. The pilgrims said that in certain circumstances making
up for missed prayers was acceptable. One of them, Mukhamed, said that he once hosted a
guest, an old man who needed attention, and missed a midday prayer. After the old man
departed, I performed the obligatory prayer plus the missed prayer, and went to sleep.
Personal appearance
In the non-pilgrim focus groups, all men had beards. All non-pilgrim women wore tight
austere headscarves completely covering their hair. One woman, Madina, was adamant
that even a stylish hairdo was not an excuse not to wear a headscarf, because one will
have to answer to God as what is more important. Most of the pilgrim men were cleanly
shaven. They told us that the hajj made them realise that a beard was not necessarily
something that distinguished Muslims from non-Muslims or made someone a better
Muslim. The pilgrim women wore headscarves or looser kerchiefs, some partially expos-
ing their hair. One participant, Fatima, said there are married women in their 60 who do
not wear headscarves, and there are young unmarried women who wear them. She did
not advocate changing that, and did not refer to Gods retribution.
State and religion

The non-pilgrims mostly avoided this topic. The women complained once about local
police rudely telling them to stop wearing scarves. The men expressly told us they did not
want to discuss government and politics. The pilgrims discussed these issues at length,
including the high rate of death sentences in Saudi Arabia, the political differences
between anti- and pro-Western parties in Islamic countries, using prayer rooms at airports
and railway stations and bus stations, and traffic signs showing the way to the nearest
mosque or bearing quotations from the Quran. They said they understood after the
pilgrimage that the state, while secular, may also create meaningful spaces for religious
expression and that the two can exist harmoniously. There are prayer rooms even in
prisons, marvelled Zaur while reminiscing about his experiences in Saudi Arabia.
Public engagement
Whenever participation in public life or secular media content came up, the non-
pilgrims abruptly dropped the topic and stayed away from it for a long time. All
non-pilgrims said they did not vote. All non-pilgrims objected to having their photos
taken and their focus group sessions videotaped. The pilgrims reported being socially
active in ways the non-pilgrims were not. They mentioned attending Quran recital
courses and talked about negotiating with the Russian government a plan to build
enough mosques in their hometown of Nalchik so that Muslims could get out of their
apartments and walk to a mosque nearby to pray five times a day. The pilgrims
discussed mainstream Russian television programmes at length and with considerable
interest. They drew parallels with Saudi Arabia having secular TV channels and local
Muslims watching and discussing them. They said seeing pilgrims from all over the
world taking videos and pictures to record their hajj experiences made them realise that
while Islam does not condone taking photos it never prohibits it either. All pilgrims
were enthusiastic about us taking their pictures and about having their focus group
sessions videotaped. They were excited that local secular television stations NOTR and
Edelweiss recorded excerpts from focus group sessions.
Conclusion
Participation in mass, peaceful, common-identity-affirming religious rituals promotes socio-
political tolerance. This conclusion withstood a hard test. The fervour, the physical exertion,
the monumental symbolism, the costs, ethnically restricted socialisation, and the location in
the heart of the turbulent Middle East (once the home state of Osama bin Laden) all seemed
to suggest that the hajj would harden the pilgrims religious identities, fuel a sense of
Islamic superiority and promote intolerance to religious and social outgroups as well as
alienation from secular governments. And yet, the North Caucasus pilgrims came through in
our study as more tolerant and prosocial than local Muslims who strongly desired but had
no opportunity to do the hajj. Although based on a relatively small-n study of pilgrims from
one country, our inferences are derived from hundreds of recorded ethnographic observa-
tions and verbal statements in interviews and quasi-experimentally selected focus groups.
These findings have nontrivial implications for ongoing debates about Islam and
democracy. Sociopolitical tolerance is an important democratic value. A fundamental
Islamic practice the hajj pilgrimage appears to enhance it. This conclusion undermines
the argument that Islam is a basis of ideational and social support for authoritarianism and
contradicts assertions that Islamic beliefs and practices per se undermine the idea of state
religion separation (Lewis 2010; for counterarguments, see Kuru 2014). In our extensive
observations and content analysis, the pilgrims were less insistent than the non-pilgrims
on following strict Islamic standards and values in public life and politics. Conversely, if
Islam contributes to democratic discourse and values, it would be not only through
internalisation of doctrinal concepts like consultation (shura), consensus (ijma) or inde-
pendent interpretive judgement (ijtihad) (Voll and Esposito 1996), but also through socio-
psychological effects of religious identity-affirming practices such as the hajj.
At the theoretical level, physical and symbolic repositioning of pilgrims into Islams Axis
Mundi suggests two generalisable conditions that engender these benign effects. One is high
intrinsic common ingroup identity value (the Axis effect). The other is high subgroup diversity
within the common ingroup (the Mundi effect). Crucially, the common ingroup value (for
example Muslim) must be higher to individuals than their subgroup value (for example
Circassian). The findings suggest that under these conditions social recategorisation and social
capital effects become transitive as inclusive views within a group extend to outgroups.
This theoretical explanation of the Pilgrims Paradox offers nontrivial, if counterintui-
tive, recommendations for improving intergroup relations. They imply a paradigm shift in
practical conflict resolution. To promote sociopolitical tolerance in divided societies and

polities, mere exposure to high diversity of custom and opinion, or bringing diverse groups
together or intergroup dialogue or discussion forums or conferences or sporting events or
festivals are not enough and, in fact, may not be the best solution. The issue is not whether
to bring together diverse groups, but how. Suppose we have two ethnic groups and want to
see relations between them improve. The traditional approach would be to bring as many
members of each group together as possible and maximise contact between them: to select
on across-group difference (ethnicity). The alternative or complementary approach we
suggest is to bring together members of the same ethnic groups, but to maximise social
diversity within each ethnic group: to select on within-group difference. An example would
be Cinqo de Mayo or National Council de la Raza events celebrating Hispanic cultural
identity in the USA that bring together hundreds of different Hispanic groups and associa-
tions. Similar events among African Americans, Whites or Asians would arguably improve
their views of other races and ethnicities and their civic engagement. Mass, socially diverse
gatherings of Catholics during papal visits and presentations probably also contribute to
religious tolerance on the part of the participants. The message content matters, too. As with
intergroup dialogue, common identity must be affirmed positively, without claiming super-
iority over or denigrating other groups. This logic also illuminates how discriminatory
common identity-affirming socialisation in low social diversity settings (such as the Ku
Klux Klan in the American South, radical jihadist groups in Afghanistan) would fuel
sociopolitical intolerance and intergroup conflict. The across-group and within-group diver-
sity-maximising approaches need not be mutually exclusive. Whether one is more success-
ful than the other and how the two may interact appears to be a theoretically promising and
substantively important new direction for social and political research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In fairness, we should note that the study also suggests that social capital gained during the hajj
promoted tolerance between Muslims and the animist-Muslim (hybrid) believers.
2. Most of the Muslims in Kabardino-Balkaria are Hanafi. In the group from Nalchik, in which
we had a participant observer in 2009, out of 109 pilgrims 86 belonged to the Hanafi Madhhab
and 23 to the Shaafi Madhhab. The Shaafi are allowed to switch to the more forgiving hajj-
Tamattu and several from the Nalchik group did.
3. We used the word search tool in MS Word to identify in the text and count all search terms; text
segments were marked then by the authors as pertaining to specific themes.
4. A Methodological Appendix with the list of code terms and word counts is available from the
authors upon request.
5. The average age of the hajj male group was 61 with the standard deviation of 8 years compared
to 41 for the non-hajj male group with the standard deviation of 14 years. In fact, three of the
nine participants in the non-hajj group were older than two of the eight participants in the hajj
group. Overall, this difference should have translated into greater social tolerance among the
non-hajji males, but the reverse was the case.
6. We are aware that qualitative assessment of descriptive statistics offers less rigorous control for
the effects of age, gender, income and occupation on the views of focus group participants than
a regression analysis could technically provide. The problem with the latter is determining the
substantive significance of coefficients. The key underlying challenge is unit homogeneity
embedded in focus group design. Whereas we can calculate discussion duration by theme
and qualitatively interpret the differences, using the duration estimates as percentage of total
discussion per theme leaves us with a small number of cases. That problem could be solved if
we coded individual statements as cases. But that would violate the main point of holding focus
groups that is, generating group discussions, in which the number of words spoken by
participants in any specific segment is not necessarily an indicator of their contribution to the
specific theme discussion.
Notes on contributors
Mikhail A. Alexseev is a professor in the Political Science Department at San Diego State
University, California. His research has focused on threat assessment in interstate and internal
wars, ethnic relations, immigration attitudes and nationalism, with a regional focus on Eurasia.
His publications include Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, and the
United States (Cambridge University Press, 2006); Societal Security, the Security Dilemma, and
Extreme Anti-Migrant Hostility in Russia, Journal of Peace Research (2011); and The Asymmetry
of Nationalist Exclusion and Inclusion, Social Science Quarterly (2015). Alexseev has directed
multiyear research projects on migration, ethnic demographics, xenophobia and ethnic relations
funded, among others, by the National Science Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation. A native of Ukraine, he worked as a radio and newspaper journalist in
the late 1980s and served as the Kremlin correspondent for the News from Ukraine weekly.
Sufian N. Zhemukhov is a senior research associate in the Institute for European, Russian and
Eurasian Studies at The George Washington University, Washington, DC. His primary research
concentration has been on Islam, nationalism, and the history, society and politics of the North
Caucasus. He published three books in Russian on important historical figures in the formation of
the Circassian nation and is a co-author of the forthcoming book on The 2014 Winter Olympics and
the Evolution of Putins Russia: The Games that Led to War (Routledge) (with Robert Orttung). His
other scholarly publications include Making and Breaking the Political Machine in Kabardino-
Balkaria, Demokratizatsiya (2013) (with Georgi Derluguian) and Dancing the Nation in the North
Caucasus, Slavic Review (with Charles King). Zhemukhovs research has been supported by grants
from the Institute of International Education and he was a Kennan-Fulbright Fellow at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars. In Russia, Zhemukhov served as professor of history at the
Kabardino-Balkaria State University.
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Religion, State and Society

ISSN: 0963-7494 (Print) 1465-3974 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crss20

From Mecca with tolerance: religion, social

Mikhail A. Alexseev & Sufian N. Zhemukhov

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2015.1127672

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From Mecca with tolerance: religion, social recategorisation and social

Does participation in mass religious rituals promote intergroup conflict or does it

*Corresponding author. Email: alexseev@mail.sdsu.edu

2016 Taylor & Francis

Substantively important as they are, the questions we ask defy straightforward

Theoretical debates on sociopolitical impacts of religious identity: the Pilgrims

nonrandomly more likely than the non-pilgrims to self-identify as a religious person, to

in size from 1 to 20 people) (Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and Kremer 2009, 25).

Repositioning: migration and sacred spaces

87). Eliades nontrivial counterintuitive contribution is that such repositioning orients

Recategorisation: reverse social projection and social capital transitivity

Repersonalisation: outward bound

Plausibility probe: the hajj and the North Caucasus

opportunity to do so (mostly because of lack of funding, passport issues or family

on identity by analysing whether discussion content in a mixed-age non-pilgrim male

Focus group content analysis

public life (terms such as media, programme, television, internet, conference,

Figure 1. Focus group themes related to the hajj effects in Kabardino-Balkaria.

The pilgrims emphasised commonalities between schools (Madhhabs) within Islam as

State and religion

practical conflict resolution. To promote sociopolitical tolerance in divided societies and

Chirkavi, S. 2002. Sokrovishnitsa blagodatnykh znanii [Treasuries of Blessed Knowledge].

Peace Research 36 (5): 553569. doi:10.1177/0022343399036005004.

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