This is going to be the sort of messy opinion piece that I usually hate to read; it will present a problem, but offer no real solutions. And to make it worse and slightly awkward, I think I may be a part of the problem. I write this primarily due to an internal conflict I’ve been experiencing for sometime now, and secondly due to particular trends I’ve increasingly noticed on social media.
Those who have followed us for some time will know that one of the things (among others) we aim to do at SF is promote what we term as ‘spiritual travel,’ that is, travelling with the intention of bettering oneself, or being more conscious of the presence of God. That includes (though is by no means limited to) visits to mosques, shrines and mausoleums- traditionally considered places of baraka or blessing.
We have published articles about our writers’ experiences at various zawiyas / maqams (tombs of scholars and individuals considered ‘saints’ or awliya) as well as guides about how to visit such sites. But perhaps our biggest impact has been on Instagram, where we use the Stories feature to provide ‘virtual tours’ of sites considered sacred.
I’ve never really doubted the benefit in this before; we’ve provided information in an accessible way that is not readily available online, nor will you find it in mainstream travel guides. But lately I’ve found myself questioning, not if this is a worthy endeavour, but if our approach is contributing towards a trend that can increasingly be seen online, one that sacrifices meaning in favour of aesthetics, followers and likes.
Style Over Substance
There is nothing revelatory in this; no doubt you will have already seen the thousands of images of ‘influencers’ using mosques and madrassas purely as pretty backdrops for the main point of the photo- themselves. Beautiful to look at though they may be, the focal point of the image is the influencer; the heritage, history and purpose of the site itself are relegated to a mere aesthetic.
The most obvious recent example of this (at least if you’re on Instagram), is that of Uzbekistan. In a government-led initiative to promote tourism, social media influencers were invited from all over the world to vlog, blog, post and tweet about their visit to the country, with the hope of reaching new audiences and potential new tourists. Though there is nothing wrong with that in itself, the location choices for visits, namely the incredible religious and historical sites, including mosques and madrassas, that Uzbekistan has to offer in plenty, resulted in a plethora of cringe worthy social media posts that were completely at odds with the nature of the actual sites themselves (many of which were mausoleums of scholars and once schools of religious learning). Captions posted alongside the images made little, if any reference to the purpose or significance of the buildings, and quite frankly, were devoid of any real substance at all.
Social media is an intensely visual space; while the aforementioned posts may not seem like a big deal, the result is the reduction of a legacy built on worship, scholarship and love of the divine- to an Insta aesthetic, and a complete loss of meaning.
The ‘Spiritual’ Persona
But perhaps worse still than the appropriation of religious and spiritual sites by those who have no real interest in either, is the misappropriation of spirituality and asceticism by those who ostensibly claim an interest in both.
Spirituality is reduced to (that word again) an aesthetic– the right clothing, the correct style of beard, the right tasbeeh. In relation to travel specifically (our main focus here) visiting and posting about sacred sites merely feeds into this, it helps contribute to a social media persona that is ultimately about likes and shares (of course, this does not apply to everyone who shares their experiences, I am referring to a specific trend here).
And thus we end up, and not without irony, with selfies at sacred sites and even the graves of scholars and saints (surely I’m not the only one who thinks it’s weird to take a selfie in a graveyard?). If sainthood is about losing the self in the One, then by plastering our own images all over social media at their very tombs, aren’t we kind of missing the point?
Again, meaning is diluted in favour of something superficial.
Authenticity
If the aim of spiritual travel (at least the way we’ve always defined it at Sacred Footsteps) is to be ‘closer’ to God, we need to ask ourselves if we arrive at these sites, known as places of great blessing, with sincere intentions or with aspirations that will only serve to inflate the ego (though often wearing the guise of something else).
Basically, are we really just there to post about our experiences online and gain new followers?
This is the part where it gets messy, because I find myself in the awkward position of knowing I myself am guilty of this. As SF has grown, I have indeed visited places purely for the sake of content for the site and social media. I’ve done this, convincing myself that it’s to “benefit others” (not sure what that even means at this point), while also knowing we would gain likes and followers. Not quite the definition of ’spiritual travel.’
I recently wrote about my experience of visiting Bab al Futuh cemetery in Fes; during that visit, as is typical practice in Morocco, some of the caretakers at the shrine recited poetry and made duas, and then asked for sadaqah. I explained how the encounter felt contrived and not genuine, leaving me feeling unsettled and kind of unsatisfied. My main purpose in writing this piece came from my reflections on that experience. I realised that part of the reason I felt unsatisfied (which ultimately had nothing to do with the caretakers, they were not the ones at fault) was because firstly I had misplaced expectations about what my experience ’should’ be, and secondly, and more importantly, my intention in visiting had been incorrect to begin with. If I am honest with myself, my primary motive was for content (albeit with the hope that it would be of interest and benefit to others); anything beyond that was only secondary.
Finding the balance between authenticity and creating good, ‘beneficial’ content is…hard. There are no immediate solutions beyond working, consciously and continually, on sincerity and the correct intention. Inflated expectations (which are most likely based on the experiences of others we have read about or seen on social media) are also a problem, and will only ever leave us with a sense of disappointment. In posting for the sake of content or likes and followers we end up sacrificing meaning and authenticity for something superficial, and I can’t imagine what sort of ‘benefit’ a faulty intention will ever bring for anyone.
Commodification
If the use of sacred sites as back-drops can result in a dilution or loss of meaning, a similar point can also be made in relation to the clumsy language used online to describe living ’saints’ (I won’t lie, the use of the word ‘saint’ for living people makes me a little uncomfortable). It is language that forgets that our purpose, first and foremost in meeting or seeking out pious men and women of God, is for God’s sake and not to get a perfect shot to post on Instagram. As someone recently put it to me, instead of concentrating on what these individuals teach and call us towards, we are instead seeing the marketing of their “souls, faces and identities.”
This, along with all the aforementioned points, suggests that as with all other forms of travel and tourism, including ‘wellness’ travel (think luxury yoga retreats) we are heading towards the commodification of travel intended for spiritual purposes, and that encompasses visits to shrines, mosques, and well, saints. I’m not saying that we’re one step away from open-top bus tours with saintly stops, but I can’t help but wonder where things will end, and what we will sacrifice along the way.
A Loss of Meaning
I find myself wondering if our work at SF, and our social media content in particular, is contributing to this trend.
While social media provides an easy way to connect with an audience and convey a message, the reality is that ‘effective communication’ often means the watering down of the intended message. Audiences have short attention spans, we’re told, and so we cram what we can into as few characters as possible. Substance is often sacrificed for the superficial and aesthetically pleasing (read: attention grabbing), or for “faces and identities.” Again the result is a loss of meaning.
As I said at the outset, I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that one of the things we try to do regularly as a team, is reassess our goals, reflect on our work and remind ourselves why we do what we do.
We avoid posting photos of individuals (scholars and ‘saints’) unless there is a genuine purpose in doing so. In seeking content, particularly with our Insta Story tours, wherever possible we try to work with locals and those with a connection to the locations being shown, rather than tourists. This helps to ensure a level of authenticity that would not be possible through the eyes of a visitor to a country; the experience, a local showing us their hometown, is an altogether more intimate and valuable one.
Does any of this help ensure meaning is not sacrificed or lost? To some extent perhaps, but I know there is still much room for improvement. Though our resources are limited, this is something we need to be committed to working on. Beyond likes and followers (of which the satisfaction in accumulating wears off fast), there needs to be something meaningful both to pursue and to produce, otherwise, what is the point in any of this?
