Christian pilgrimage in western Europe gathers round three great shrines: Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Lourdes in France and Fátima in Portugal. The first honours an apostle; the other two honour Mary, whom Christians and Muslims alike revere.
In this article
Santiago de Compostela
Tradition holds that the apostle James preached in Spain and that his body was brought to Galicia after his martyrdom in Jerusalem.1 A tomb believed to be his was discovered in the ninth century, and a church, later the cathedral, rose over it. The routes that lead there, the Camino de Santiago, became one of the great pilgrim roads of medieval Christendom and are walked by hundreds of thousands each year.2
Lourdes and Fátima
In 1858 Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen-year-old girl of Lourdes in the Pyrenees, reported eighteen appearances of a lady in a grotto by the river, who called herself the Immaculate Conception. The spring there has drawn the sick ever since. In 1917 three shepherd children of Fátima reported appearances of Mary on the thirteenth of each month from May to October. Both shrines are now among the largest places of Christian pilgrimage in the world.
The name Fátima is Arabic: it recalls Fāṭimah, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. Local legend traces it to a Moorish princess of that name who married a Christian knight after the Reconquista.3
Mary and Christian pilgrimage
The Qur’an gives Mary a rank above all women:
وَإِذْ قَالَتِ ٱلْمَلَـٰٓئِكَةُ يَـٰمَرْيَمُ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ٱصْطَفَىٰكِ وَطَهَّرَكِ وَٱصْطَفَىٰكِ عَلَىٰ نِسَآءِ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ ٤٢
And [mention] when the angels said, “O Mary, indeed Allāh has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the worlds.
Qur’an 3:424
The verse explains why Muslims can visit Lourdes and Fátima with understanding. Mary, Maryam (مَرْيَم), is the only woman named in the Qur’an, and a chapter bears her name. Muslims honour her as chosen and purified by God, without the doctrines Christians have built around her, and a shrine in a town named for the Prophet’s daughter is a reminder of how much the two faiths share in their love for her.
Further reading: Mary in the Bible and the Qur’an, The stations of the Hajj.
Notes
- Acts 12:2. ↩
- Santiago de Compostela (Old Town), UNESCO World Heritage List, inscribed 1985. ↩
- “Why Fátima is called Fátima,” The Sounds of Portuguese. ↩
- Qur’an 3:42, trans. Saheeh International; Arabic text from Quran.com. ↩