Good Example Of Essay On Discovering The Meaning Of The Fifth Pillar Of Islam In Ismaël Ferroukhi’s “Le Grand Voyage”,

At the beginning of Ismaël Ferroukhi’s first feature film, “Le Grand Voyage”, the relationship between father and son is very tense, due to the generational gap which stops them from forming a truly close relationship. The beginning of the pilgrimage to Mecca finds Reda and his father very different. They seem to have nothing in common. The aged Moroccan immigrant cannot communicate effectively with his French son, and this is emphasized by the fact that they do not even speak the same language for most of the film. Even more important than the generational gap is the spiritual distance between the two men. Even though his father is a conservative Muslim, Reda is non-religious, and his comments show him that he knows very little about his father’s religion. Throughout the film, viewers can see Reda drinking alcohol and longing for a non-Muslim girl called Lisa, of whom his father does not approve, which is suggested by the fact that he stops Reda from communicating with her. However, as the movie progresses, Reda becomes curious about the father’s religious practices, and learns what being a Muslim truly means, sometimes the hard way. The journey is for Reda a transformative one. He becomes an admirable man and a spiritual human being. The pilgrimage brings them closer not only because they rediscover the love that they share, but also because his father can guide Reda towards Islam.
The father’s religious practices illustrate the fact that he is not only conservative, but most importantly, he is deeply spiritual. He understands his religion and practices it in all the aspects of his life. For example, he travels by car to Mecca because the travel will purify his spirit, as he explains to his son. Besides, throughout the journey, he proves to be extremely kind and charitable with the strangers he meets on the way. He allows the old woman to travel with them even though she cannot tell them where she wants to go, and gives charity to a mother even though he does not have enough money for their own journey. The father’s acts of charity seem inexplicable to young Reda, but his father knows that charity is not truly considered as such unless the one who accomplishes this act truly sacrifices something while doing so.
Before the pilgrimage, Reda had been fully emerged in the French culture and way of life. He had gone to French schools, and had had Western friends and a girlfriend, and therefore, he had lost the connection with his father’s culture and spirituality. However, the pilgrimage gives the protagonists a chance to spend time together apart from the temptations of the big cities. Alone in the snowy Balkan mountains and in the hot deserts of Jordan and Syria, the father has a chance to show his son what Islam truly means.
The director also contrasts the Western way of life, represented through Reda’s transgressions, and the father’s simple and pure way of life. As they each Saudi Arabia and meet other people who perform the pilgrimage, Reda begins to understand the true significance of this journey and the unity that it promotes. He thus returns to France as a changed person, which is suggested by his act of giving charity to the woman, thus showing that he truly learnt a lot from his journey.
In the western society, maintaining an Islamic identity is extremely difficult, because the secular education and the influence of the media push young people towards a materialistic, self-centered and superficial way of life. In the agitated and busy life of big cities, there is little time for spirituality. Religious practice requires peace of mind and time to reconnect to oneself and divinity and it seems that we are constantly interconnected today, which is distracting and even stressful. The father’s gesture of throwing his son’s phone away is a symbolic attempt of getting rid of all the pressure that the society puts on young people, and gives Reda a little time to connect with his inner self, with his father and divinity.