Circling The House of God
Circling The House of God
30 min Documentary
Dir. Ovidio Salazar (2010)
Born in 1909, Dr Martin Lings, also known as Shaykh Abu Bakr Siraj ad-Din, was revered by people all over the world as ‘a Friend of God’: a man whose saintly radiance touched the lives of all those who looked to him for guidance. In 1938, as a young man in his late 20s, he embraced Islam, entering deeply into its spirit; and the books he went on to write bear witness to the profundity and subtlety of that spirit which he came to embody and exemplify.
In 1948 he performed the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Makkah. Using unique archive material, this documentary film recollects his experience along with his insight into its historical background. An indefatigable traveller to the very end, he made the last of his annual journeys to the East in January 2005, a few months before peascefully passing away in his home at the age of 96.
