The Travels of the Maghreb Scholars to al-Haramayn al-Sharifayn and Their Roles in Transferring Religious Sciences to the Maghreb

Mecca and Medina, as the centers of the revelation and mission of prophecy, have always been the destinations for Muslims, especially for the religious scholars. Religious scholars were migrating to Mecca and Medina with the aim of performing their religious duties and the obligation of the Hajj and Pilgrimage, as well as getting religious knowledge from the scholars in al-Haramayn al-Sharifayn. In this descriptive-analytical article, the pilgrimages of the Maghreb scholars in the middle ages of the history of Islam and their achievements in the field of cultural exchange between the Maghreb and al-Haramayn al-Sharifayn are studied. The findings of this research shows that the many Maghreb thinkers traveled to the East, especially to al-Haramayn al-Sharifayn, presented in the classes of the scholars of Mecca and Medina, and listened to their hadith narrations. Based on the scientific and practical methods of the scholars, living in Mecca and Medina, and receiving the permission to narrate the narrations, they returned to the Maghreb, full of science and spirituality, and tried to republish religious knowledge. In the works written by the Maghreb scholars themselves or by others about these travels, while introducing the professors, they were explaining how the immigrant scholars were studying and getting permission from the thinkers of Mecca and Medina. Also, this article investigates the role of these travels in the cultural exchange between the Maghreb and Hejaz and the effect that scholars had on the deepening and expansion of the Islamic sciences and knowledge in the Maghreb.