Sveta mjesta – ogledalo jedinstva
Holy Places – A Reflection of Unity

Summary/Abstract: One of the principal needs of man and his preoccupation is the tendency to reach ”absolute perfection” and His closeness. This ”Holiness”, ”endless Perfection” and ”total Existence” is called, in the language of religion, ”God”, ”Allah”, ”Yahweh”, and ”Ahura Mazd”. Religions were revealed to help man reach God’s closeness. All the religions have symbols, marks, Books, holy times and places which allow man to come closer to God and feel connected to Him. In other words, these holy elements allow man to reach the divine and feel with his being the sense of His omnipresence and a connection with Him. In this experience, holy and blessed places such as synagogues, churches, mosques and other places of pilgrimage play an important role and are at the focus of attention of the followers of all the religious directions. These are the places where the material world is immersed in the spiritual; these are the places of Divine presence and the return to a spiritual unity with the Truth. In short, holy places lead to the world of Melekut and open the access to spiritual heights. At such places, persons who seek spirituality, God and light, search for their ”Lost One”, who is their ultimate goal. This paper analyses the theoretical foundations and the wisdom of holy places from the point of view of comparative religious studies and phenomenology of religion. The first part analyses the notion of ”holy” (moqaddas) linguistically and terminologically, and presents the positions of two distinguished theoreticians of comparative religious studies and phenomenology of religion: Otto Rudolf and Mircea Eliade, and provides a short overview of the meaning of holiness in Islam and the Qur’an. The second part deals with particularities, features and philosophy of existence of holy places and the way believers meet and ”communicate” with those places. The third part summarises the results and the conclusions and presents proposals regarding holy places.

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