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Amanda Roraback's World in a Nutshell |
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Articles |
Hajj |
Islam in a Nutshell |
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It’s Hajj season. For most non-believers, the event enters their lives only when the pilgrimage produces tragedy—hundreds trampled, etc. But for the 2 million Muslim who are able to participate this year, the season means the opportunity to fulfill one of the five fundamental requirements in Islam, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Aside from simply doing one’s duty as a practicing Muslim, the journey is a transformative experience from which all people, whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish or even Atheists can learn. The rituals performed during three rigorous days force pilgrims to cast away their hubris and embrace humility before God and recognition of their roles as active members of the human race. The experience begins even before the pilgrim leave home. Muslims are instructed to draw up wills, settle debts and resolve all disputes in order to be prepared for death. Before the invention of air travel and air-conditioned buses, pilgrims often risked death in the course of their months-long journeys to the deserts of Arabia to fulfill their obligation. Today it is symbolic of a spiritual death and resurrection as a better Muslim and more conscientious human being.
The first ritual of the Hajj is the
circumambulation of the Ka’aba, a cube-like
structure that Muslims say was originally built by
Adam and then, after its destruction in the flood in
the time of Noah, was rebuilt
The next evening, pilgrims gather stones to throw at three idols symbolizing three devils, or Satans, who tried to prevent Abraham from fulfilling the will of God. In Islam, as in Christianity and Judaism, Abraham was reportedly a century old when he was blessed with the birth of his first son, Ismail. Abraham cherished his son profoundly and was heartbroken when God instructed him to sacrifice his beloved progeny as a sign of devotion (Muslims believe God had instructed Abraham to sacrifice Ismail, his son by his servant Hagar near Mecca, rather than Isaac, son of Abraham’s wife Sara, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as Jews and Christians profess). As pilgrims throw stones or “bullets” at the Satans who tried to prevent Abraham from sacrificing Ismail, they are supposed to imagine their own “Ismails,” that is, the object or person or state that distracts them from their responsibilities to God and their community. It could be material objects, gambling, lust, power, smoking, anything which prevents a person from being enlightened and healthy. Hence the war against the three Satans becomes a jihad or “struggle” against one’s own vices. At the end of the Hajj, many pilgrims snip or shave off their hair, a reminder that they must put their old selfish, materially-driven lives behind them and must return more charitable, more devoted spouses, harder workers, more tolerant seekers of knowledge and truth.
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Upon
their arrival, male pilgrims change out of their
everyday clothes into two, simple white cloths in
effect shedding any mark of status, nationality or
wealth. Female pilgrims wear modest clothes and
avoid wearing perfume or make-up. Despite the trend
in some Islamic countries, women must not cover
their faces and are encouraged to participate in all
Hajj rituals alongside men, even if that means
coming into innocent bodily contact with men in the
process. As Malcolm X discovered when he did the
Hajj in 1964, all people are equal in the eyes of
God. 
by Abraham and his son Ismail. As pilgrims enter the
throngs of people circulating the Ka’aba seven times
(symbolizing the seven levels of heaven), they
become like drops of water in a river of people. At
this point, the pilgrim has completely discarded his
or her ego to become a part of humanity -- stronger
in unity which, like a river, can symbolically cut
through the canyons, than as a single dewdrop that
evaporates as morning. The Hajji (the title a Muslim
receives when he completes the pilgrimage) is
expected to return home a more altruistic, engaged
member of society. 
The
next ritual mimics the panicked state of Hagar,
Abraham’s servant and the mother of his child Ismail,
after she and Ismail were left in the Arabian Desert
without food or water. Muslims symbolically reenact
her desperate sprint between the mountains of Safa
and Marwa in search for water for her and her son.
After seven passages, Hagar reportedly noticed that
Ismail had dug into the sand with his feet revealing
a small trickle of water which became the Zamzam
well. The exercise is intended to remind pilgrims
that they must be proactive. That God will provide
when effort is exerted. Indeed, all the rituals
associated with the hajj involve constant movement
-- around the Ka’aba and between each station.