|
Prior
to 1982, my knowledge of Hajj had been limited to what I could
gain from books, and so, when at last in that year I had the
privilege of performing this religious duty, I felt myself
singularly blessed. Although the rites of Hajj are spread over
only a few days, as symbolic guidelines, they stand a man in good
stead for the rest of his life. The message of Hajj, as I now
comprehend it from the study and performance of it, is that man
should make the Almighty the very pivot of his existence,
hastening at His call to do His every bidding.
When
a man leaves his home and country to go on such a pilgrimage, he
brims over with all the emotions aroused by the thought that he is
embarking on a course that will lead him directly to God. He is,
in effect, sloughing off his own world, leaving it behind him, and
reaching out for the world of the Almighty. He is on his way to
the House of God, a place where the great deeds of God’s
messengers and their followers have been preserved for all
eternity; where we find the hallowed impressions of the lives of
those who lived and died for the cause of God. The pilgrim is then
filled with the realization that he is bound for the very
destination that God especially chose for His last revelation.
Once launched on this course, the pilgrim is imbued with the
awareness of God and His truths, as well as the feeling that it is
imperative that he becomes God-oriented. If, up till then, he had
been self-centered in his thinking, he now turns his thoughts to
God, and his entire behavior is molded and transformed by these
new thought processes.
Once
the pilgrim’s train of thought has become God-oriented, he
begins to ponder over major issues: God’s act of creation,
particularly His creation of the pilgrim’s own self; God’s
affording the pilgrim diverse opportunities of bettering himself
in this world; God’s very benevolence, which makes it possible
for the pilgrim to set forth on this journey to the House of God.
The pilgrim also gives his mind to the day when he will meet his
death and be summoned to the court of God. This trend of thought
turns the ostensible physical journey of the pilgrim into an
intense, spiritual venture.
When
the time nears for his entrance into Al-Haram (sacred territory),
every pilgrim divests himself of his clothing in order to don a
new kind of “uniform”—an unstitched, plain, white garment,
which serves to heighten his consciousness of entering a new
world. The very act of shedding his normal clothes (and with them
all signs of status and ethnicity) signifies that he is separating
himself from the way of life peculiar to his environment and is
now ready to become suffused with such emotions as are desired by
God. In this way, thousands of men cast off their own hues and
take on the hue of the Almighty. After clothing himself in ihram,
the pilgrim finds his tongue of itself beginning to utter godly
words—“Labbayk, Allahuma, labbayk!”—and he
continues, as if hastening to answer God’s call, to repeat the
word “labbayk”—“O God, I am here, I have come!”
Labbayk
(I am here) does not mean just that the pilgrim has come to stay
in Makkah. It means that in leaving his normal abode he has cast
aside his whole way of life. It means, “I am here, at Your
command, and with all my heart and soul I am ready to obey You.”
While on their pilgrimage, pilgrims simply give utterance to the
word “labbayk,” but when they return to their own
countries, they must put it into practice in their everyday lives.
On
reaching Makkah, the pilgrim must perform Tawaf
(circumambulation). To do this, he enters the House of God—the
great mosque in whose spacious central courtyard stands the
Ka`bah—that was erected by the Prophet Abraham in ancient times.
Then the pilgrim goes round the Ka`bah seven times to demonstrate
his willingness to make God the pivot of his whole existence.
After
the Tawaf, there comes the ritual of Sa`i, which entails brisk
walking from the hill of Safa to the hill of Marwah and back
again. This procedure is repeated seven times in symbolic
enactment of a promise, or covenant, to expend all of one’s
energies in the path of God. The form that this ritual takes can
be traced back to the Prophet Isma`il’s mother Hajar, when she
was running from one hill to another in a frantic search for water
for her young baby.
The
most important period of worship during Hajj is the day-long
sojourn on the plain of Arafat. It is indeed an awesome spectacle,
with people from all over the world clad in identical, simple,
white garments chanting, “Lord, I am present, Lord, I am
present.” This serves to impress upon the mind of the pilgrim
how great a gathering there will be in the presence of God on the
last day, the Day of Reckoning. Once the pilgrim becomes aware of
its true significance, all his problems fall into their true
perspective, and his life cannot but take a turn for the better.
Another
practice during Hajj is the casting of stones at Jamrat
Al-`Aqabah. This is a symbolic act through which the pilgrim
renews his determination to drive Satan away from him. In this
way, he makes it plain that his relationship with Satan is one of
enmity and combat. The next step for the pilgrim is to turn his
piece of symbolism into reality, so that he may be purged of all
evils, for all the evils besetting man are there at the
instigation of Satan.
After
this, the pilgrim sacrifices an animal to God, an act symbolizing
the sacrifice of the self. His faith is such that even if it comes
to giving his life—the last thing that he would normally be
ready to part with—he will not hesitate to do so in the service
of God.
*
Excepted, with some modifications, from: http://www.alrisala.org/
**
Dr. Wahiduddin Khan is a renowned Islamic writer and thinker. He
has authored some two hundred books in
India
and abroad. He is founder of the Islamic
Centre
,
India
's vanguard Urdu Islamic institution, which has done much to
awaken in Muslims a new awareness of their religion and social
responsibilities. |
