Hajj 101

It's been pretty slow on the blog the last week or so, mainly due to Ozayr being away Wednesday to Saturday of last week. He's back now and while he probably has a lot to share about Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, I have no new blog subjects, but one I've been pondering for a while...

It's Hajj season again and though most of you have probably heard me mention it, I thought I would provide a little "Islam 101" here for those of you who might be interested to know more about an incredibly meaningful tradition in the life of every (inshallah) Muslim... I was pretty stunned that despite the magnitude of it all, the general mainstream population knows almost nothing about it. However, we'll start with the basics...

Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, and is the sacred center of Islam. When you see all the Mozzie's praying (like on CNN, lol) they are facing Mecca, specifically the Ka'ba.

This is the Ka'ba, the black cube in the center of aaaaalll those people:


According to the Koran, the Ka'ba is the house of God rebuilt by Abraham and his son Ismail. To describe its significance, historically and spiritually, is more than this little blog can take, but in a super-short version (*deep breath*), in the time of Muhammad, he faced mounting opposition in the city of Mecca. He was persecuted and harassed continuously, and he and his followers eventually migrated to Medina in 622 CE. After this pivotal migration, or Hijra, the Muslim community became a political and military force. In 630 CE, Muhammad and his followers returned to Mecca as conquerors and the Kaaba was re-dedicated as an Islamic house of worship.

Hajj (pronounced like the "Ha" in have, and a strong "J" like Jen, sort of rhymes like "badge") is a ritual that reflects that return to the Ka'ba, and is incumbent once in the lifetime of every Muslim who is able to perform the rite. Many of the rituals performed during Hajj go back to the time of Abraham - there is a sense of history, of going along the same path as the prophets of God and all those who have followed them.

All this sounds so physical, but the journey of Hajj is mostly a spiritual one, one of self-renewal and devotion. For Muslims it's the greatest spiritual experience of their lives, a complete removal from one's involvement in the everyday world and day-to-day activities. While now you can take a plane or train from just about anywhere in the world and be there in a few hours, this is a tradition that Muslims have fulfilled for thirteen hundred years. There were times when Muslims made the trip on foot, or by horseback. It was a difficult journey that perhaps might last months (not just your two weeks vacation).

Today, something like 2 million Muslims travel to Mecca every year to perform their Hajj. And they come from just about every country in the world - they are rich and poor, pale and dark, old and young. And among those millions of pilgrims, their status is all the same in the face of the transcendent and they mix freely like nowhere else on earth.

I love this description from Malcolm X's autobiography which I will transcribe below.

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to re-arrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) - while praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of the blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the 'white' Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana.

We were truly all the same.