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<\/a>VACATION<\/p>\nTo call the Hajj experience a \u201cvacation\u201d would put off a lot Muslims, who would consider the label a slight. But what I wanted out of Hajj was precisely a vacation, but in the original sense of vacating my mind of the assumptions we absorb as passive consumers of modernity, and vacating the ephemeral identities we attach importance to. One of the graces of the Pilgrimage to Makkah and its surroundings pertains to a kind of anonymity that strips us down to our indelible identity as creatures of a great Creator. For a number of days, millions of people of all races and status converge for a single purpose. The Pilgrim, by choice, is one face among millions of faces of all hues and textures. In the crowd, I can bump into a CEO, a leader, an academic, or a beggar; there\u2019s no way to really tell the difference. Rank and pomp are divorced of status. Ego is dispossessed of platform. In this condition, the Hajj does its work.<\/p>\n
The movements of the Hajj rites are not very time consuming. Surprisingly, what takes up most of the time are the long stretches within and between the rites that can be easily mistaken as times to \u201cwait\u201d. It\u2019s possible to miss the point of the Pilgrimage if we are not adept in the \u201cart of waiting,\u201d as a sage once said. In fact, what a Pilgrim does during the \u201cwait\u201d will largely inform the success of the journey. Pilgrims do what this place silently expects of them: supplicate to the unseen God, remember Him in the holy precincts. And so they ask for a good life, another chance, forgiveness and mercy for themselves and those they left behind (for the living and the dead), knowledge, success, succor, or for unaffected glimpses of Reality-sifting out the real from the fake. The movements of the Pilgrims are not as choreographed as one would think, even though everyone pretty much goes to the same stations and performs similar acts. What goes on in the mind and in the heart -the inner motions -range. The dress, the motion, the crowds, the \u201cmeanwhile,\u201d and the heightened sense of purpose and of the imminence of our ultimate return draw out from the Pilgrim levels of resolve. We wish it can last. The rites are capped off with farewell circuits around the Ka\u2019ba back in Makkah, where it began days before. The Pilgrims then get around to board the buses, and slowly the former identities begin to emerge as we prepare our papers and \u201cID\u2019s\u201d to board a plane. It\u2019s the daunting challenge of the Pilgrim to give honest reflection to the questions provoked by the ritual, especially when he or she is back home driving a car, mowing the lawn, waving at a neighbor, or simply reading a newspaper.<\/p>\n We make seven circular walks around the tall cube-shaped Ka\u2019ba, the first man-made building put into the service of reminding people of their servitude to God. Later we walk seven times between two hillocks, the course that Abraham\u2019s wife, Hagar, took in her desperate search for water, only to be guided to the very spot of the great well of Zamzam, which to this day offers drink to thirsty travelers from all corners of the earth. The walk between the two hillock is an essential rite of the Hajj. But as we walk Hagar\u2019s path, we ourselves are not desperate, nor are we out of water. If we tire, we can stop for rest, sip some water, and then resume without the peril that Hagar faced. It\u2019s not like revealed religion to waste people\u2019s time. There must be important value in reenacting Hagar\u2019s walk, however symbolic it may be. We may fairly conclude that the materials and strict rationality of the dunya (the world) are poor ushers in the sacred climb. Instead, we are advised that the invisible realm of sincerity, intention, and symbolism are required accoutrements for the piercing of the materialistic veil. So we make circuits around the Ancient House, walk a path between two hills, and, in Mina (a few kilometers away), toss seven pebbles at three pillars that mark the spots where Satan tried to tempt Abraham away from God\u2019s obedience. These are rites of worship filled with symbolism meant to quicken our spiritual selves.<\/p>\n The heart of the Hajj, its proving ground and day, is at Mt. Arafat. On its plains, slopes, and peak, millions of people (can\u2019t help but repeat that number) gather from dawn to sunset for supplication and remembrance. The scene is almost supernatural. The importance of the Hereafter is stressed nearly on every page of the Quran and countless statements of the Prophet. Firm belief in the Hereafter is expected of us in the here and now. Yet nothing in our normal everyday lives compares to the spectacle of all of humanity standing before God for ultimate judgment. The Arafat experience offers something for our imaginations, a glimpse of the inevitable. It helps us to map additional meaning to the words we read in the Quran -helps us to tease out greater sense from the descriptions the Book reveals. There is a glow and ease associated with Arafat, which abruptly alters at sunset when the throngs of humanity board buses, SUV\u2019s, and sandals and head for Muzdalifa, an extensive plain that looks like a large parking lot of gravel and stones. There we wait until dawn before we head to Mina, Tent City, where the population (comparable to Chicago) will cram together in an area the size of a large mall. As citizens of Mina for a few days, we are shown the full range of human character and fallibilities. Each day of our stay at Mina we take small stones and toss them at large pillars that represent Satan\u2019s guile -small stones doing mighty work.<\/p>\n<\/a>THE \u201cART OF WAITING\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>THE EFFECTS OF REENACTMENTS<\/p>\n<\/a>MT. MERCY<\/p>\n