3 Things You Learn at Hajj

Hajj is not an event that takes place in isolation from the rest of your life.  If you are sincerely open to it, hajj is also an opportunity to learn, to grow and to change your life. Yet as more and more time passes, the intensity of the experience and memories of hajj fade. And your good intentions, if you are not careful, may fade with them.  Here are some ways, if it pleases Allah, to continue to benefit from hajj by incorporating that once-in-a-lifetime event into the routine of everyday life: 

1. Patience.  What you learn at hajj when told the bus will arrive-and this is a quote-”sometime between 5 minutes and tomorrow”.  After a couple of weeks of unfathomable delays for every conceivable thing, it is in some ways a relief to go back to a hectic life.  But don’t give in.  Resist the urge to jettison that hard won ability to repeatedly find in any delay a moment for peace, reflection and dhikr to Allah in the midst of a demanding day.
2. Perseverance.  Not only is getting to hajj a struggle, but so is everything else once you get there.  From getting enough sleep to taking care of bodily needs-the heat, the crowds, the lines, the waiting, the crowds, the crowds-did I mention the crowds?  Nothing is simple, and everything tests your physical and mental limits of endurance.  Allah got you through all of it.  So whatever happens in your life from here on out, make dua or pray 2 rakah every time the going gets rough and remember that Allah will get you through.
3. Gratitude.  When you finished paying for your ticket.  When your visa came through. When you started your journey.  When you saw the Kaaba for the first time.  There are so many moments of elation, joy and gratitude in the hajj journey.  There are even more causes for gratitude in your daily life.  Look for them.  Just being alive is a big one.  So rather than complaining about the conditions of your work or job or marriage, remember to start and end each day with an expression of gratitude to Allah.

The majority of Muslims live and die without ever making the journey. If Allah has chosen you to make hajj, remember that it is so much more than a vacation or a business trip, or an obligation to be fulfilled and dismissed. Hajj is an exceedingly rare opportunity for mercy and forgiveness of your past deeds.  It is up to you to use the experience to help you make better choices about your actions now and in the future.

Hajj Teaches About Possibilities

This is a post from Muslimwritings on a lesson learned from hajj. 

Another woman told me this:
I did not see it.  It was a small space.  The smallest of spaces.  No more than a quarter of an inch between my knee and that of the woman sitting next to me on the floor in the upper level of the Haram.  And so far in the back we could not even see the railing that overlooked the Kaaba below us in the center.

It was Friday—Jumaah during Hajj and the women were still coming up the stairs.  I knew how thick the crowd was below.  There was no separation of men and women—just thousands of Muslims standing so close in prayer that they would be unable to make sajud on the floor; they could only press their heads against the backs of the people in front of them during the Jumaah prayer and  janazah—funeral prayers–of those who had died during Hajj. Their souls go on with all of the prayers of their janazah—the prayers of thousands of people in the Haram right then seeking forgiveness and mercy from Allah. 

I looked up and saw one more woman approaching me now from the entryway to my right. I was tired of being crowded and pushed in the heat to make room where all could see there was no more room.  That was when I looked and saw it—the quarter of an inch.

I knew what she knew.  It was her space, her opening.  She stepped up to it and folded herself down onto the floor, into that space.  And once again the row shifted, bodies realigned themselves—all the knees and elbows and feet.  When it was done, she was sitting next to me but I was not really any more crowded then I was before.

That lesson was my gift from Allah on that Jumaah of my Hajj.  And it has stood me in good stead all these years since: that great blessings, opportunities, rewards lie just beyond the smallest of openings–if only I have faith enough to see them, and to step through.

Hajj for the Second Generation

Convert and immigrant Muslim parents both struggle with raising their children in America.  These children grow up in America without the experience of either choosing Islam as the convert parents did or of coming from a Muslim country the way most immigrant parents did. 

This 2007 article from Gulf News talks about hajj for this second generation of Muslims in America.

Mina: The 20-year-old American tells his Haj stories a mile-a-minute, his hands moving in excitement about how he arrived in Makkah days ago, lost amid the massive crowds, and saw a man drop dead while circling the Ka’aba.

“Dude, I saw it, the guy had the most peaceful smile on his face,” Adil Muschelewicz, performing the pilgrimage for the first time, said on Sunday.

The young man from Easley, South Carolina, had arrived alone in Makkah because of a travel agent mix-up that prevented his family from catching up for three days. He was with hundreds of thousands of others circling the Ka’aba, when he saw the elderly man fall dead. The body was quickly lifted out of the crowd.

Muschelewicz didn’t know the cause of the man’s death exhaustion maybe, he said but it became one of the many powerful religious moments that have shaken him during the trip.

“I looked at his face and I looked at the Ka’aba, and it was like he was happy, he’d gotten close to God. It just went boom, like this deep bassline in my heart,” he said.

Hajj History

If you are interested learning the history of making hajj through the centuries, you might want to begin with  this article which discusses how the pre-Islamic rituals conducted at the Kaaba were eliminated by Quranic injunctions. 

One of the most famous hajjis, whose travels took decades and whose journey ultimately covered thousands of miles is Ibn Battuta.  Ibn Battuta’s travels both exceeded and pre-dated those of Marco Polo.  The story of his hajj is here.  A six-part history of his travels begins here.

A short article about the hardships of travel, particularly by caravan is here.

A visual comparison of hajj in 1953 and hajj in modern times in this video on IslamicTube.net

Coming to Terms

One of the most difficult tasks of preparing for hajj is the settling of the emotional accounts.  But we find ourselves seeking pardon from those whom we have hurt.  We ask Allah to help us to offer forgiveness to those who have caused pain  in our lives.  We try to reconnect any broken family ties.  We go to hajj seeking Allah’s Mercy, and so we must extend mercy to others.

On the authority of Jundub (may Allah be pleased with him), who said that the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) related:
A man said: By Allah, Allah will not forgive So-and-so. At this Allah the Almighty said: Who is he who swears by Me that I will not forgive So-and-so? Verily I have forgiven So-and-so and have nullified your [own good] deeds…. (Hadith Qudsi in Sahih Muslim)

Preparing for hajj means coming to terms with the people and experiences of our lives, and not losing our own good deeds because we want to hold onto bad experiences more than we want to please Allah.

The admonition from Allah for the Believers to forgive in their own difficult circumstances should not be lost on us if we want Allah’s Mercy for hajj and for our lives:

Let not those among you who are endued with grace and amplitude of means resolve by oath against helping their kinsmen, those in want, and those who have left their homes in God’s cause: Let them forgive and overlook, do you not wish that God should forgive you? For God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.  (Quran 24:22)