Memories of My Pilgrimage to Makkah in 2002

Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Makkah, Saudi Arabia, is one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslims who are physically and financially able must make the pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime. The annual event that draws close to 3 million Muslims from around the world has been scaled back this year due to the global coronavirus pandemic. No more than 10,000 people already residing in Saudi Arabia will be permitted to perform the Hajj, which begins on July 29 this year and lasts for five intense, demanding days of rituals, prayers and devotional acts. I performed the Hajj in February in 2002. The previous September, fanatics claiming Islam as their faith forced jetliners to crash into the World trade Center in New York, claiming close to three thousand lives. As an American-Muslim, I was shaken to the core by this horrific act of terrorism. I felt a desperate need to travel to the birthplace of Islam, to reflect on what my faith meant to me and what lessons it had for me to navigate through a world that had changed overnight. As member of an already-maligned minority, I was unsure how my fellow-Americans would act toward me, how much their opinion of Islam would influence their perception of me. This is an account of my Hajj, published in the San Jose Mercury News on Saturday, February 8, 2003. --- About 2.5 million Muslims from around the world - 45 percent of them women - are expected to congregate in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, this month to perform the Hajj, the once-in-a-lifetime obligation for Muslims. Approximately 10,000 American Muslims will be among the pilgrims seeking to turn over a new leaf in their lives through the demanding rites of the Hajj. During Hajj, Muslims affirm the centrality of God in their life. Hajj rituals include wearing special clothing, standing in the Plain of Arafat seeking forgiveness and renewal from the Creator, and walking around the Ka'ba. I performed the Hajj in 2002. I had meant to perform it earlier, but one thing or the other always came up, suggesting that my intention was perhaps flawed. In the summer of 2001, however, I made up my mind that I would be Makkah-bound the following February, no matter what. Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Terrorists claiming Islam as guidance struck the United States, taking 3,000 innocent lives. The attacks brought rage, resolve and a vivid sense of mortality. Life, we learned anew, was fleeting. Be grateful for what you have - health, family, freedom. Fulfill your obligations before it's too late. The events of Sept. 11 injected an extra dose of urgency into my planned pilgrimage. I had to travel to the birthplace of Islam to understand what my faith meant to me and how I, as a moderate Muslim, could help reclaim it from my radical co-religionists. Nothing less than the soul of Islam was at stake. On Feb. 9, 2002, I was among about 70 American Muslims at the Jeddah airport on the coast of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. We had changed into ihram (Arabic for purification), two pieces of unstitched white cloth, one wrapped at the waist and the other draped over the left shoulder. The women wore simple white dresses with head coverings but no veils. The modest clothing, one of the requirements of Hajj, signifies our equality before God and the leaving behind of all worldly ties. The formal pilgrimage was still 10 days away but we arrived early for familiarity with the ancient rites and extra time for reflection and remembrance of God in the hope that we would be at the peak of our spirituality during the Hajj. (The Hajj takes place on the same five days of the Islamic lunar calendar, from the eighth through the 12th of Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the year. Because the lunar year is shorter than the solar year, each year the Hajj occurs about 11 days earlier than the previous year in the solar calendar). A new day literally dawned by the time we cleared customs and boarded the buses to take us to Makkah, 50 miles away. Approaching the holy city, we began to recite the unique talbiyah (invocation) of pilgrimage: Here I am at Your command, O God, here I am. Here I am at Your command. You are without partner. Yours is all praise and grace and dominion. You are without partner. We were to chant this refrain throughout the pilgrimage. After checking into the hotel, I made ablution and, still in ihram, headed for Masjid al-Haraam (the Grand Mosque) nearby. Skirting a teeming sidewalk bazaar, I soon stood at one of its many entrances. A few more steps and suddenly there it was before me, the Ka'ba (cube), a 40-foot high cubical structure of stone covered with black brocade in the center of an open courtyard inside the mosque. For over 40 years and from thousands of miles away, I had oriented myself toward this symbol of monotheism and bowed in prayers to God. Now I was no more than a hundred feet away from it and was overcome with emotion. Surging forward on a human wave and buoyed by a sense of transcendence, I joined a circle moving counterclockwise around the Ka'ba. This was the tawaf (circumambulation), another requirement of Hajj. The reflection of the blazing sun off the marble floor was blinding, but no one faltered as we went round and round murmuring supplications; men and women, young and old, firm and infirm, fast and slow, a river of humanity charged by the palpable presence of the Divine. Aerial view of the empty pilgrimage site prior to Hajj in 2020 With every completed circle, as I affirmed the centrality of God in my life, I felt a longing so deep that I thought my heart would burst. It was not until I was in my seventh, and last, circumambulation (seven implies infinity) that I dimly understood the origin of my longing: Without the physical presence of the Ka'ba and the demands and distractions of normal life pulling me this way and that, could I still hope for God to dwell in my heart always? Could an inner Ka'ba from this moment on become the focal point of my life? Only a desperate yearning for God's grace could bridge the gap between my hope and an assurance of its fulfillment. The tawaf completed, I walked to a covered arcade at the eastern edge of the mosque and walked briskly between the hills of Safa and Marwah seven times, commemorating the frantic search for water by Prophet Ibrahim's wife Hajar for her newborn son Ismail. The 1,300-foot distance between the hills was dense with pilgrims. I was surprised by the large number of Hajis in their 70s and 80s in wheelchairs performing this ritual called sa'y (effort). Looking at their radiant, tear-stained faces, it was easy to understand the significance of sa'y: Never despair of God's mercy and never stop striving, even when life appears at its bleakest. Entering a marble chamber near the Ka'ba, I drank from the cool waters of Zamzam, the spring that God brought forth for Hajar and her son, and which continues to flow to this day. Then I sought out a secluded cloister and made the supplication that was pent-up in me: I prayed for the souls of the 3,000 people who had perished on Sept. 11, 2001, and for God to grant them paradise, and I prayed for the well-being of the families they had left behind. Then I prayed for my loved ones and for all those who had asked me to remember them during my pilgrimage. After four days, we left for Medina, about 300 miles north of Makkah. It is not a requirement of Hajj to visit Medina, but most pilgrims do because of its historical association with Islam: It was the city that welcomed the prophet Muhammad when he was being persecuted by the Makkans for preaching monotheism. After a week, we left Medina for the valley of Mina, a few miles east of Makkah. We arrived the following day - Feb. 20 and the first day of Hajj - and spend the night praying and meditating in our tents. The following morning we set out for the plain of Arafat, six miles east. It is slow going as the roads are choked with traffic and many pilgrims are on foot. The wuquf (standing) in Arafat from noon until sunset represents the high point of Hajj, its emotional and spiritual climax. Two-and-a-half million pilgrims have massed here for a foretaste of the Day of Judgment. From where I stand, I can see the Jabal Rahmah (Mount of Mercy) in the distance, from which the prophet Muhammad delivered his last sermon over 1,400 years ago. Standing in ihram under a fierce sun, I reflect on my life, thanking God for all the undeserved blessings, asking for forgiveness for my sins and praying for renewal, particularly renewal in Muslim thinking. Another mass movement begins after sunset, this time for a place called Muzdalifa, midway between Arafat and Mina. We offered our evening prayers there and collected pebbles from the roadside to use on the following days. Drained physically and emotionally, I fall asleep in the open over uneven terrain under a first-quarter moon. When we reached our tent in Mina the next morning, it was time to pelt Satan with pebbles, a repudiation of evil commemorating Prophet Ibrahim's rejection of the devil when God asked him to sacrifice his son. We walk to a nearby place called Jamarat (which means stoning) where the crush of massed pilgrims around the symbolic Satan - a stone pillar - is physically daunting. I barely manage to throw seven pebbles at it, one after another, before hastily retreating. This is also the day of Eid al-Adha (feast of sacrifice) when Muslims all over the world commemorate Ibrahim's faith by sacrificing a sheep. Like most pilgrims, I had earlier paid $100 to a local organization to sacrifice a sheep on my behalf and distribute its meat among the less fortunate. On the flight home, I try to reflect on the most spiritually absorbing two weeks of my life, but my mind is blank, and I can only think of my wife and children and returning to them. But slowly the thoughts drift away, and in my mind's eye I see the Ka'ba and the concentric circles that I trace around it and realize that while my pilgrimage has ended, my journey into renewal has only begun.