Hajj 

The Rev. Ron Sala

Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford

February 16, 2003 

This morning, I’m reminded of the story of the European explorer in Africa who, anxious to press ahead on his journey, paid his porters extra for a series of grueling, forced marches. Almost within reach of their destination, they stopped and refused to go forward. No amount of extra money would persuade them. They said they had to wait for their souls to catch up.

A deliberate and conscious journey is one is which we allow our “souls to catch up.” A true pilgrimage is one where we change not only our outward location, but our inward one as well.

There are various ways to travel in life. Today we have such rapid conveyances as “trains, planes, and automobiles.” In these contraptions, it’s easy to forget one is traveling at all. Thousands are killed each year from falling asleep at the wheels of their cars at high speeds. Perhaps the faster we go, the less of the journey we own, the more we forget where we are and where we’re going. I’ve never heard of someone falling asleep walking. It’s a slow way to go, but you’re always there, in the landscape with its objects, smells, winds, and distances. Hoofing it!

That’s just how countless people got to Mecca in a journey called Hajj for almost a millennium and a half. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that a train line was built from Damascus. In the days in which transportation across the desert meant camels or sandals, some parts of Arabia were over 40 days’ journey from the Mosque at Mecca. For some Moslems, living as far as Spain, Africa, or India, the journey could take years. Even in these days of air travel, the Hajj is not a trip to be taken lightly, requiring as it does strict ritual adherence. Nevertheless, from every part of the world they come to Mecca.

Why? Why go to the expense of so much time, money, and effort? One reason is that it’s a basic requirement of the religion – one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Every Moslem with the health and wealth to do so must go on at least one Hajj during his or her lifetime.

But besides the requirement, there have always been many different reasons for journeying to Mecca. For one, Mecca is the city in which the prophet Mohammed was visited by the angel Gabriel and commanded to “proclaim” the words of the Koran. For another, Mecca contains Allah’s House, the Ka’ba. It’s also the stage on which heroes of faith once walked: Adam, Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael. And finally, Hajj provides the opportunity to meet fellow Moslems from around the world and to form social and economic ties.

We in the West have little to compare to the Hajj. Buried in our history are the Christian pilgrimages of the Middle Ages. Even today, we occasionally hear of stalwart souls walking thousands of miles whether to publicize a cause or gain personal insight. But, by and large, we travel because we have someplace to get to and try to get there as quickly as possible.

All the same, I think of our own distant relative of the Hajj as Unitarian Universalists – our annual General Assembly. It’s in no way so arduous an undertaking as the Hajj, of course, but it contains some faint resemblances. We come to our roving meeting from all over the US and Canada, and occasionally from other places where Unitarians are found. We set up our holy places and participate in our rituals – The Banner Parade, the Service of the Living Tradition, the Ware Lecture, the Final Worship. It’s the opportunity to meet with kindred spirits for worship, inspiration, and common tasks. Perhaps that we have a roving center of assembly tells us something about our inclination toward the new, the diverse, and the experimental.

Equally, Moslems’ return to the ancient holy city of Mecca tells us something about that faith’s values of tradition, stability, and history. In fact, if you ask an orthodox Moslem how long a history Mecca has as a holy site, he or she will take you literally back to Adam. According to the Koran, Adam built a temple to Allah there, which was subsequently destroyed by the Flood.

Many centuries later, the place was visited by Hagar. According to the Jewish Bible, Hagar was Abraham’s handmaid, but according to an Islamic account, she was Abraham’s second wife. In any case, the stories agree that Abraham’s second wife Sarah, still childless, had Hagar and her infant, Ishmael, sent into the desert out of jealousy. Hagar wandered desperately through the arid landscape looking for water for her thirsty child. Then she prayed, and when she returned to her son she found him scooping up water from a spring that had burst forth under his hand. Tradition says that name of that spring is Zamzam and was rediscovered by a relative of Mohammed who was inspired to do so. The Zamzam spring is still found in the Mosque at Mecca.

Moslems trace their lineage from Ishmael (whom they call Isma’il) as Jews do from Isaac. Therefore, it’s no small thing that he was saved through Hagar’s faith. An important part of the pilgrimages we take are in rediscovering the springs that sustained our ancestors, whether those ancestors be biological or spiritual ones. Thus, many of us long to travel to the far-away villages our grandparents were from. Or we journey to the homes of the literary heroes that have renewed our spirits. Or we search out the family homestead.

Every summer, I go to a family reunion in western Pennsylvania where both sides of my family come from. Part of this, of course, is to see relatives that I might not have come in contact with all year. But another element is to interact with the places my ancestors knew: to walk the fields they plowed, to see the houses they lived in, to drink from their springs. It gives me a sense of belonging to the earth, of being literally grounded. It also reminds me that I am a living leaf on a family tree, with all the hopes of those who have gone before.

As Isma’il grew to be a youth, he and his father Abraham (known to Moslems as Ibrahim) were charged by God to rebuild the temple Adam had made. They did so, building a structure known as the Ka’ba, which is Arabic for “Cube.” And then Ibrahim stood on a rock, faced the Ka’ba and prayed. Just then, we’re told, Allah caused the solid rock to soften like clay. The footprints Moslems found there were taken as evidence of the miracle. The rock is known as Maqam Ibrahim, the Station or Standing Place of Abraham.

The Maqam is regarded as holy. But in essence, father Ibrahim was doing much the same as Moslems have done five times a day since the faith began – praying towards the Ka’ba. It’s not he building that’s being worshipped, of course, but God. In fact, the Ka’ba is not regarded as any more holy than the area around it. It’s that it is dedicated to Allah that makes the building special. It’s the connection between the believer and the divine that matters. I’ve seen Muslims praying on the sidewalk in front of a mosque in my old neighborhood in Queens, prostrating themselves in the direction of Mecca to honor the One God. On a nondescript commercial street that many people can think of no better use of that to throw garbage on it, these believers have found a place to meet the Eternal. On that noisy New York street, they make a virtual pilgrimage to Mecca. Perhaps Bahá’u’lláh,, founder of the Bahá’i faith, which descends from Islam, said it best:

Blessed is this spot, and the house,

and the place, and the city,

and the heart, and the mountain,

and the refuge, and the cave,

and the valley, and the land,

and the sea, and the island,

and the meadow where mention

of God hath been made

and His praise glorified.  

Perhaps talk of God is not your language. But is there a place you can go to find some peace in this crazy world? Virginia Woolf found it in a room of her own. Thoreau found it in a cabin. John and Yoko found it in bed. Maybe your place is in a park or the pew of a church or in a boat on a lake. Such places of peace remind us that there’s more to life than beating the next traffic light or paying off your mortgage or the latest televised abomination. There is comfort and meaning to be found if we only look for it.

When we join with others to share in our solitudes, coming together to worship, to share our thoughts and dreams, or to be together in some task, we realize how similar yet how unique are our inner lives. In the Hajj, all male pilgrims, and females who so choose, wear and identical, white garment called the ihram. It’s simple clothing, consisting of two robe-like pieces of material. In the ihram, it’s impossible to tell if one is rich or poor, a king or shepherd. Thus outward differences are minimized. For five days, men and women of all races from every part of the world, worship together equally.

It was just such a scene that Malcolm X witnessed near the end of his life. Contrary to the rhetoric of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who said Islam is only for blacks and characterized white people as devils, Malcolm found a unity of all races on the Hajj. To borrow a homely image, he reflected that all pilgrims “snored in the same language.” He returned to the United States with a changed heart, convinced of racial equality. Tragically, he was assassinated by those who did not appreciate his new outlook.

There is encouraging news from the Nation of Islam’s current leader, Louis Farrakhan. Back from a serious illness, he testified to an about-face on many controversial tenets of the group. He said that founder W.D. Fard was not God incarnate, nor was Elijah Muhammad a prophet. Farrakhan has come into line with the orthodox view that there is no God but God and the Mohammed of the seventh century was the culmination of the prophets. He’s also advised his followers for the first time to observe Islamic law in traditional ways. A few years ago, when Farrakhan announced he plans to lead thousands of Black Muslims on a Hajj to Mecca, therefore breaking down the wall of separation between races, I fervently hope that Minister Farrakhan will continue to have the courage to follow through on reducing the hostility he has helped to create over the years. I also hope that others will allow him to take that journey. There were those who have called for Farrakhan’s death for his turn toward religious and racial healing, just like Malcolm before him.

The work of our pilgrimages is never easy. When we have been transformed by the journey, by the springs, by the sanctuary, by the community, then is the time we must return to our daily life. No one can stay in the Mosque forever, nor any other holy place we have found. There is a time for returning home, for bringing the insights, ideals, and enthusiasm with us for the healing of the world.

Where we speak of Judeo-Christian ethics, a Muslim would remind us that we are really speaking of Judeo-Christian-Islamic ethics. The ethical system espoused by Muslims looks toward both the Jewish faith and the teachings of Jesus and is very similar on most points.

Especially striking are Islamic laws on economic justice. Islam drastically reduced the economic caste system of Arabia and eliminated the system of primogeniture whereby eldest sons inherited everything. There is also a religious tax for the poor – two percent of wealth every year – which reduces economic disparity.

For it is not enough that we take part in whatever kind of pilgrimage satisfies us as individuals. Spirituality is empty if it doesn’t benefit the entire community and the world we share. To quote the Koran: 

There is something the Koran calls “the steep ascent” and we Unitarian Universalists might call “salvation by character.” To again quote the Koran: 

We are each on a journey, a pilgrimage toward our innermost selves, toward the divine Mystery, toward justice. It is a long journey, but taken in the right spirit, is the most fulfilling of all. Perhaps Mohammed would have agreed with the words of G.K. Chesterton: “If seed in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not [our own] heart[s] … become in [their] long journey toward the stars?” 

Amen. 

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