The Fifth Pillar : Hajj
Every year, millions of Muslims from around the world converge on the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj: the pilgrimage that should be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim that can afford to do so.
The Hajj is a journey which involves all of the above pillars and therefore is the ultimate journey of a lifetime. It is seen as a calling from God, only for those who have been invited by Him to visit His sanctuary. It involves physical worship such as going round the Kaaba in imitation of the old tradition of Abraham. It also involves giving charity to the poor. The Hajj represents Muslim unity where all people are donned in the same white clothes doing the same rituals. The white clothing which looks like a shroud also reminds Muslims of their own frailty and mortality.
So, Hajj. Hajj is really the journey of a lifetime. Muslims say that of the five pillars that the shahadah or the witnessing of Allah is something that you do continuously through the day. That the prayer is done at fixed times during the day, but the journey to Hajj is really the pillar of your lifetime. It's an obligation that you have to do once in your life, if you're able. And that forgiveness comes along side. So your remembrance of God drives away sin and brings forgiveness. And your prayer enables forgiveness of your wrong actions between your prayers. And your fasting-- if you fast Ramadan properly-- your sins are forgiven for the whole year.
But if you perform your Hajj, your pilgrimage correctly, then your sins for all of your previous life are washed away. So this is one of the reasons that Muslims perform Hajj. Usually towards the end of their life, so that all of their wrong actions during their life will be forgiven them. But also Muslims tend to perform the Hajj later on in life because for many Muslims, it's a very expensive journey. It's something that people start saving for early on in life. And in days gone by, when travel was much more expensive and more arduous, very often the journey to and from Hajj would've been a matter of months.
That's three or four months you would have had to cross deserts and rivers and forests and dangerous places. And you would actually have been lucky to have returned with your life.
Travel was a dangerous occupation. And so one of the obligations of Hajj is that you set off for it as if you are coming to the end of your life, and you're not going to return. You have to pay all of your debts. You have to ask everybody for forgiveness. Because it is really the journey before the journey. It's the preparation for the great journey when you die. And all the rituals of Hajj play on those themes. So even the dress that you have to wear during Hajj, it's two simple pieces of white cloth. And indeed, those may well be the two pieces of cloth that are use to wrap your body in when you die. So everybody is equal.
There's no superiority. Everybody is standing on the plane before God supplicating and remembering him as a community. It's also the one ritual, the one pillar of Islam that unites all of the Muslims. So we do our prayer, we do our fasting within our communities, wherever we live-- whether it be Afghanistan, or the UK, or Saudi Arabia-- but Hajj brings the whole global Muslim community together. So it's also a celebration of a community of believers. That suddenly there are no longer the separations of distance, of time, of language, of dress. We all have the same dress, we are all listening to The Koran in the same language. We are all worshipping the same God.
The Hajj is a journey which involves all of the above pillars and therefore is the ultimate journey of a lifetime. It is seen as a calling from God, only for those who have been invited by Him to visit His sanctuary. It involves physical worship such as going round the Kaaba in imitation of the old tradition of Abraham. It also involves giving charity to the poor. The Hajj represents Muslim unity where all people are donned in the same white clothes doing the same rituals. The white clothing which looks like a shroud also reminds Muslims of their own frailty and mortality.
So, Hajj. Hajj is really the journey of a lifetime. Muslims say that of the five pillars that the shahadah or the witnessing of Allah is something that you do continuously through the day. That the prayer is done at fixed times during the day, but the journey to Hajj is really the pillar of your lifetime. It's an obligation that you have to do once in your life, if you're able. And that forgiveness comes along side. So your remembrance of God drives away sin and brings forgiveness. And your prayer enables forgiveness of your wrong actions between your prayers. And your fasting-- if you fast Ramadan properly-- your sins are forgiven for the whole year.
But if you perform your Hajj, your pilgrimage correctly, then your sins for all of your previous life are washed away. So this is one of the reasons that Muslims perform Hajj. Usually towards the end of their life, so that all of their wrong actions during their life will be forgiven them. But also Muslims tend to perform the Hajj later on in life because for many Muslims, it's a very expensive journey. It's something that people start saving for early on in life. And in days gone by, when travel was much more expensive and more arduous, very often the journey to and from Hajj would've been a matter of months.
That's three or four months you would have had to cross deserts and rivers and forests and dangerous places. And you would actually have been lucky to have returned with your life.
Travel was a dangerous occupation. And so one of the obligations of Hajj is that you set off for it as if you are coming to the end of your life, and you're not going to return. You have to pay all of your debts. You have to ask everybody for forgiveness. Because it is really the journey before the journey. It's the preparation for the great journey when you die. And all the rituals of Hajj play on those themes. So even the dress that you have to wear during Hajj, it's two simple pieces of white cloth. And indeed, those may well be the two pieces of cloth that are use to wrap your body in when you die. So everybody is equal.
There's no superiority. Everybody is standing on the plane before God supplicating and remembering him as a community. It's also the one ritual, the one pillar of Islam that unites all of the Muslims. So we do our prayer, we do our fasting within our communities, wherever we live-- whether it be Afghanistan, or the UK, or Saudi Arabia-- but Hajj brings the whole global Muslim community together. So it's also a celebration of a community of believers. That suddenly there are no longer the separations of distance, of time, of language, of dress. We all have the same dress, we are all listening to The Koran in the same language. We are all worshipping the same God.
