Statistics are ever increasing, on the number of people who perform the pilgrimage every year, and this is an encouraging sign, but at the same time the very fact that large areas of the Muslim world are notorious citadels of unjust privilege and that fratricidal strife and bloodshed of appalling dimensions takes place between different Muslim groups demonstrates that, in many cases, the observance of this fundamental duty is more an empty ritual, rather than a task performed in the spirit of taqwa in order to become better human beings in actual practice.

   THE age-old centre of worship, the House of God, Ka'aba, was built by Prophet Ibrahim and his son, Ismail. When the house was ready, a voice came from God: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men: they will come to thee on foot and (mounted) on every kind of camel, lean (on account of journeys) through deep and distant mountain highways" (22-27).

This Quranic verse shows that Haj as an institution existed before the advent of Islam, from antiquity. When pilgrimage was proclaimed people came to it from every quarter, near and far, on foot and mounted on camels. From that time onwards, Haj has continued to be performed. The only change introduced into the features of Haj after Prophet Ibrahim seems to have been the removal of idols from the Ka'aba and other important places of Haj. Even in the Age of Ignorance, people used to come to Makkah in the days of Haj and make circumambulation (tawaf) of Ka'aba.

The Islamic Haj started after the conquest of Makkah in 8 and 9 AH. Haj is the last of the five pillars of Islam (the other four are: Iman, Salat, Soum and Zakat). Laying it down as an essential religious obligation of a Muslim, the Holy Quran says: "... Pilgrimage thereto is a duty men owe to Allah - those who can afford the journey; but if any deny faith, Allah stands not in need of any of His creatures" (3-97).

In this verse while Haj has been declared obligatory it has been made clear that it is applicable only to those who possess the means and material resources to undertake it. But care has been taken, in the last part of the verse, to warn that if Muslims whom Allah has blessed with the necessary means to perform the pilgrimage still fail to carry out the duty through sheer ingratitude then Allah does not stand in need of their pilgrimage. Allah, definitely, is not going to lose anything by their not performing Haj; the loss will be entirely theirs. They will forfeit His good grace.

Haj, like most other duties cast upon a Muslim, will be found to possess both personal and universal significance: personal, because it is the individual who hopes to become, by performing this pious act, a better person in this world and increase his prospects of reward in the Hereafter; universal, because the pilgrimage represents the largest of the concentric circle around which the Muslim institution of prayer is built.

At the centre is daily personal prayer in solitude, followed by Friday prayer in congregation in an individual's particular locality, and then there is the annual Eid prayers comprising all the people in a town, culminating once in a life-time is the pilgrimage or Hajj, in which an individual prays with Muslims from all over the world. The pilgrimage thus constitutes a most dramatic visual illustration of how belief in One Allah leads to a union of people from different parts of the world and of different ethnic communities into the ties of brotherhood. There are carefully prescribed rituals to be observed during the pilgrimage (as indeed there is for the other pillars of the faith, such as prayer and fasting), and these rituals have essential functions which ensure order and discipline amongst the vast concourse at the pilgrimage, as well as of emphasizing, through uniformity in practice, the unity which the pilgrimage symbolizes.

Important, and indeed essential, as are the ritual aspects and the outer form of the pilgrimage, they become little more than empty, meaningless shells, if they do not contain a living heartfelt understanding of the purpose of the pilgrimage. For instance, the pilgrimage should inculcate a living conviction of true brotherhood, and, by the dress prescribed for the pilgrim, eradicate from the heart and mind of the pilgrim any false notions of superiority or unjust privilege between men, which is based on differences of social class, economic wealth, race or genealogy.

Hence, it is far from sufficient for an intending pilgrim to repeat like a parrot, the rituals and all outward forms of piety, devoid of any understanding or of any attempts to understand the spirit underlying this institution and the type of transformation in human character which pilgrimage seeks to bring about.

Statistics are ever increasing, on the number of people who perform the pilgrimage every year, and this is an encouraging sign, but at the same time the very fact that large areas of the Muslim world are notorious citadels of unjust privilege and that fratricidal strife and bloodshed of appalling dimensions takes place between different Muslim groups demonstrates that, in many cases, the observance of this fundamental duty is more an empty ritual, rather than a task performed in the spirit of 'taqwa' in order to become better human beings in actual practice.

It is unfortunate that many an ordinary Muslim, in all honesty, suffers from the delusion that goodness consists in performing the ritual (whether it is of prayer or the pilgrimage) alone and that it is about this alone that he will be asked on the Day of Judgment. Yet a direct reading of the Holy Quran and the relevant Ahadith clearly establishes that the observance of these pillars of the faith must lead the practitioner to a constant improvement in his actual character, and that it is the extent to which his actual character increasingly resembles the character of the ideal Muslim that will determine whether or not he deserves Allah's forgiveness and rewards in the Hereafter.

Islamic brotherhood will become more and more a living reality, and, in this task the annual pilgrimage has its essential role, which it can only effectively perform provided the outer ritual and forms are not thought to be substitutes for the inner spirit of this essential Muslim duty, and when, on the contrary, ritual and inner spirit truly complement and strengthen each other. - KMZ

Read Also: CNN specials: The Hajj: Islam's Journey of Faith'.