Pilgrimage 2

The pilgrimage is a major duty and a central act of worship for all Muslims. It is one of the five acts of worship that constitute the pillars of Islam. The other four are the declaration of God’s oneness and Muhammad’s message, prayer, zakah and fasting in Ramadan. All Muslims, wherever they happen to be, cherish the hope of going to Makkah for pilgrimage, at least once. While the duty is to perform the pilgrimage once in one’s lifetime, we are encouraged to offer it voluntarily if we can.

With present-day easy travel and quick access, the pilgrimage journey can be completed within a week or ten days, if one has the means to arrive shortly before the pilgrimage starts and manages to leaves early. Not very long ago, the journey from relatively neighboring countries took two months, and much longer from places further afield. I met pilgrims from South Africa who told me that it was normal for pilgrims from their country to devote six months for their journey. Centuries ago, when travel was mostly on the back of camels and horses, people took more than a year to return from pilgrimage. Given the great religious importance of pilgrimage and the hardship it involved, it is not surprising that there is much that is associated with the pilgrimage in the folklore of different Muslim countries.

Sometimes, however, myth is weaved around the pilgrimage, and people hear or read certain things that have no basis in Islam. Once a reader told me about a particular division of pilgrims asking if it was correct. According to this division, there are pilgrims who answer the call of the Prophet Abraham: They perform the pilgrimage as it should be performed and return home to live as good Muslims until they die. A second group answers the call of the angel Gabriel: They die during the performance of the pilgrimage. The third group is the ones who hear the call of Iblis, or Satan: They return home after the pilgrimage to engage in acts which are contrary to Islam.

This is a very strange division of people who travel to perform an act of worship. To start with, if the Angel Gabriel makes a call to people to go and offer the pilgrimage, God would have told us about it, either in the Qur’an or through the Prophet (peace be upon him). The fact that He has not done so means that there is no such a call and, therefore, the division of pilgrims into three groups collapses. There is no doubt that a pilgrim who offers his pilgrimage with sincerity and devotion, then dies while he or she is still engaged in doing so, is in a happy position. These people have done a duty which ensures forgiveness of their past sins and died before committing any new ones. To claim that they have answered an angel’s call suggests that the call is made to everyone, and these were the privileged ones who answer it. This is certainly untrue.

The call of the Prophet Abraham is true in the sense that when he completed the building of the Kaaba, God instructed him to call on people to do the pilgrimage. This is mentioned in the Qur’an: “Proclaim to all people the duty of pilgrimage. They will come to you on foot and on every kind of fast mount. They will come from every far-away quarter, so that they might experience much that shall be of benefit to them, and that they might extol the name of God on the days appointed (for sacrifice), over whatever heads of cattle He may have provided for them. Eat, then, of such (sacrificed cattle) and feed the unfortunate poor.” (22: 27-28)

When he received this order, the Prophet Abraham stood on top of the Kaaba and called to mankind: “God commands you to do the pilgrimage; therefore, do it.” God made the message in this call known to people in a variety of ways. Muslims know it since its subject matter, the pilgrimage, is one of the major duties of the religion of Islam. This means that every Muslim who goes on pilgrimage with the intention of fulfilling this Islamic duty is actually responding to the call of the Prophet Abraham.

It is well known that the reward of a pilgrimage offered with sincerity, dedication, conscientiousness and proper submission to God is complete forgiveness of all one’s past sins. Therefore, pilgrims are expected to review their patterns of behavior, attitude to life and the choices they make. Having ensured the forgiveness of past sins, they want to make sure that they will never be guilty of a cardinal sin. As for minor mistakes and offenses, we all commit these and hope that God will forgive us our errors. Nobody is expected to be perfect in every sense.

If someone, nevertheless, commits grave mistakes, he can always turn to God with sincere repentance and this is enough to ensure his forgiveness. Such a person cannot be described as answering the call of Iblis, or Satan, simply because Satan does not call anyone to do the pilgrimage. How can this be true when Satan knows what reward awaits the pilgrims? It is true that Satan tries to persuade everyone of us to indulge in sin, but anyone who yields to such temptation may be said to follow Satan, not only those who have done the pilgrimage once and yielded to such temptation afterward. In short, the division of pilgrims into these three groups is without foundation.

Misconceptions concerning the pilgrimage and its rituals and details abound. One often wonders how a particular misconception got a hold on people’s minds. When we see the never-ending jostling at the Black Stone we wonder why people do that, allowing themselves to commit an offense instead of doing something that earns a reward. When we hear some of the misconceptions, our amazement either disappears or multiplies. I was once asked by a reader whether it is correct that a person who kisses the Black Stone will have all his past sins wiped out. Hence it is necessary to explain the significance of the Black Stone.

The act of worship particularly associated with the Kaaba and never stops except when obligatory congregational prayer is held is the tawaf, which means walking around the Kaaba seven times in an anti-clockwise direction. Tawaf is one of the duties of Islamic pilgrimage and Umrah. It is also a recommended act of worship at all times. Moreover, it is the way to greet the Kaaba.

It is reported that when Abraham completed the building of the Kaaba, with the help of his son, Ishmael, God commanded him to do the tawaf. He was not able to keep a correct count of the rounds he made. He felt that other worshippers would be similarly confused. He prayed to God to give him a sign to be used for counting rounds. The Angel Gabriel brought him the Black Stone.

When one starts the tawaf, and at the completion of every round, one is recommended to kiss the Black Stone or touch it with one’s hand, if it is possible, or signal to it from a distance, if the place is too crowded. As one does so, one should repeat this declaration: “There is no deity save God, God is supreme.” The significance of this particular action is best expressed by Umar ibn Al-Khattab, the Prophet’s companion and the second caliph. He was a distinguished scholar endowed with fine insight into the Islamic faith. He addressed the Black Stone in these words: “I know that you are a stone that can cause no harm or benefit. Had it not been for the fact that I saw God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) kissing you, I would not have kissed you.”

This is all that need to be said about the Black Stone. It is not correct that kissing it will remove one’s sins. It is the pilgrimage that is rewarded with the forgiveness of the pilgrim’s past sins. If a person performs the pilgrimage ten times and does not manage to kiss the Black Stone even once, his pilgrimage is perfectly correct and valid