HAJJ – THE GREATEST
GATHERING OF MANKIND
Natural
laws affecting the rise, decline and the fall of societies
Hajj is the pilgrimage to the ‘House of God’ in Makkah which is compulsory on every adult Muslim in any part
of the world who has the means to undertake the journey. Hajj is the fifth
pillar of Islam and brings together yearly what may justly by described as the
greatest gathering of mankind. Hajj is, above all, a journey of individual
self-renewal inspired by piety and devotion to God.
In this quest, the individual is strengthened by
the knowledge that thousands of human beings from all over the world regardless
of their worldly status, language or race, are in pursuit of the same goal –
the pleasure of their Creator.
Many of the rites of the Hajj go back to the
Prophet Ibrahiim (Abraham) and there is a sense of
history, of going along the same straight way that has been the way of the
prophets of God and those who followed them. There is also a natural feeling of
cosmic identity on the part of the pilgrim as he goes anticlockwise around the
cube-like structure of the Kaabah clothed in the
simple garments of the state of Ihraam, or as he
stands soul-shaken on the plain of Arafat from
Some of the powerful emotions experienced during
this great act of worship are by:
1. Ahmad
Kamal of the Soviet Union
Hajj, like perhaps no
other occasion, has the capacity to lay bare the
fancies and vanities of man. The talbiyyah or the special refrain announcing man’s
willingness and eagerness to acknowledge and obey God resounds throughout the
Hajj environment:
Here I am, O Lord, here I
am!
Here I am; no partner
hast Thou; here I am!
Surely to Thee is all Praise, all goodness and all Sovereignty;
No partner hast Thou!
The simplicity, beauty
and power of this refrain create the mood in which the pilgrimage is performed.
However, the atmosphere and environment is which the Hajj is performed can be
and has marred by the intrusion and dominance of many alien and incongruous
planning concepts and technologies and by the behavior of pilgrims who often
show little trace of the adab
of Islam.
There is in face a
warning in the Qur’an to those might be tempted to
mar or ruin the desire mood of the Hajj by selfish or wicked conduct. The Qur’an isnstructs:
‘Whoever undertakes
the pilgrimage…shall, while on pilgrimage abstain from lewd speech, from all
wicked conduct, and from quarrelling; and whatever good you may do, God is
aware of it. And make provision for yourselves – but, verily, the best of all
provisions is God-consciousness: remain then conscious of Me, O you who are
endowed with insight’ (2: 197)
The mood of Hajj can also
be marred or ruined by the environment and the physical conditions under which
Hajj is performed. Noise from earth-shattering technology and
hi-tech urban planning styles as well as the unhygienic practices of many
pilgrims have transformed the hajj environment for the worse. Simple and
more natural solutions in keeping with the natural physical environment of the
Hajj be best suited to maintaining the spirit and the
atmosphere of contemplation, devotion and intense personal rectification which
is the object of the Hajj. (top)
Natural laws affecting the rise,
decline and the fall of societies
It is the duty of all those
who belong to the Ummah to work for, preserve and
enhance the unity, strength and integrity of the Ummah.
The Muslim ummah, like any other society, thrives or
suffers, rises or falls, moves forward or declines according to conditions and
laws. These conditions or laws apply to other societies also. The Qur’an mentions four factors which contribute to the rise
and decline of societies.
Justice and injustice
The first is justice and
injustice. If a society is just it will thrive. If it is unjust, no matter how
powerful it appears to be, it will perish. The story is told in the Qur’an for example of the Pharaoh of Egypt who had a lust
for power and control. He regarded himself as the supreme lord and he treated
his subjects as his slaves. He ruled through dividing people and setting them
against one another. He persecuted the Israelites in his country, killed their
sons, and seized their women to serve him and his henchmen. For such acts, he
is described as ‘one of the corrupters’. Such acts of social oppression and
injustice destroy societies and civilizations. Sadly, many parts of the Muslim ummah today are afflicted by such oppression and injustice
even by rulers who lay claim to being Muslim.
Unity and disunity
The second factor in the
rise and decline of societies is unity and disunity. Muslims are commanded to
come together on the basis of faith, through holding fast to God’s firm rope.
For Muslims, the condition of unity must be faith and a commitment to truth and
other laws and values of the Shari’ah. Unity could
never be for the perpetration of an injustice or the propagation of falsehood.
We are to shun disunity
and discord. Discord saps confidence and results in a decline or loss of power.
‘And do not wrangle with one another, lest you lose heart and your power
decline’ (
Enjoining good and
forbidding evil
The third factor in the
rise and decline of societies is whether people enjoin good and forbid evil or
not. The Qur’an speaks much and often of the need to
enjoin good and forbid evil. Failure to do so will result in ruin. The fate of
some unbelievers among the Israelites was disgrace and ruin because of their
failure to restrain one another from reprehensible acts: ‘Nor did they forbid
one another the evils they committed; evil indeed were the things they did’ (
Morality and debauchery
The fourth factor in the
decline of societies is debauchery and moral corruption. Two words used in the Qur’an for this are zulm and fasaad. All debauchery, all departure from the right
road of humanity, is zulm. Zulm
as used in the Qur’an refers to injustice to others
as well as debauchery and immoral acts. It applies to the encroachments of a
person or group on the rights of another person or group. It also applies the
injustice an individual perpetrates upon himself or the injustice a group
perpetrates upon itself.
Judged by these criteria,
the present-day Muslim ummah is in an advanced state
of decline and ruin. In so far as justice is concerned, the Muslim ummah is by and large ruled by oppressive regimes that
serve foreign interests and values. These regimes have amassed a vast array of
sophisticated technology and training for controlling their citizens. One
result is that many very basic human rights and freedoms are denied to people
such as the freedom of peaceful association. There is no place where the Shari’ah is adhered to in its totality and people who call
for the implementation of the Shari’ah are looked
upon as dangerous fundamentalists.
So far as unity is
concerned, the ummah is divided into a vast number of
nationalistic units with each nation jealously guarding its own borders and
narrow interests. The idea that there should be free movement of people and
resources for the general good of the ummah remains a
dream. There have been attempts to have some form of cooperation among these
countries but these attempts need to be anchored more firmly on the basis of
Islamic values.
The concept of enjoining
the good and forbidding the evil has largely been ignored and overtaken by the
introduction of policies of ‘development and progress’ which bring with them
alien values, habits and goals which have led to injustices on a vast scale.
The Muslim world thus
presents a picture of bleakness and desolation ravaged by war and civil strife,
illiteracy and disease, hunger and starvation, dirt and squalor in many places,
opulence and waste in others, bureaucracy and corruption everywhere. These are
some of the painful realities. Yet, the ideals persist and will always beckon,
offering the chance of sanity and hope for betterment. But betterment does not
come with merely hoping. (top)