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The word Hajj means, literally, repairing to a place for
the sake of visit (al-qasd li-ziyarah), and in the terminology
of the Islamic Shari'ah, it implies the repairing to
Bait-Allah (the house of Allah) to observe the necessary
devotion (iqamat-an-li-nusuk) Bait-Allah is one of the names
by which the Ka'ba is called.
Hajj is not a new institution which Islam has introduced in
its Shari'ah. This institution is as old as the Ka'ba itself
which is called in the Holy Qur'an to be" the first House
of Divine Worship appointed for men" (iii. 95). This
verse of the Holy Qur'an corroborates the hadith which tells
us that the Ka'ba was first built by Adam, the first man upon
the earth. It was later on rebuilt by Hadrat Ibrahim and his
illustrious son Hadrat Isma'il (peace be upon both of them).
And when Ibrahim and Isma'al raised the foundations of the
house, they said:" Our Lord! accept from us" (ii.
127). An earlier revelation makes it clear that the Ka'ba was
already there when Hadrat Ibrahim left Hadrat Isma'il in the
wilderness of Arabia:" Our Lord! I have settled a part of
my offspring in a valley unproductive of fruit near Thy sacred
House" (xiv. 37).
The whole ceremony of Hajj is commemorative of Hadrat
Ibrahim and his family's acts of devotion to God Almighty.
This shows that the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) did
not innovate this institution but purged it of all evil
practices and made it an obligatory act of piety by which one
can develop God-consciousness.
It is rightly said that it is the perfection of faith since
it combines in itself all the distinctive qualities of other
obligatory acts. It represents the quality of salat since a
pilgrim offers prayers in the Ka'ba, the House of the Lord. It
encourages the spending of material wealth for the sake of the
Lord, the chief characteristic of Zakat. When a pilgrim sets
out for Hajj, he dissociates himself from his hearth and home,
from his dear and near ones to please the Lord. He suffers
privation and undertakes the hardship of journey-the lessons
we learn from fasting and i'tikaf. In Hajj one is trained to
be completely forgetful of the material comforts and show of
worldly thing. One has to sleep on stony ground,
circumambulate the Ka'ba, run between Safa and Marwa and spend
his night and day wearing, only two pieces of unsown cloth. He
is required to avoid the use of oil or scent or any other
perfume. He is not even allowed to get his hair cut or trim
his beard. In short, he is commanded to abandon everything for
the sake of Allah and submit himself before his Lord, the
ultimate aim of the life of a Muslim. In fact, physical
pilgrimage is a prelude to spiritual pilgrimage to God, when
man would bid goodbye to everything of the world and present
himself before Him as His humble servant saying:" Here I
am before Thee, my Lord, as a slave of Thine."
"Down through the ages." says Professor Hitti,
"this institution has continued to serve as the major
unifying influence in Islam and the most effective common bond
among the diverse believers. It rendered almost every capable
Moslem perforce a traveller for once in his lifetime. The
socializing influence of such a gathering of the brotherhood
of believers from the far quarters of the earth is hard to
overestimate. It afforded opportunity for the Blacks, Berbers,
Chinese, Persians, Syrians, Turks-rich and poor, high and
low-to fraternize and meet together on the common ground of
faith" (History of the Arabs, p. 136). |
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