Pilgrimage (Hajj

The Four Pillars broke the idols, criticised his father, proclaimed the Truth to the King and warned the people against their waywardness. These acts turned everyone against him. Consequently, he had to leave his hearth and home. He left his motherland along with his wife, Sarah, and his nephew, Lot. He did not renounce the propagation of faith. Instead, the work of propagation, which was originally confined to Ur, was now organised on an international scale. He sent his nephew, Lot, as a preacher to the area of Sodom, which is now known as eastern Jordan. He established his younger son, Isaac, for this same purpose in Canaan, now known as Palestine. The elder son, Ishmael, was appointed to Makkah in Hejaz, where he founded a centre for Islam, the House of God, in Makkah. Abraham, after settling his son in that barren land, prayed to God to send to the descendants of his son Ishmael a prophet who “shall declare to them His revelations and instruct them in the Book.” (2:129). It was in answer to this prayer of Abraham that the last Prophet was born to the Ishmaelite branch of his family. The Prophet Abraham lived for 175 years. His life of preaching from Ur to Makkah extends over a century. The various stages that Abraham passed through during his preaching life are symbolically repeated over a short period during the Hajj. Arriving at the centre of Islam after undertaking a journey, circumambulation of the House of God, running between Safa and Marwah, setting out for Mina, staying at the plain of ‘Arafat, passing the night at Muzadalfa, casting stones at the devil in Jamarat, sacrificing an animal in Mina—all these are symbolic of the historic stages in the preaching life of Abraham, which we all repeat as a matter of religious training. God has made it obligatory upon Muslims of all ages to renew their pledge to propagate the Truth by re-living these occasions. The Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace, said, “Stay at your mashair (place of stay during Hajj) for you are the inheritor of what your patriarch, Abraham, has passed on to you” (Mishkat, Kitab al-Manasik). According to the Quran, when Abraham had passed all the tests set by God and remained committed to the mission of Truth in