Pilgrimage (Hajj

The Four Pillars four and half thousand years in spite of the surrounding land being unsuited to agriculture. The modern Arab wealth deriving from oil proves that the Master of the Universe has also arranged in fulfilment of Abraham’s prayer that even in the industrial age this area may obtain, from its “own resources” not only abundant provision for local needs but also pay the cost of fulfilling propagational requirements, i.e. bear the expenses of performing Dawah work of the highest standard. Geologists regard Arabian oil reserves as an accident of geography, one third of the world’s oil resources being stored beneath the area now known as the Middle East. But, in actual fact, this is the outcome of the prayer of Abraham—the prayer in which he had requested God to provide for the inhabitants of that land the fruits of the earth, so that they did not depend on others and might have the means and resources to carry out, in every age, the responsibilities laid upon them by God. When God bestowed upon Abraham religious leadership, and declared the House constructed by him as ‘guidance to the world’ and the ‘centre for mankind,’ He ordered Abraham to announce to the world that the faithful should come to this centre from all over the world, be present there for their spiritual good (22:28) and worship their God. Moreover, all the faithful should gather once in the year at this central House of God, give thought to their religious duties and return to their homelands, prepared and determined to revive the mission of Abraham. The worship during Hajj is a means whereby believers may draw close to God and avail of His succour. The real purpose of Hajj is that the Muslims of the world should gather at one place to look after their spiritual good and to take stock of their pledge and thus prepare themselves to follow this path with renewed interest. The Prophet Muhammad, who had come to revive the people of Abraham, not only set right the perversions that had crept into the rites of Hajj, but also made it into a religious pivot from where he could announce matters of special religious import and explain duties of a religious order. It was during Hajj that the acceptance