PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

I performed hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah) in 1982. My knowledge of hajj prior to this had been limited to what I could gain from books. When at last in that year I had the privilege of performing this religious duty, I felt singularly blessed. Although the rites of hajj are spread over only a few days, as symbolic guidelines they stand a man in good stead for the rest of his life. The message of hajj, as I now comprehend it from the study and performance of it, is that man should make the Almighty the very pivot of his existence, hastening at His call to do His every bidding. When a man leaves his home and country to go on such a pilgrimage, he brims over with all the emotions aroused by the thought that he is embarking on a course which will lead him directly to God. He is, in effect, sloughing off his own world, leaving it behind him, and reaching out for the world of the Almighty. He is on his way to the House of God, a place where the great deeds of God’s messengers and their followers have been preserved for all eternity; where we find the hallowed impressions of the lives of those who lived and died for the cause of God. The haji (pilgrim) is then filled with the realization that he is bound for that very destination which God had specially chosen for His Last Revelation. Once launched on this course, the pilgrim is imbued with the awareness of God, His creation plan, as well as the feeling that it is imperative that he become God-oriented. If up till then, he had been self-centred in his thinking, he now turns his thoughts to God, and his entire behaviour is moulded and transformed by these new thought processes. Once the pilgrim’s train of thought has become God-oriented, he begins to ponder over deep issues: God’s act of creation, particularly His creation of human beings. He now realizes how God afforded him diverse opportunities of bettering himself in this world and His very benevolence which makes it possible for him to set forth on this journey to the House of God. The pilgrim also gives his mind to the day when he will meet his death and be summoned to the court of God. This thought turns the physical journey of the pilgrim into an intense, spiritual venture. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES The Message of Pilgrimage Once the pilgrim’s train of thought has become Godoriented, he begins to ponder over deep issues: God’s act of creation, particularly His creation of human beings.