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One pilgrim finds that it isn't quite all that it's cracked up to be.
Islam's hajj a difficult spiritual quest By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer Wed Dec 19, 3:41 PM ET
MINA, Saudi Arabia - For days I have tried my best to perform the rituals of the annual Muslim hajj that are supposed to bring me close to God.
Along with the millions of other pilgrims, I circled the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, seven times and prayed in Mecca's Grand Mosque. I re-enacted the frantic search of Hagar, Abraham's wife, for water for her son in the desert. I spent a night on a desert hill in an effort to reach out to the Almighty and stoned pillars that represent the devil. I clipped a lock of my hair in a gesture to reflect my purified state.
But for me, dealing with the unimaginably dense crowds has made it difficult to meditate on the divine and reach the spiritual goals that all pilgrims seek.
Fear not, my five devout co-pilgrim female roommates assured me. The pilgrimage has affected me even if I don't feel it now.
"Wait 'til you return home," Mariam Shaltaf said. The reason for my failure is because I didn't come prepared, she said the hajj requires months of advanced purification, worship and reading. "But you will live it from now on," said Shaltaf, a 42-year-old Palestinian hospital worker in Jordan.
Sawsan al-Momen, 47, a retired Jordanian school principal, said it was better as a first timer to visit Mecca not during the hajj but when it is quieter to appreciate its sanctity.
Then when you return for the actual hajj, she explained, "You will not notice the distracting crowd because you are focusing on God alone and nothing around you."
My colleagues say the pilgrimage helps them become not only better believers but better people.
"My whole attitude has changed," said al-Momen, who is on her fourth hajj. "Every time I come here I become more forgiving."
"It's recharging. It's a beginning of a new pact between me and God," she said.
On Wednesday, the first day of the three-day Eid al-Adha holiday, the five of us women sat on our mattresses on the floor in the relative comfort of our air-conditioned room in Mina, reflecting on the past few days.
We arrived here at dawn Wednesday, after a bus ride from Mount Arafat just a few miles away that took 11 hours because of the many vehicles and pilgrims on foot. With at least 3 million pilgrims, a population equivalent to that of a moderate-sized city moves between the hajj sites, all at the same time, all largely on the same roads.
At every stage, the exhaustion of working my way through the tide of pilgrims, tripping over people lying on mats spread on roads, avoiding being crushed by carts, vehicles and wheelchairs has frustrated my efforts.
I had been looking forward to Monday night and Tuesday's rituals at Arafat, the hajj's spiritual high point. Pilgrims on the desert plateau are supposed to meditate and seek guidance and forgiveness from God. The idea of communing with God at sunset on Mount Rahma, a small rocky hill at Arafat, seemed inspiring, even exotic.
But it took almost an hour of struggling through crowds to reach Mount Rahma, where some Muslims believe Adam and Eve were reunited after leaving the garden. The heat was too oppressive to stay long enough to get into a meditating mode.
Communion with God would have to wait for another season, I decided.
Around midnight on the way to Mina, we stopped in the plain of Muzdalifa to collect at least 49 pebbles to use in the subsequent ritual stoning of Satan. It was like a kids' game, squatting and searching for the right pebbles chickpea-sized and round.
At Mina, we joined the lines of tens of thousands of pilgrims before sunrise moving past three stone walls that represent Satan, known as the Jamarat. The ritual is a purging one, re-enacting Abraham's stoning of the devil, who appeared to him three times to tempt him in the deserts at Mina.
Pilgrims beamed with satisfied smiles as they left the walls, lit with green fluorescent lights.
The ritual has been one of the most dangerous of the hajj, the cause of frequent stampedes as crowds file past the walls along a gigantic platform. Two years ago, more than 360 pilgrims were killed when several tripped over baggage while others behind them kept pushing ahead, causing a pileup. A similar crush killed 244 pilgrims in 2004.
Following the 2005 accident, Saudi authorities tore down the platform and built a larger one with more entrances and exits, like a multistory parking lot. Thousands of police enforce strict traffic rules, keeping pilgrims moving in one direction.
Cranes still surround the three-quarter mile platform with only one level completed in addition to the ground floor. Over the next years it will be expanded to five levels, with the Jamarat extending up through them to allow pilgrims on every level to stone it.
After Wednesday's stoning, pilgrims briefly return to Mecca to perform the "farewell" circling of the Kaaba a cube-shaped stone structure draped in black cloth that Muslims around the world face during their five daily prayers bringing the hajj to a close. Tradition says the Kaaba was built by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham and the descendants of Noah.
The pilgrims will return to Mina for two more days of stoning the Jamarat.
On Wednesday, pilgrims cut their hair to reflect their new purified state. Males often shave their heads completely while women clip a lock of hair.
Pilgrims are also required to slaughter a lamb or goat representing the lamb that Abraham sacrificed in the place of his son Ishmael.
I'm resistant to having a lamb killed in my name, even though the Saudi government will donate the meat from the 3 million livestock slaughtered here to the poor in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries.
My four roommates insist my hajj won't be valid unless all the requirements are carried out, including sacrificing a lamb.
"God has commanded that a lamb be slaughtered, whether we like it or not," said Wafa Bitar, 50, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin.
There are many other hajj rules that are more frequently broken. Pilgrims are supposed to be forgiving and refrain from arguments. But in tightly packed crowds such restraints are difficult to observe.
Tensions were unavoidable even among the more than 30 women I spent three days and nights with in the quarters the Saudi government provided reporters, their families and government guests.
They became acute when the men in the group frequently received better treatment, such as sometimes being served food before women. The Saudi information minister only spoke to male journalists at Arafat; women had to make do with a meeting with an adviser to the minister of the hajj.
While I go away from the hajj with unanswered questions, my roommates feel spiritually enriched.
Al-Momen says the hajj among other things will breathe new life into her marriage.
"I told my husband that we will have to be more forgiving and patient with one another," she said.
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