A_Pilgrimage_from_the_Past_to_the_Present

A pilgrimage from the past to the present Islam, a religion of the Muslims, is the fastest growing religion in the world with approximately 1.3 billion followers and growing. That is over one fifth of the world’s population. Islam, which originated from the common Arabic word know as Salaam, means Pease and a Muslim is one who submits to god. The religion teaches that its followers must submit to the will and laws of God to attain true happiness, peace of mind and eternal salvation. The Prophet Mohammad founded Islam back in 622 CE. The religion descended to deliver God’s final and through the Prophet Mohammad (God’s Messenger) the message was revealed to the people and to the followers of Islam. The strong and powerful belief on one God, the all-mighty, the all-knowing and all-powerful God, became known as Allah. (History of the hajj) The Muslims do not worship the Prophets as Gods, son of God, or in any divine manner what so ever. The prophets are revered as the messengers of the word of God through time and history and each prophet was sent my God to deliver a message to the people but as things failed God would send another prophet to deliver the message again and start a new revelation on the people to get them to see the right path, the path of God the all mighty. God has no father no son, no family attributes he is the one and only in the Islamic Faith. To better understand how the pilgrimage (the Hajj) came along, we need to better understand the Prophet Mohammad’s legacy and his time spent as the messenger of the word of God for the Muslim faith. Mohammad would go to a cave in the mountains in Mecca and he would fast and had periods of contemplation. It was there that the Angel Gabriel appeared to the prophet for the first time, The Devine word of God was revealed to him in a series of 23 years. Mohammad, who memorized and compiled this information, passed it on to his followers, and companions. The divine revelations were memorized and compiled in the Quran, the sacred book of the Muslims. (Fetini Alyssa) The Quran offered a new way of living. The Quran addressed every aspect, every hidden questions and unanswered wonders of the world. A book so powerful so strong became the new law of the people and was the guidance to all of existence including law and order, politics, women’s rights, and the life after death. “During his final Hajj, Mohammad described the Five Pillars of Islam that all Muslims should perform as a declaration of faith (Shahadah), prayer five times a day (Salah), almsgiving of a fixed annual amount (Zakah), fasting during the holy month of Ramadan (Sawm) and pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). He also stressed the equality of all Muslim believers without barriers of race and class, better treatment of women and outlined his vision of the Ummah, a single Muslim community.” (Fetini Alyssa) “The Hajj’s true origins date as far as 2000 B.C. the story began with Abraham. Abraham, a prophet of God had a son Ishmael.” (Islam) Hager was Ishmail’s mother and the Abraham’s second wife. Abraham had prayed to God for a son and as the Hebrew bible sites today, Sarah asked Abraham to marry her handmaiden Hager because she could not conceive any children. Through Hager, Ishmael was born but later Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Tension broke between the two wives and so God told Abraham to listen to his wife Sarah and to take Hager and Ishmael to the desert. In the desert, the young Ishmael cried with the thirst. His mother searched for water, which resulted in her running seven times between two hills, before God 'heard' them. The angel Gabriel then sprung a gush of water in the middle of the desert which is referred to as Zamzam water. Both the mother and son were able to drink in order to survive the desert conditions. In time, passing traders and nomads stopped in the desert valley and requested Hagar's permission to water their camels. When Abraham returned, he was astounded to see his wife running a well, trading water with passers-by. As the traders and nomads decided to settle in the valley, the small settlement grew into the city of Mekkah and the well of Zam Zam proved to be a lucrative water source for thousands of years.The Zam zam well is still currently present and people drink the holy water daily. Through Hager’s actions, the walking between Al-Safa and Al-Marwah was born in the hills of Mekkah. God gave Ibrahim the following order to build the Kaba. Together with Ishmael, Abraham built a 50-foot high cubical building known as the Kaba, The modern day monument that all Muslims pray towards. It is also believed to be the center of the earth. The kaba became the house of God or the house of Allah. Allah described the Kaba and its building as follows: "And remember when we showed Ibrahim the site of the [Sacred] House [saying]: Associate not anything [in worship with Me and purify My House for those who circumambulate it [i.e. perform tawaaf] and those who stand up for prayer and those who bow down and make prostration [in prayer etc.]." [Surah Al-Hajj 22:26](The Holy Quran) The most testing trial that Ibrahim had to endured was the test God gave him. He was testing his faith in God’s commands and he orderd him to slay his own son. After much agonizing and an encounter with Satan, Abraham agreed to obey but God spared him and accepted the sacrifice of a ram instead. This is the basis of the Stoning of the Pillars ritual in Mina during the Hajj. After Ibrahim build the kaba, be began a yearly ritual to come back to Makkah and perform what became known as Hajj. After he died, Ishmael continued his father’s tradition. However, the Hajj lost its basic traditions and goal that was behind the ritual. At a time of Idolatry that spread in the Arabic peninsula, the kaba lost its purity as the house of God. Idols were places all over the Kaba and it became a place of idol worshipping. The walls of the Kaba became covered with paintings and poetry; there was a picture of Jesus and over 360 idols placed around what once used to be the house of God. Year around people would worship the idols but around the time of the Hajj, it became a circus. People came to the Kaba and would walk around bare naked saying that this is how they should present themselves at the house of God since we were created bare we come to him bare. They would clap and blow horns around the kaba. Parties occurred where adultery, singing and drinking occurred among the pilgrims. The slaughtering of animals continued as Ibrahim once did as a sign of sacrifice for God, but they took the blood of the animals and poured it on the walls of the Kaba, the skin and flesh hung from the pillars surrounding the kaba. They trashed it and said it was God that wanted it this way. The whole idea was distorted and made to fit their beliefs. (R.F. Burton) The people had lost all of the teachings that the prophet Ibrahim had taught them. They forgot that the House was made pure and was for the worship of Allah alone and no other person, statue or spirit accompanied at all. This Era or idol worshiping continued at the Kaba in Mekkah from 2000B.C. all the way until the prophet Mohammad came along in the mid 600 C.E. so the time came for a supplication of Prophet Ibrahim to be answered: "Our Lord! Send amongst them a Messenger of their own, who shall recite unto them your ayah (verses) and instruct them in the book and the Wisdom and sanctify them. Verily you are the 'Azeezul-Hakeem [the All-Mighty, the All-Wise]." [Surah Al-Baqarah 2:129](The Holy Quran) In 630 A.D., the Prophet let the first group of Muslims to the first official Hajj in the Muslim faith. On the way they destroyed all the idols and they re-dedicated the site in the name of Allah. The path that Mohammad and his followers travelled has become a route of the Hajj today and is part of the ritual needed to complete the Hajj which also included Hager’s walk and the stoning of the wall of Satan that tempted Ibrahim to defy God, slaughtering an animal in honor of the sacrifice that Ibrahim made to save his son and climbing the Mount of Arafat from which Mohammed made his last sermon. The Hajj consists of a five-day excursion, required by all physically and financially able Muslims, to Mecca and the nearby holy sites of Arafat, Mina, and Muzdalifah. “Once there, pilgrims perform a series of rituals to unify themselves with other believers, absolve themselves of their sins and pay tribute to God.” (R.F. Burton) The Hajj consists of several ceremonies, meant to symbolize the essential concepts of the Islamic faith. It also commemorates the prophet Ibrahim and his work. It is said in many Hadeiths by the prophet Mohammad that “those who complete the Hajj properly will return as a newly born baby, one that is free of all sins. The pilgrimage also enables Muslims from all around the world, of different colors, languages, races, and ethnicities, to come together in a spirit of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to worship the One God together." (R.F. Burton) Though only a fraction of Muslims are capable of making the pilgrimage, the huge crowds of worshipers that descend upon Mecca every year continually test the site's ability to accommodate their number. The Saudi Arabian government has spent billions to expand and improve the structure of the site. Giant tents are set to accommodate pilgrims and building multi-level pathways to eliminate congestion. Overcrowding and occasional stampedes have led to the deaths by trampling of thousands of worshippers over the years; most notably the 1990 incident where 1,426 people were crushed inside a tunnel connecting the Holy sites. Sicknesses also are a huge epidemic in Mekkah. While there is no way to know how hard the swine flu epidemic will hit worshipers this year, the tenacity of pilgrims has shown that there is little that can keep them away from this experience. Medical kits are now being handed out to keep the health of the pilgrimages in good standings Transportation is a serious issue now too with millions of people migrating to the Hajj major packages offer routes to get the people to Saudi Arabia in safe caravans, buses, cars, planes etc. Airplanes have made the Hajj more accessible for the world's 1.3 billion Muslims in terms of cost and time away from families and employment but the driving force remains the same, in Allah's words... “Exhort all men to make the Pilgrimage. They will come to you on foot and on the backs of swift camels from every quarter; they will come to avail themselves of many a benefit” {22:22/29-30} (The Holy Quran) REFRENCE PAGE Fetini Alyssa, Time magazine, A Brief History of The Hajj. TIME nov 25, 2007 History of the hajj, by: Invitation to Islam. IslamiCity. 2010 Islam." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2005. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service . NBC ch.4, USA hajj mission, Hajj History. July 16, 2007 R.F. Burton: Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to el-Medinah and Meccah (1857) THE HOLY QURAN