LONDON – ‘A little to the left, this way, not that way’ he said as he stopped to correct me in the middle of his walk from Safa and Marwa, one of the rituals of the Muslim pilgrimage.
It hadn’t occurred to him that I prayed specifically to an angle to stop other pilgrims from crossing past my mother. Nor did it seem relevant that God says in the Qur’an, East or West, wherever you turn is the face of God. All he saw was that I was about 5 degrees off and that merited his interrupting my spiritual experience.
It has been 28 years since my mother was in Makkah. The last time was just after my father’s untimely death in Riyadh, and she wanted to perform a pilgrimage before we returned to England. Things had changed.
Little prepares you for the huge commercial complex that is modern Makkah, at least for those of us fortunate enough to afford views of the Haram (the mosque complex) from the comfort of luxury hotels. I’ll be honest, at first I wasn’t as keen. Watching the destruction of historical sites over the years has been difficult, but having enjoyed the convenience of a brief stroll to the mosque, it was a blessing. While I feel sad for our historical loss, I have to commend the Saudi authorities for accommodating such a large influx of pilgrims; sometimes making difficult decisions is not easy.
Tawaf, circumambulating the Ka`bah during pilgrimage seven times reciting various spiritual devotions, had become a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, we chose our timings well, it was 42c and the crowds were small. Still I found myself having to form an arch behind my mother to protect her from the over enthusiastic pilgrims. It had been years since I used my calf muscles so, pushing back hundreds just so my mother could walk better. Thankfully, most were south Asian so smaller than me; had they been African (taller) or Americans (wider), it would have been much more difficult.
But there we were, men and women, performing our religious duties, side by side. Whether supplicating, praying, it didn’t matter. For a brief moment, I discovered that gender was not an issue. I could pray alongside, in front of, behind of, diagonal to, any woman and no one would batter an eyelid. Why? Because everyone was there simply to worship God, and nobody cared about the gender of the person next to them.
This of course changed in Madinah. Where in Makkah I could pray literally ten feet away from my mother, in Madinah, gender segregation was enforced, so much so that after Isha, the last congregational prayer of the night, I stood outside the women’s gate looking at every single woman till my mother appeared: so much for minimizing gender interaction by forcing me to look at every woman there, till I found her. A similar theme echoed by some other men, that ‘Prayer in Madinah was not the same as prayer in Makkah, because of the segregation.’
Manners
In any case there is something more important. Having arrived in Jeddah, the lady behind me at the queue for immigration was furious. The attitude of the staff was appalling. ‘We are here to fulfill a spiritual duty and this is how they welcome us?’ I had to point out that brown skinned people travelling to the US are treated similarly by immigration, it’s nothing to worry too much about.
Manners are beautiful. Prophet Muhammad once said that a person will raise their rank in the next life, to the extent of which they have good manners. So in Makkah there was the man I saw spitting, the man littering with his cigarette butt, and the people begging, but none of them came close to the man who took another’s place.
The gentleman next to me was with his three young children, all perhaps under five years of age. As he stood to straighten up for prayers, an Arab man came, stood in his spot and shooed him away. He was in shock. Walking away, the eldest child said in Urdu ‘Dad he took our spot,’ to which the father replied, trying to save face, ‘Actually I was moving to that spot there, which is better.’
This rude man pulled out his miswak and as he prayed, did everything perfectly, except of course for usurping someone else’s spot. – I would ask that everyone reading this say a prayer for that man and his family, that they are blessed with something beautiful. But I would also ask that you say a prayer for that Arab man, to get some humility and wisdom.
I only know a few Arabs but all of them compete to show the best manners. So when I see a person being so very rude I take comfort knowing that they do not represent everyone from their culture, simply their own foolishness.
Similarly in Madinah, I joined the line which takes you past the grave of Prophet Muhammad. If the crowds in Makkah trying to reach the black stone weren’t proof that more Muslims need to understand crowd management better, then the throngs of men pushing up against me in Madinah were. It was awful, so utterly undignified.
In that area, to the right of the line were three rows where men would pray, so I stepped out of the queue and made my way to one of those spots. I decided to offer some additional prayers, only for these to be interrupted by the surge of men who had now over flown the line and were no bumping into my back. It felt, I imagined, like a very cheap back massage from one of those tacky spots in Chinatown; not that I have ever experienced such.
Prophetic Guidance
These are just a glimpse of some of the odd experiences from my pilgrimage. It wasn’t all bad, there was actually more that was beautiful and good. But I relate them as part of a wider message.
If our behavior as individuals seeking a relationship with God, or one of God’s prophets, leads us to focus purely on function and habit without understanding, without manners, then why are we doing what we are doing?
Prophet Muhammad came as a reformer. He didn’t come to sustain cultural norms, he spent his life challenging them, notably, addressing the poor treatment of women. If your behavior does not demonstrate value for humanity, for others, and your focus is purely on self interest and gain, then you have failed to understand the wisdom of the Prophetic message, despite fulfilling certain functions of that message.
The ultimate reform is that of human dignity, honoring and respecting all human life. This is why the Prophet said that if you harm a single non-Muslim then he will be their witness against the oppressor on the day of judgment. And this is why God also said, that “whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely (5:32)”.
So to every person who interrupts another’s journey of spiritual discovery (insisting their way is better). To every person who in pursuit of fulfilling a religious duty (eg. tawaf, but ends up squashing you). To every person who insists that Islam can only be a reflection of Arab culture, while God sends the wisdom of Islam to all of humankind; which God has made with different cultures and customs. Do not limit another person’s relationship with God.
Do not interrupt their experience of life. If anything, follow the Prophet’s advice, want for others, the same freedom with which you make your choices and decisions in life. And mind your own business. This a poignant note to the man who perhaps believed that God lived in the Ka`bah and my praying a few degrees off would ‘miss the target.’
My closing thought. So many Muslims interpret their faith with the baseline of fear. Our Friday sermons are full of it: fear God, at every turn. But there is something more beautiful than fear, it is love. The story of Umrah is a love story, of Abraham and Hajar. Having a child, searching for water. Fulfilling their obligation to God.
This is why God created us with companions with whom to live our lives. Our parents, siblings, children, friends, and neighbors, all of these relationships have been put together for us simply to catch a glimpse of love. Our lives and our experiences are here to prepare us, not that we may know loss, rather, so that when we meet our Creator we will know better, love.
*Just as I finished writing this in Madinah, the azan sounds*
May God Almighty make us of those whose faith is defined by all that is beautiful from God’s creation, and may love, and those who love, find their way into our lives, keeping us company, enabling us to live full lives, and to bring us peace, ameen.
Umrah mubarak.