Answer
Wa `alaykum as-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Responding to your question, Dr. Main Al-Qudah, Assistant Professor, AOU, IAU, SAA, Member of AMJA Fatwa Committee, and Imam, MAS Katy Center, stated:
We learn a lot of lessons from the great worship of Hajj. Here are some of these lessons:
1- Fulfilling all forms of worship legislated by Allah as he has prescribed. Pilgrims come from all corners of the earth obeying Allah’s command to make the pilgrimage. They persevere through the hardship of travel and expenditure of wealth and health in Allah’s cause.
2- Applying organized conduct. It can be seen in the standing at Arafah which has its time and place, as well as the rest of the rites of pilgrimage, like spending the night in Muzdalafah, going to Mina, slaughtering the sacrificial animals, shaving hair, circumambulate the Kabah, and walking between As-Safa and Al-Marwah.
All of the above rites have their specific time and place during the pilgrimage. This should teach us that we need to have order and organization in our lives.
3- When the pilgrim wears the special clothing for the pilgrimage, it should help him to remember death and Allah’s saying, “Every soul must taste death, and surely, Allah will hold you to account on the day of resurrection.” (Aal `Imran 3:185) So he should rush to do as many good deeds as he can before death overtakes him.
4- Standing at Arafah should help the Muslim to remember the standing of the Day of Judgment, the day whose length will be fifty thousand years! While the sun is close to people’s heads, the day a person will not be concerned with his brothers, friends, or parents.
5- Throwing the pebbles reminds us of our war against Satan and the hatred between us and him and his statement to Allah as mentioned in the Quran, “Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful [to You].” (Al-An`am 6:17)
6- Slaughtering the animals reminds Muslims of Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to obey Allah no matter what he has commanded, and that, at the same time, Allah saved him from the test of killing his own son and gave him a ram to slaughter instead.
7- Performing the same rites, wearing the same clothing at the same time, and in the same way, whether rich or poor, male or female, black or white represent the equality of people before Allah Almighty.
Allah Almighty said, “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.” (Al-Hujurat 49:13)
8- The gathering of the Muslims from all parts of the world should serve as a reminder of the importance of being a unified Ummah, as Allah Almighty has said, “Verily this nation is one nation, and I am your lord, so be conscious of me.” (Al-Anbiyaa’ 21:92)
Our lord is one, our religion is one and the direction we face in prayer is one. So we need to exert a greater effort to unify and come together.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.