We mentioned last week that abstract ideas are better understood when they are represented in a physical image or an action. Audiovisual aids are important for learning different school subjects. History acquires new dimensions when one visits the places where events took place and looks at what those involved in such events left behind. This gives him the same sort of reassurance that Prophet Abraham sought when he prayed to God to show him how He gives life to the dead.
The same applies in pilgrimage. When we see the Ka’aba
for the first time, the sense of our facing it in our prayers becomes much more alive. There was no doubt in our minds about the Ka’aba and its position, but now that we are seeing it, facing it as we pray, it gives us a particularly sweet sense of reassurance.
As the pilgrim performs the tawaf walking round the Ka’aba, he remembers that Muhammad, God’s messenger, (peace be upon him), had done the same tawaf and had walked over the same ground. The pilgrim then goes to do the sa’ie between the two hills of Safa and Marwah, to commemorate the action of Hagar, Abraham’s wife, as she was searching for water for her thirsty child. He stands over each one of the two hills, just like she did. Thus, those historical events acquire new dimensions in his mind.
The personalities of Prophets Muhammad, Abraham, Ishmael (peace be upon them all) and Hagar, and their glorious histories acquire new real dimensions in the heart of a believer as he or she do their tawaf around the Ka’aba, built by Abraham and Ishmael, perform the sa’ie between the two hills of Safa and Marwah, and drink water from Zamzam, the well inside the Haram. It was from the same water that Hagar, Ishmael, Abraham and Muhammad (peace be upon them) drank.
As the believer feels that he knows the glorious history of those prophets more fully, and that he is better able to appreciate what they went through in their time, his heart is filled with reassurance. We must distinguish here between belief and reassurance, because a believer’s faith in these prophets and their history does not change as a result of pilgrimage. He was a believer before undertaking the journey. An unbeliever who comes to see what he used to deny might still persist in his denial, saying that his vision must have been influenced by magic or some other factor. Belief does not come about as a result of vision, but seeing something after one has believed in it is a totally different matter. It adds a new dimension to what we have already believed in.
The same applies when the pilgrim attends at Arafat; when he commemorates Abraham’s action by throwing his pebbles at the points where Satan tried to dissuade Abraham from complying with God’s order; when he visits the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah where Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him]) used to sit with his companions; when he prays there at the place where they prayed, then stands before his grave addressing his greetings to the Prophet, and follows that with a greeting to the Prophet’s two companions buried next to him, Abu Bakr and Omar; when he looks at the spot where Aisha’s room stood where the Prophet lived with his wife; and when he visits the Baqee’ cemetery, Uhud, Quba’ and other places which witnessed the great events of the history of the Prophet and his noble companions.
Thus, the detailed events of the early days of Islam acquire a totally new dimension in a believer’s understanding as he visits the places where they took place. To his mind, they acquire a new sense of reality, because, in part, they now belong to his physical experience. They are no longer far removed from him; they are real indeed.
Visiting these places does not merely add clarity to the events of the Prophet’s lifetime; it also produces a strong relationship with the Prophet and his noble companions. This is generated by our feeling that we are walking where they walked, seeing the places they saw, drinking the water they drank, etc. The Prophet’s companions were keen to take even a single hair of the Prophet when he cut his hair and, after his death, competed to take anything that belonged to him. We cannot hope to have what they had, but we can do as he did in the places where he offered his pilgrimage.
Some people may be unable to visit these holy places to discharge the duty of pilgrimage. Yet every town and village in the Muslim world sends a number of pilgrims every year. These pilgrims come back to relate to their relatives and neighbors what they saw and experienced on their blessed trip. Part of the reassurance they acquired is thus bound to be transmitted to their audience. If seeing the remains of ancient people imparts a sense of reality to their history, talking to a person who has seen these remains strengthens our sense of their existence. Thus their history becomes a little more real in our minds. It is as though they have seen these remains on our behalf, imparting to us a portion of the reassurance they acquired concerning those ancient people.
We experience something similar to this partial reassurance when we read in the Qur’an that Prophet Abraham witnessed with his own eyes how God brings the dead back to life. Our certainty that a human being, Abraham, actually saw that sparks within us a sense that this mysterious process is real indeed. It gives us a measure of the reassurance he felt when he saw that process. Perhaps this is what the Prophet’s companions felt when the Prophet related to them what he saw on his night journey which took him from Makkah to Jerusalem and from there to Heaven and back. We ourselves feel the same when we read his account of his blessed journey when he saw earlier prophets as well as Heaven and the happiness of its dwellers and Hell and the suffering of those condemned to it.
To appreciate the importance of this partial reassurance we need only to reflect a little and imagine what we would feel like if the Prophet had not gone on that journey and had not seen what he saw. If we were to remove all that from our minds, we would feel that a sparkle of light has been distinguished. We deprive ourselves of a genuine feeling of reassurance, and we find that what belongs to the realm beyond the reach of our faculties of perception becomes enwrapped in greater mystery.
The Prophet’s night journey to Jerusalem and his ascension to Heaven did not give reassurance to him alone. Nor were the certainty and reassurance gained by Abraham as he saw the four birds brought back to life after he had cut them into pieces confined to him alone. We also gain reassurance from the experience of both noble prophets. Similarly, offering the pilgrimage gives reassurance to the pilgrim in the first place, but also to his relatives, friends and neighbors when he goes back to them. But the reassurance of the beholder is far greater than that which he imparts to his audience through his own experience.