AH, THE HAJ. Where we perform one of the five pillars of Islam. Where we spiritually regenerate ourselves. Where we reaffirm our religious commitments. Where we judge anew — ourselves, our history, our shared sense of reference as Muslims. Where the intricate weave between the holy word and the ephemeral world is discerned; and from whence we return home forever enriched.
When Malcolm X (later Haji Malek El-Shabazz), who has been called one of the most influential African-Americans in history, completed the Haj in 1964, he returned home a transformed man. In his autobiography, called simply The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which appeared the following year, he wrote about how wondrous it was to be in Makkah and to see people from all over the world, Muslims of “all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans,” interacting and bonding, communicating and communing with each other.”
He added: “We were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.” All of which led him, upon his return home, to see Islam as a means by which real problems could be overcome. Breaking away from the narrow focus of the Afro-centric Nation of Islam, he effectively was asserting that mainstream Islam preempted the American constitution, which proclaimed (proclaimed but not practiced) the lofty ideal that “all men are created equal,” by well over a millennium.
And when Simon Collis, the 60-year-old British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, performed the same pilgrimage earlier this week, he averred: “I converted to Islam after 30 years in Muslim societies.” When you spend 30 years among a people, discovering how responsive to your own sensibility are the profound teachings of their faith, it’s not improbable that you would become one with them.
The difference between these two Muslims is neither in kind nor in degree — both are mainstream Muslims and both are ardently committed to Islam in equal measure — but in background. Malcolm X did not convert, so much as re-convert to Islam, since the overwhelming majority of African slaves, ancestors of modern-day African-Americans, had originally been Muslim before they were transported on slave ships to the New World, where they were not only forcibly prevented from practicing their religion and made to embrace Christianity, but to adopt Christian names, often chosen for them by their slave masters.
Whether converting, reconverting or born to Islam, how could one not be edified, even enchanted by a religion in which Allah Almighty enjoins us to against being intolerant of other religions: “To you, your religion and to me, mine.” (Qur’an, 109:1-6)
In short, you don’t taunt or mock, harm or kill someone just because they espouse a faith other than yours.
Tell that, I say, to those monsters from Daesh, who have subverted Islam every which way, besmirching its message, a message suffused both with compassion for the oppressed and resolve against the oppressor.
Roughly 1.3 million pilgrims, from 164 different countries, including 15,000 from the US (so says the State Department) converged in Makkah last week performing the Haj rituals. Lucky fellows. And congratulations to them all.
But here I want to — have to — indulge a recollection from the time I too performed Haj in 1983 and found myself emotionally transported as I stood before the Kaaba. It felt as if I was truly, truly in the presence of a holy object that defined our inner history, a holy object whose spiritual energy has continued, for close to 1,400 years, across cultures and generations, to resonate around every corner of our human being, speaking to us, about us, from us.
To this day I recall vividly that transformative moment as I, an exile who had spent much of his adult life in the West, knelt down and, yes, cried — mumbling solemnly, between tears of utter joy, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.” Those are two of the most powerful words in any language, anywhere in the world, that can be “explained” to a non-Muslim but never “translated.” Two words uttered collectively or individually to affirm that one’s God is “greater” than the challenge, or, conversely, the glory, one faces.
The Haj is not just about community and communion, that is, exulting in the fraternity of fellow Muslims, but is also about response and responsibility — how upon our return home from Makkah, we respond with compassion even to those who have wronged us, and we recognize our responsibility to those much in in need of our help — such as, these days, oppressed Muslim communities in Syria, in Palestine, in Myanmar and elsewhere.
Great to be a Muslim. Greater still to have set foot in Makkah as a pilgrim who has performed Haj and returned home forever enriched as well as ennobled by the experience.
When Malcolm X (later Haji Malek El-Shabazz), who has been called one of the most influential African-Americans in history, completed the Haj in 1964, he returned home a transformed man. In his autobiography, called simply The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which appeared the following year, he wrote about how wondrous it was to be in Makkah and to see people from all over the world, Muslims of “all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans,” interacting and bonding, communicating and communing with each other.”
He added: “We were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.” All of which led him, upon his return home, to see Islam as a means by which real problems could be overcome. Breaking away from the narrow focus of the Afro-centric Nation of Islam, he effectively was asserting that mainstream Islam preempted the American constitution, which proclaimed (proclaimed but not practiced) the lofty ideal that “all men are created equal,” by well over a millennium.
And when Simon Collis, the 60-year-old British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, performed the same pilgrimage earlier this week, he averred: “I converted to Islam after 30 years in Muslim societies.” When you spend 30 years among a people, discovering how responsive to your own sensibility are the profound teachings of their faith, it’s not improbable that you would become one with them.
The difference between these two Muslims is neither in kind nor in degree — both are mainstream Muslims and both are ardently committed to Islam in equal measure — but in background. Malcolm X did not convert, so much as re-convert to Islam, since the overwhelming majority of African slaves, ancestors of modern-day African-Americans, had originally been Muslim before they were transported on slave ships to the New World, where they were not only forcibly prevented from practicing their religion and made to embrace Christianity, but to adopt Christian names, often chosen for them by their slave masters.
Whether converting, reconverting or born to Islam, how could one not be edified, even enchanted by a religion in which Allah Almighty enjoins us to against being intolerant of other religions: “To you, your religion and to me, mine.” (Qur’an, 109:1-6)
In short, you don’t taunt or mock, harm or kill someone just because they espouse a faith other than yours.
Tell that, I say, to those monsters from Daesh, who have subverted Islam every which way, besmirching its message, a message suffused both with compassion for the oppressed and resolve against the oppressor.
Roughly 1.3 million pilgrims, from 164 different countries, including 15,000 from the US (so says the State Department) converged in Makkah last week performing the Haj rituals. Lucky fellows. And congratulations to them all.
But here I want to — have to — indulge a recollection from the time I too performed Haj in 1983 and found myself emotionally transported as I stood before the Kaaba. It felt as if I was truly, truly in the presence of a holy object that defined our inner history, a holy object whose spiritual energy has continued, for close to 1,400 years, across cultures and generations, to resonate around every corner of our human being, speaking to us, about us, from us.
To this day I recall vividly that transformative moment as I, an exile who had spent much of his adult life in the West, knelt down and, yes, cried — mumbling solemnly, between tears of utter joy, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.” Those are two of the most powerful words in any language, anywhere in the world, that can be “explained” to a non-Muslim but never “translated.” Two words uttered collectively or individually to affirm that one’s God is “greater” than the challenge, or, conversely, the glory, one faces.
The Haj is not just about community and communion, that is, exulting in the fraternity of fellow Muslims, but is also about response and responsibility — how upon our return home from Makkah, we respond with compassion even to those who have wronged us, and we recognize our responsibility to those much in in need of our help — such as, these days, oppressed Muslim communities in Syria, in Palestine, in Myanmar and elsewhere.
Great to be a Muslim. Greater still to have set foot in Makkah as a pilgrim who has performed Haj and returned home forever enriched as well as ennobled by the experience.
