Page 51 - The Vision of Islam

The Vision of Isla m

who has disheveled and smelling hair.” Asked which Hajj was the
best, the Prophet replied: “The one in which a person is covered
with dust and bleeds” (Mishkat, Kitab al-Manasik).
That is to say that the disordered life and the frantic acts of Hajj
are not mere soulless rituals unrelated to the real life of men. The
pilgrim, in fact, leads an extremely dedicated life, and is the picture
of purposefulness with his expression of the determination to go
to the extent even of sacrificing his life for a religious purpose.
During the acts and rites of Hajj, it is as if the servant of God
has given himself up to his Lord to the ultimate extent. The
undertaking of the journey entails the sacrifice of time and money;
the wearing of ihram is the symbol of having renounced everything
but his barest needs; tawaf and sa‘i portrays total surrender to the
Lord of the Kabah; rami jamar is a demonstration of the fact that
far from adopting an attitude of compromise or cooperation with
the devils, he will put up a stiff resistance to them; the animal
sacrifice is a pledge of self-sacrifice to God; staying out on the open
plain of Arafat is symbolic of the assembly, on Doomsday, of all
men in the presence of God. Thus the various practices of Hajj aim
at giving men the lesson of surrendering before God, fearing God,
and awareness of the Day of Judgement. A strong love of God is
thus developed, which leads the believer to fulfil like one possessed
the Lord’s commandments.
The four pillars of Islamic worship are the source of developing,
from four different sides, the one common state in which man is
totally attached to his God and considers fulfilling His will to be
the only purpose in life. Fasting aims at achieving this state within
the framework of physical needs. Salat achieves this through
bodily movements. Zakat achieves this purpose through monetary
expenditure and the same desired aim is achieved in Hajj by
the pilgrim symbolically reenacting the history of the Prophet
Abraham.
Hajj as an act of worship dates back to the time of Abraham.
He was born in Ur, a city in ancient Iraq, where his father was
the Chief of the Idol House. Abraham, believing in the only God,
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