Hajj Pilgrimage: Educating Colleagues and Students
By Mohammad Yacoob
Los Angeles, CA
Imran and Tasneem Carim decided in early 2010s, immediately after getting married, to perform Hajj together. Both completed the formalities with a local Muallim (Hajj guide) in Riverside County, Southern California and also applied for extended leave at their place of work.
Three months before Hajj, Imran, a Financial Advisor at a reputable financial company in California, left his job to seek a new job to pursue areas of his expertise. At a certain company during the interview he mentioned that if he is offered the job he would like the company to consider his personal situation, saying that he and his wife would like to fulfill their religious obligation and go to Hajj for which arrangements have already been made. He provided details about the Hajj arrangements to the interviewers. Later the company offered him the job, took into account details he provided about Hajj, and approved a three-week vacation in advance, to be applied to his vacation at one-year anniversary on the job. This is one of the rare cases where a company approved vacation for Hajj even before offering the job. Tasneem Carim, who works as a teacher, also got three-week vacation for Hajj from the Public School.
At his new job, Imran talked to his colleagues two weeks before going for Hajj, providing details about the pilgrimage and informing them that they should not be surprised to see him return from Hajj with his head shaven. The teachers at Tasneem’s Middle School and Imran’s colleagues were inquisitive about Hajj and wanted to hear details and see pictures of Hajj rituals.
After Imran and Tasneem returned from Hajj, Tasneem prepared a presentation titled “23 Days on a Spiritual Journey of a Lifetime”. The presentation was customized by each one of them. Imran customized his presentation to address his financial company colleagues and also to show live Tawaf during umrah at the end of the presentation. Tasneem added different slides and tweaked her presentation for her audience, the 7th grade students, keeping in mind that in their history class these students had just finished studying the Unit on the Rise of Islam. This being an ongoing effort with the new students coming in 7th grade each year, Tasneem has shown her customized presentation more than 20 times so far.
At office, Imran started his presentation by making reference to the Hajj pilgrimage taken by Michael Abdul-Majid Wolfe, an American poet and a writer who related his Hajj experiences on the ABC Television Network in 2007.
Next, he talked about the five pillars of Islam and said that he and his wife Tasneem made a decision on their wedding day to go to Hajj. They joined a group from Riverside, California and embarked on a journey of lifetime and travelled 8,120 flying miles from Los Angeles to Dubai. At the Dubai airport they used the available facility, showered and changed into the Ihram clothes (white two-piece garment) prior to departing for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. From Dubai they went to Jeddah by plane and travelled to Makkah by bus. While travelling from Jeddah to Makkah, they saw the highest part of a hill near Makkah where a clock tower appeared to be shooting outward towards the sky. It was a high rise building. When they arrived in Makkah they saw this building and were informed that it is the tallest hotel in the world that also has the world’s largest clock-face. This hotel is across from the Grand Mosque.
Kaaba is located in the center of the Grand Mosque. The very first night they performed “Umrah” -The Shorter, Extra Credit Pilgrimage. The ritual called Tawaf was performed as the first phase of Umrah that involved circling the Kaaba counter-clockwise seven times praying simple prayers from heart. To Muslims, circling the Kaaba represents the idea of Oneness, where everything revolves around it. This worship concept is taken from the order of the universe. The planets rotate around the sun, the electrons around the nucleus, moth around the candle; rotating around such a center, the Mosque built by Patriarch Ibrahim, the Kaaba, means showing allegiance with love to God, the creator of the universe.
The next thing he explained was the second ritual that involved running and or walking back and forth seven times between two hills called Safa and Marwah, which are to the south and north of the Kaaba, in the footsteps of Hajra (Hagar), wife of Prophet Ibrahim, who had hastily run seven times between these two hills to see if she could spot water or anyone from whom she could get some water for her infant son, Ismail. It represents ‘turning’ towards God and not giving up on His mercy. Later Hagar found the well, now called the Zam Zam Well.
After that Imran spoke about how five days later they went to Madinah, the city that gave refuge to Prophet Muhammad after he left Makkah. In Madinah, he built the first Mosque which ranks as the second most holy place after the Grand Mosque. Here Prophet Muhammad spent the rest of his life and is buried along with his two companions - the first two Caliphs - Abubaker and Umar. They stayed in Madinah for five days and returned to Makkah to start the Hajj.
The next part of the presentation focused on the actual rites of Hajj. On the first day, they went from Makkah to Mina, a town approximately five miles from the Grand Mosque, and stayed in a tent where they spent the rest of the day.
On the second day they travelled from Mina to the Arafat Valley by train and stayed the whole day near Mount of Mercy in the plain of Arafat, spending the time in praying and reflecting. They left the Arafat Valley after sunset, went to Muzdalifah and spent the night there and collected 21 stones for the pelting and stoning ceremony. In Muzdalifah they performed the evening prayer and spent the night on the ground under the open sky.
Then they directly proceeded to Mina before sunrise and stopped at the first stone monument called the Jamrat al Aqabah and threw seven consecutive pebbles to symbolize stoning the devil.
The third, fourth and fifth day were spent in their assigned tent in Mina and they also went to Jamarat to pelt Satan with stones collected at Muzdalifah. Stoning of Satan is done for the following reasons: The Jamarat are three stone pillars that represent Satan. They are pelted, as a compulsory ritual of Hajj in emulating Prophet Ibrahim who pelted Satan with stones when Satan tried to dissuade him from obeying the commands of Almighty God to sacrifice his son.
Imran then explained how he had his hair on his head shaved as a sign of religious devotion and humility. Later, the couple went to Makkah and performed the final Tawaf around the Kaabah and completed Sai, the ritual walking back and forth seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwah. These activities released them from the state of Ihram, allowing them to resume normal activities and wear regular clothes. Later, they flew from Jeddah to Dubai, and a day later, took a flight for Los Angeles.
At the end of his presentation, Imran switched his computer to live coverage of Tawaf around Kaaba in the Grand Mosque (Masjid al-Haram) at around 11:30 p.m. Saudi Arabia time, showing thousands of people performing Tawaf for their Umrah – the shorter pilgrimage. Imran said, “The Tawaf is performed 24/7 by people visiting from around the world.” All his colleagues were surprised and impressed because they had not seen anything like it before.
Tasneem prepared and customized the presentation with peripheral information being directed towards her audience, the 7th grade students. She started the presentation by saying, “This was not like any vacation I’d taken before; been to New York and other places, but this is a special place. Who knows which place I was going to that I am talking about today? This is Kaabah in the center of the Grand Mosque. When we arrived in Jeddah, I was asking myself, ‘Are we really here?’ I mentally prepared for the experience and the lack of control I would have as a pilgrim on the events for the next three weeks.” Then she took the students on a ride with her on the sacred journey and said that the scenery during the bus ride from Jeddah to Makkah felt like traveling back in time. She made the presentation understandable to the students by the activities and the Hajj rituals performed each day.
She said that the Pilgrimage Umrah is made up of a series of rituals. Ritual # 1 – Tawaf: Circling the Kaaba 7 times; Ritual # 2 – Sa’i –Walking Between 2 hills, Safa and Marwah; Ritual # 3 – Drinking the “Zam Zam” Water; Ritual # 4 – Cutting or Shaving hairs. On the eighth day they travelled to Madinah and stayed in Madinah Movenpick Hotel; prayed in Madinah at the Prophet’s Mosque; visited historical places, and returned to Makkah on the 12th day to start the Hajj. They stayed in an apartment building. They spent the first day of Hajj in a tent in Mina (Day 15); 2nd Day of Hajj in Arafat Valley (Day 16), later went to Muzdalifah; 3rd, 4th & 5th Days of Hajj Stoning the Pillars in Mina (Days 17, 18, 19); Final Tawaf of Kaaba, Sa’i & Zam Zam water drinking (Day 20); Traveling to Dubai & back home in Los Angeles (Day 21-23).”
Tasneem’s presentation on Hajj and the pictures she shared with students helped them to bring to life the concepts of Islam the students were already learning in their history class. The other teachers who had asked Tasneem to come to their class and talk about Hajj thanked her for her efforts.
(Mohammad Yacoob is a retired industrial engineer and engineering proposals analyst who lives in Los Angeles, California)
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