Blindspot!
From Issue: 708 [Read full issue]
Ummatic Act
The hajj is not a memorial pilgrimage to a place declared holy by its association with a Divine act, a Prophet, a saintly person or simply an historical event of great significance. Its purpose is not merely to remember. Hence, it would not be called 'pilgrimage'. Rather, it must be known by its Quranic name alone, hajj. Certainly, it is an act by an individual worshipper; but it is not an individual act, affecting its subject-doer alone or primarily alone, on the religious level. Moreover, it may not be entered into in private, at random or at any time the subject chooses. It is a collective, rather ummatic, act which must be done at is proper time, and must include a specific sequence. There is no hajj without the Ummah's participation. Indeed, there is no Islam when there is only one Muslim at rest, as it were, with space and time.
Hajj is a re-enactment, a living or going-through once more of the experience of Abraham, Hagar, Ishmael and of the Hijrah from Makkah of the Prophet Muhammad and of his triumphant re-entry eight years later. It is at once the re-destruction of the idols of the Kabah, the re-establishment of Islam as al-Din or the way of life, the primordial religion, the ultimate norm of a person's relation with Allah, the Absolute, as its motto indicates: Labbayk Allahumma Labbayk - Here I am, O Allah, here I am.
On the collective level, the Ummah level, hajj is the coming together of all parties, all races, and peoples, all nations and states, all schools and classes, groups of all colours - to the God of all creation. All subdue and suppress their differences in order to affirm their unity and communion. It is the occasion for the Ummah as a whole to re-dedicate itself to Islam as the cause of Allah in history, to proclaim and to call the nations of the world to join ranks with them as would-be transformers of space-time, the would-be fulfillers of the Divine will in the world.
Compiled From:
Islam: The Way of Revival, "Inner Dimensions of Worship" - Ismail al-Faruqi, pp. 177, 178