Pillars of Islam

Since Tuesday, groups of Turkish Muslims as well as millions of Muslims from around the world have been making their way towards Mecca for the most important event in their lives -- the pilgrimage to Mecca. The hajj season continues for the next month until the Feast of the Sacrifice holiday (Kurban Bayramı, or Eid al-Adha).

Not everyone knows a lot about world religions. Many Westerners, especially Americans, know little about Islam. You may wonder why Mecca? Why not Medina or elsewhere in the Middle East?

Mecca is the holy city in Saudi Arabia where Muhammad began his ministry. Medina is the second holy city to Muslims; the city to which Muhammad fled upon leaving Mecca in A.D. 622.

Muslims practice their religion by observing what are called the “pillars of Islam.”

 1. The profession of faith (shahada)

 2. Ritual prayer (salat)

 3. Fasting (sawm)

 4. Almsgiving (zakat)

 5. Pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj)

A popular novel, “Zuqaq al-Midaq” (Midaq Alley), by well-known Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz portrays the mood of a pilgrim about to depart for Mecca. Pilgrims are revered by their neighbors as people with deep personal piety. When his neighbor wished him a happy and safe return, a character in the book, Ridwan Husseini, replied: “Please my friend, don't remind me of my return. Anyone who visits God's house with a longing for home deserves to have God deny him his reward, ignore his prayers and destroy his happiness. I will think of returning only when I have left the scene of the revelation on my way back to Egypt.”

Muslims consider the hajj a symbol and experience of Islamic togetherness. It is not a conference or formal gathering with an agenda for debate. The hajj is the experience of one's life which he or she dreams about and saves up to do.

Kemal A. Faruki, in his book “Islam, Today and Tomorrow,” observes that “the pilgrimage thus constitutes a most dramatic visual illustration of how belief in one God leads to a union of people of different parts of the world and of different ethnic origins in a brotherhood of man.”

In brief here are a few things a pilgrim does in Mecca:

 · Visits the Kaaba and circles it seven times.

 · Throws small pebbles at some pillars which represent the devil.

 · Kisses or touches the black stone in the corner of the Kaaba.

 ·Abstains from intimate relationships as they are not allowed while performing the hajj rituals.

At the end of the pilgrimage the Feast of the Sacrifice begins.

I'd say it is safe to say that the Feast of the Sacrifice is the most important Muslim holiday of the year. It lasts for four days and commemorates the Quranic story in which Abraham shows the ultimate act of submission to the will of Allah by being prepared to sacrifice his son Ishmael. (In case you didn't know, the word Islam means “submission.”) God stops him and instead leads him to sacrifice a ram.

This is similar to the Bible story many of us who were brought up in a Christian home may have heard in Sunday school except that there the son is Isaac, not Ishmael.

On the first day of the Muslim holiday, immediately after the morning prayer, the story is commemorated by the sacrifice of an animal. Purposely, there is extra meat so some can be given to the poor and needy and also shared with neighbors and friends. If you go out in the morning you will see many people in the act, but in Turkey, unlike other Muslim countries, not everyone participates in this tradition.

In the coming days the airports will be jammed with people seeing their friends and relatives off to Mecca. Planeloads of pilgrims will be taking off every few minutes around the clock at different airports around the world. It is absolute that no non-Muslims can enter Mecca.

“In one respect pilgrimage is the most important of all duties.” --

Syed Abul Ala Maududi, founder of Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan.