Mouood Mouood English Edition
Hajj is unfastening of the chains of alignment to be relived from egotism and distinctions to exercise and experience a monotheistic life.
Prayer and fasting are compulsory affairs for all God-seeking believers and those who thread the path of truth but hajj is compulsory only to those who can afford the pilgrimage. In the divine system, everyone who can be present in the massive seminar of hajj and easily afford the expenses of this travel, it is his duty to pilgrim to the secure house and depart from his true self towards the munificent God.
The truth of the matter is that, those who enjoy a higher wealth and financial ability in their individual and social life are more likely to be in jeopardy of falling prey to behavioural ills and they are more prone to social misdemeanour.
In other words, if wealth and financial abilities are devoid of purification and cultivation attributes, they can turn to rebellion and revolting. A wealthy individual carries a higher responsibility. The one who is endowed with a higher proportion of divine bounty, enjoying more physical power, refinement of thought, and extraordinary financial means, should be prepared to carry a higher level of responsibility. Through the cultivation of self and innate pleasantness in playing his individual and social role, he should try to acquire higher levels of successes.
Hence, hajj is an obligatory issue to every wealthy person lest this financial prosperity and the resulting social status may lead him to pomposity, arrogance, haughtiness, rebellion, and revolting. It is a comprehensive programme to remove all signs of personality ills to stand up against evil incentives. If hajj rituals are carefully scrutinized from the outset to the end, it can be well understood that hajj is a purification of self of all mental ills and social misdemeanor. It serves to flourish a personality characteristically trustworthy secure from any form of corruption. The one who performs his hajj rituals enthusiastically is humble, quiet, in control of his carnal and social temptations. He can do without any avariciousness, excessiveness. He has no desire for pomposity and arrogance. He is pious, and broadminded; and he is clement and trusting both at home and in community, because such should be the one who has made his hajj pilgrimage as a Haji.
Therefore, the one who contemplates on the divinely pilgrimage of hajj, he feels that, he is making an otherworldly immigration. He feels he should relieve himself from mundane attachments in order to free himself from all anxieties and worries resulting from some social ties and some individual wheeling and dealings. He, then, surely starts his monotheistic pilgrimage with a serene heart. To this effect, he visits this or that person, his relatives and friends, neighbours and his hometown acquaintances, and his colleagues and fellow workers, to ask forgiveness for any wrong that he might have done. He apologizes for any unbecoming behaviour that he might have had in different circumstances on various occasions or whatever ills he might have said in their back unwittingly. By doing so, he washes away all traces of discontent.
He also tries to pay, all his religious and financial dues, to maintain a clear balance on both counts in addition to his moral and social obligations, to put at the disposal of his family or his executor. This is because the pilgrimage of hajj cannot be accepted as an act of worship by disregarding the past and present, or irrespective of a full reconsideration of all acts of religiously lawful or unlawful affairs, or paying no heed whether people being pleased or displeased with oneself. The attribute of turning into a Haji cannot easily be attached as an ornament to the personality of a traveler of the land of revelation. To turn into a Haji means being endowed with attributes such as moral accomplishments and human values away from ethical vices and distancing oneself from all human enslavement.
One has to tolerate many forms of inconvenience and troubles in order to be endowed with the attribute of being a Haji – to immigrate from one’s self to unite with God. One should be able to put to the blaze of love and pleasantness all impurities. One should make empty the heart of all ungodly issues to plant the seeds of love of the beloved therein. Body and the soul should be purified and ceremonially bathed in the divine blessings. With dressing up in the sign of distinction in everything white to become indistinct, one should resist all temptations, innate desires and carnal attractions, putting one’s interests first, and seeking easy-going attributes. Steadfastly and resolutely with a sincere intention and a holy incentive, one should not let off his efforts in the arenas of truthfulness, pleasantness, and compassion, to sacrifice all.
By starting his hajj pilgrimage one begins to be honoured with the station of being a Haji to carry within himself the glorified sign of value.
One knows that, “Man shall be a clear proof against himself,” so do others. All psychologists and psychiatrists share the view that the most significant personality harms, the most important moral ills, and the most flourishing ground for man’s misbehaviors and his behavioral aberration at all times and places, have their roots embedded deeply in certain characteristics, mental complexes, and letting loose of some carnal tendencies.
Munificent God, the Portrayer of man, the Knower of all that rulings governing man’s innate egocentricity, characteristics, and inherent needs wants the man, in his process of turning into a Haji and in a grand test, make a good spring cleaning of his heart. Sitting for this examination, one should prove to be capable of overwhelmingly ruling all his intrinsic temptations, outside influence, and all that hinder the growth and exaltation of his personality.
It is in this light that in the process of turning into a Haji to be secure against all mental and social vulnerabilities, when wearing the oblivious white ritual consecration robe of distinction to join in with its clarity to get away from obfuscation of mind, one thus exercises and experiences the means of coping with and struggling against the harms of a balanced and exalted personality. The one who wishes to become a Haji should:
• Avoid childish pomposity, selfishness and ego-centered thoughts and modes of behaviour,
• Avoid impatiently seeking self-comforts and self spoiling attitudes,
• Avoid applying self-injury or hurting other creatures,
• Avoid aggressive behaviors, invasion, or any acts of aggression aiming at a perfect and well-developed personality,
• Avoid relieving oneself by pursuing sexual temptations, or carnal desires,
• Avoid boasting, seeking supremacy, and assuming self-aggrandizement,
• Avoid pretense, deceit, belittling, or abusing in words as in action.
These are so because the domination of these attributes in the individual and social life is of the main ills of growth and of the major harms to the personality of man.
Only through sufficiently exercising in the fields of removing signs of harms of the growth; predominating over his carnal temptations and their social influence; experiencing brotherhood, equality, pleasantness, purity, and compassion to sacrifice all; an objective and godly-pivoted life; fighting rebellious Satans of self and the foes of spiritualism; and abhorring and denouncing idolaters, tyrants, and contemporary false deities, a Haji may be ready to sacrifice his dearest existence.
Sacrificing is the most splendid phase of the grand process of hajj pilgrimage.
Now, to turn into a true Haji; to arrive at the high station of Abraham; and to join the line of those who truly call ‘There is no God but Allah’ and to declare ‘Here, I am’ from the heart’s core, similar to Abraham, one should sacrifice his Ismail. This should be carried out as signs of purification of one’s existence; predominance over all carnal temptations, mental and social influences; and polishing the body and soul in sincerity and monotheism.
At the end of a lifelong expectation; a century of struggle, suffering, hardship, and toil, was a handsome, moral, and dear young boy for Abraham. At a touching scene of test, despite all his attachments, he was about to break off all relevant links and roots of fondness, there came down a call that, O Abraham, you have passed the test, and that instead of your Ismail, you may sacrifice a sheep.
One should offer in a platter, and with sincerity, the entire of what one possesses, i.e., his capital, children, spouse, station, honour, job, reputation, excessiveness, and his egotism, etc.
Now that one intends to turn into a Haji to acquire the highest honour and station in a Muslim community with the relevant Islamic significance, one should first look at and think of his own Ismail, most sincerely and most honestly. One should be able to sacrifice his Ismail, in whatever form it might be – a sheep or a camel or whatever – in the slaughtering house of love thus sacrificing all.
When coming out a winner in this grand test, similar to all noble servants of God – quietly and lightly as a butterfly – he does now play a new role in carrying out a new mission in his own land and among his own people.
His behavior and his disposition are as such that as if he was reborn. His heart palpitates for God and none other. He speaks nothing but the truth; he seeks none other than the Truth; and he threads on no path but the straight path. The people, whether young or old and men or women, do expect and love to see and experience all exalted Quranic values and a model of Islamic honourable personality in his disposition as in his individual and social modes of behavior.
Haji connotes the symbol of resistance against the tumults and rebellions of passions; the true interpretation of honesty and truthfulness; the manifestation of forgive and forget in sacrificing all; the crystallization of affability, love, rationality; and the representation of pleasantness and compassion.
