Muslims circling the Ka’ba in Mecca during the haj.

Even though it’s forbidden for non-Muslims to visit Mecca, there simply is no way you can omit it from a list of the world’s greatest religious shrines. Up to 3 million people at a time visit here on their haj, the pilgrimage to Muslim holy places that is one of the Five Pillars of Islam.*

For non-Muslims, few sights on earth are more deeply moving than photographs or films of tens of thousands of Muslims slowly and reverently circling the Ka’ba, the ancient meteor that Mohammed liberated from pagan worship and rededicated as a symbol of The One God’s relationship with man. For the Muslims who have patiently made their way to Islam’s holiest city, this moment and others of the haj are the highlight of their lives.

Before the invention of air conditioning and air travel, the haj often was a dangerous undertaking, involving arduous travel over great distances and rough terrain, at the mercy of storms, robbers and political unrest. Many Muslims, however devout, simply could not afford the haj, either in terms of cost or time away from their homes (which in the case of Indonesian or Moroccan Muslims could entail round-trip journeys of 10,000 miles). But since the late 20^th century, thanks to the Saudi government’s investment of billions of petrodollars in infrastructure – highways, airports, housing and accommodations, food and medical services – it is possible for Muslims of even the most modest means to fly to Mecca on low-cost charter jets, stay in decent, reasonable accommodations, and complete the haj with few worries about time spent away from home.

Even so, the pilgrimage still presents its rigors. Since the time when one may make the haj is based on a lunar calendar, it can fall in any season. If that season is summer, pilgrims must contend with temperatures that often reach 120 degrees F. in Saudi Arabia. The huge number of pilgrims presents its own problems. In 1995, scores of Iranian pilgrims were crushed in a pile-up in a corridor, probably caused by something as minor as somebody stooping down to pick up a fallen object and causing a cascade-like effect of abrupt stopping and stumbling behind him. As a result, the authorities go to great lengths to give pilgrims detailed instructions about how to conduct themselves among such a large number of people.

When the pilgrims arrive at the holy city, the birthplace of Mohammed, all must don simple white garments that make them look the same. The clothing is intended to reinforce Islam’s teaching of the equality of all in God’s eyes – there is neither rich nor poor, young nor old. Nor is there any racial hierarchy. The late Malcolm X, once a deeply and bitterly racist man, said that his haj awakened in him the understanding that Islam embraced all humans and saw beyond categories of race and color.

In Mecca, the pilgrims follow a set of rituals that have hundreds of years of tradition behind them. They include the circling of the Ka’ba, a reenactment of Hagar’s search for water** by walking seven times between the mountains of Safa and Marwa, throwing pebbles at stone pillars that stand at the place where Satan tempted Abraham, and standing on the plain of Arafat, joining en masse in prayers for forgiveness. There, say Muslims, they experience the closeness of God the Merciful more profoundly then than possibly any other time in their lives. 

* The Five Pillars:

1. Acceptance of the One God and that His greatest prophet is Mohammed
2. Pray five times a day facing Mecca
3. Give alms to the poor
4. Observe Ramadan, the season of fasting
5. If health and means allow, make the haj to Mecca and its holy sites

** Hagar was a handmaiden of Abraham who bore him a son, Ishmael, the forefather of the Arabs. After Abraham’s wife, Sara, bore him a son, Isaac (the forefather of Israel), she insisted that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. Abraham complied, leading to Hagar’s desperate search for water after she was exiled. Eventually God led her to a spring, a sign of His love for the people who would later restore His eternal word, the Qu’ran, to the world. 

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