HAJJ AND EID

HAJJ AND EID

Every year the Hajj season comes around, though, as the Moslem calendar is an unmodified lunar calendar, all the festivals rotate around the seasons, and every year pilgrims make their way to Mecca, as they have done since the advent of Islam, to fulfil one of the five pillars of their religion.  Nowadays, with relatively cheap air travel available to most, the numbers have increased, and this year over two million pilgrims had to be catered for.

Courtesy of Saudi Arabian television which broadcasts daily programmes on the events and possible problems of each day of the Hajj, we were able to follow the procedures of the pilgrimage.  Before the Hajj began, Saudi TV also broadcast a programme recorded in previous years following a family of three pilgrims, a man with his wife and mother, from the time they were making their preparations in their country of origin.  This was most enlightening for us and, I think, also to Moslems who have not made the pilgrimage, because the regulations governing ritual purity and cleansing are quite complicated as are the procedures to be carried out at each stage of the Hajj.  This was clear from the number of programmes dedicated to explaining to pilgrims what was necessary for their pilgrimage to be complete and which prayers and visits are merely optional. However, even all the information broadcast by the television was not sufficient to avert another major tragedy provoked ultimately by the convergence of such a vast number of people on a restricted area for such a short period of time and aggravated by the obligation to leave the stoning area before sunset of the last day of the Hajj.

The Hajj includes a number of different stages: arrival at Jeddah airport, arranging documentation, assignment to the national group of pilgrims with a guide, then accomodation in Mecca.  One of the major spectacles of the Hajj is to see thousands upon thousands of pilgrims in their white robes, the men with one shoulder uncovered (the right one I think), circling the Ka’abah seven times.  The great mosque where all this takes place has been greatly enlarged over the years, but particularly by King Fahd, the present king, who has extended the mosque enormously.  Interestingly, the new part is a reproduction of the great mosque at Córdoba in Spain except that, whereas the Córdoba mosque is built in white and red, the new one at Mecca is blue and white. In any case it is an astounding edifice.  However, in the final analysis, this is the most extensive  manifestation of ancient Semitic religious architecture and traditions still in use today.  In the Semitic tradition the most important part of temples and places of worship was not the enclosed areas but the vast open spaces where the faithful could congregate en masse.  The Temple of Bel at Palmyra is an example of this same tradition in its ancient form.  The Ka’abah, the huge block covered with a black woven drape embroidered in gold, is the ultimate manifestation of another ancient Semitic religious tradition, whereby  cubes and obelisks, known as god-blocks, were erected, not as gods to be worshipped but as an abstract manifestation of the Almighty to remind people of the existence of God.  Indeed the word “ka’abah” means “cube”.

The pilgrims then proceed to Medina where the Prophet Muhammed moved when the citizens of his native town, Mecca, proved unresponsive to his new religion. This move is known as the Hijra and is the event which marks the start of calculations for the Islamic calendar. The next stage of the pilgrimage takes place on Mount Arafat and this is the heart of the hajj. After the first ten days of the pilgrimage, the Eid al-Adha takes place.  This is the feast to commemorate when Abraham was told by God to take his son Isaac up to a high place and offer him in sacrifice. According to one tradition this took place on Mount Qassioun overlooking Damascus. However, and fortunately for Isaac, when God had tested Abraham’s obedience, he then told him to release his son and sacrifice an animal instead.  The commemoration of this sacrifice is the most unsavoury part of the pilgrimage to me because, whereas Judaism discontinued the practice of sacrifice with the fall of the Temple at Jerusalem and, in Christianity, sacrifice was sublimated in the form of the offering of bread and wine instead, Islam continues to take the practice literally, and every pilgrim is obliged to sacrifice an animal: some sacrifice a goat, some a lamb and some a camel.  Some carry out the sacrifice themselves and others simple pay the price of the animal and the sacrifice is carried out on their behalf in the vast modern slaughter-house which is part of the hajj installations.

The final ritual of the hajj is the stoning of the pillars.  For three days the pilgrims must stone certain pillars with a certain number of pebbles declaring the oneness and greatness of God.  When they have competed this final ritual, all pilgrims must leave the area before sunset.  The rush to comply with this final injunction is what led to the catastrophe this year.


As access to the holy places at Mecca and Medina is prohibited to non-Moslems, being able to contemplate the whole pilgrimage on television was quite an education.  Robert was amazed at the complexity of the prescribed rituals and the rules governing the order in which each one should be carried out.  In terms of logistics, the government of Saudi Arabia makes an enormous effort, sparing no cost, and every eventuality is considered.  There is a Ministry for the Hajj whose representatives meet with delegates from the various Hajj committees throughout the year in order to plan the event as minutely as possible.  However, at the end of the day, the vast numbers in such a confined space will be the limiting factor.  In the old days, up to fifty years ago, the numbers making the hajj rarely exceeded half a million but today, with cheap travel more accessible to all, the physical impossibility of crowding in any more people will probably lead to numbers being limited.  In terms of spectacle, it is quite unique to see such a throng of humanity surging as one and circling the Ka’abah chanting the same monotonous, hypnotic chant.

The Eid sacrifice is also carried out by Moslem families throughout the world at the start of the Eid and the meat is distributed to the poor.  This marks the start of three days of celebration.  The Eid is in effect the Moslem equivalent of Christmas, in the sense that it provides an opportunity for families to get together and eat copiously, and it is the children’s holiday when parents, and particularly fathers, spend time with their children and take them out for treats.  Funfares sprang up overnight all over Damascus and they were packed with excited children during the three days of the Eid holiday.  On the first day the children are also given a gift.  As elsewhere, the choice of gift leaves much to be desired.  There were many little dolls saying “mama” for the girls,  but most of all there were guns with rolls of “explosives” and firecrackers and fireworks which turned the town into an infernal battle-field with little boys shooting at one another around every corner. The worst of it was that the supply of “explosives” far outlasted the Eid holiday so, for at least two weeks, we had to suffer the consequences of this martial fever.

April 6th. 1998