The Soul of Hajj

No annu­al event on the face of the globe, reli­gious or non-reli­gious, com­pares to hajj in terms of the sheer num­ber of par­tic­i­pants, dura­tion of the event and the breadth of agen­da. In spite of this fact, it has always remained equal­ly fas­ci­nat­ing and mys­te­ri­ous to not only non-Mus­lims, who are barred from enter­ing the holy city, but also to mil­lions of Mus­lims, who had not per­formed hajj.

What then is hajj ? In essence, hajj is man’s evo­lu­tion toward Allah ; his return to Him. It is a sym­bol­ic demon­stra­tion of the phi­los­o­phy of cre­ation of Adam (AS : alay­his salam), the first man. To fur­ther illus­trate this, it may be stat­ed that the per­for­mance of hajj is a simul­ta­ne­ous show or exhib­it of many things. It is a show of cre­ation. It is a show of his­to­ry. It is a show of uni­ty. It is a show of Islam­ic ide­ol­o­gy. It is a show of Ummah, the com­mu­ni­ty of Mus­lims. That is why, it is said in the Qur’an :

“And pro­claim unto mankind the hajj …. That they may wit­ness things that are of ben­e­fit to them.“Qur’an, 22 : 27 – 8

Just as in any oth­er good show or movie or the­atre-play, the fol­low­ing con­di­tions pre­vail in hajj. Allah is the Stage Man­ag­er. The theme por­trayed is the actions of these main char­ac­ters –- Adam, Haw’a (Eve), Ibrahim (Abra­ham), Hajar (Hagar), Isma’il (AS), and Shay­tan (Satan). The main scenes are –- Masjid al-Haram, ​‘Arafat, Mas’a (space between the moun­tains -– Safa and Mar­wa), Mash’ar (area between ​‘Arafat and Mina) and Mina. Impor­tant sym­bols are –- Ka’ba, Safa, Mar­wa, day, night, sun­shine, sun­set, idols and rit­u­als of sac­ri­fice. The dress and make-up are –- ​‘Ihram, halq and taqseer (part of cer­e­monies of hajj involv­ing cut­ting of hair and nails, afterward).

Last­ly, the play­er of the show is –- you –- the Hajji. You are the main fea­ture of the per­for­mance. The role of Adam, Ibrahim, Isma’il (Ish­mael) and Hajar in con­fronta­tion between Allah and Satan is all played by you. As a result, you are the hero of the show !

Hajj is a duty unto Allah for mankind, for him or her who can find a way or means to get there (Qur’an 3:97). It is not a tax on your wealth, but a duty. Thus, to qual­i­fy, you must be sane and wise to under­stand what you are get­ting into, and able-bod­ied to go through this task, and last­ly, have the means or resources to per­form hajj.

The rites of hajj are five – (1) ​‘Ihram, (2) wait­ing at ​‘Arafat, (3) Tawaf of the Ka’ba, (4) sa’iy or run­ning between the Safa and the Mar­wa and (5) cut­ting or trim­ming of hair. Oth­ers are not pil­lars, although some may require kaf­fara or penal­ty, if not done. The per­son who puts on the ​‘Ihram or cloth for either ​‘Umrah (less­er pil­grim­age) or hajj (greater pil­grim­age) is called a Muhrim.

The months of hajj are the three. These are the Ara­bic months of Shaww­al, Dhul-Qadah and first ten days of Dhul Hij­jah. Thus, one can­not put on Ihram before Shaww­al. Hajj and ​‘Umrah are per­formed in three ways –- ifrad, tamat­tu and qiran.

1. Ifrad involves first per­form­ing hajj and then Umrah.
2. Tamat­tu is when one first per­forms Umrah and then hajj, both in the same year with some break in between the two.
3. Qiran is when one puts on the ​‘Ihram with the inten­tion of com­bin­ing both hajj and ​‘Umrah with­out any break in between the two.

There are ten eti­quettes of hajj. These are :

1. Requite all wrong­do­ings and sat­is­fy all adversaries.
2. Make pro­vi­sion for hajj from one’s law­ful wealth.
3. Learn the pil­lars of hajj and its ceremonies.
4. Be kind and for­bear­ing with oth­ers, lest the reward be nullified.
5. Observe the oblig­a­tions of prayers and its statutes.
6. Be open-hand­ed, main­tain the poor and spend as much as he/​she is able to.
7. At the sta­tion of ​‘Arafat, remem­ber the Day of Judg­ment (Yawmil Qiamat).
8. Should not miss vis­i­ta­tion of the Prophet’s (S) grave in Madinah.
9. After return from hajj, one should turn toward Akhi­rat (Here­after).
10. One should remem­ber his par­ents and oth­er close rel­a­tives who have passed away with pious prayers and make-up for them if they could not ful­fill their oblig­a­tions for hajj.

The steps of hajj are the following :

Miqat -– putting on ​‘Ihram at des­ig­nat­ed places with wudhu.

The show of hajj begins with Miqat. At this point, the par­tic­i­pant must change his/​her clothes. Clothes show indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, sta­tus, pref­er­ence and dis­tinc­tion. They cre­ate super­fi­cial bar­ri­ers that sep­a­rate man from man. The con­cept of ​“I” (and not ​“We”) emerges which gives birth to dis­crim­i­na­tion. At Miqat you assume your orig­i­nal shape as a ​“man”, just one of ​“chil­dren of Adam” who will die one day. The cloth of ​‘Ihram is, there­fore, the anti-the­sis to that ​“indi­vid­u­al­ism”, it is the kafan (or bur­ial shroud). You wear the kafan, the two pieces of cloth, just like every­one else. You join the mass, the mul­ti­tude and become noth­ing or just a drop of water in the ocean that has no spe­cial iden­ti­ty of its own. An atmos­phere of gen­uine uni­ty pre­vails every­where. It is a human show of Islam­ic uni­ty, it is a show of uni­ver­sal broth­er­hood. The bod­ies were left in Miqat and the souls are moti­vat­ed here. This is the begin­ning of your jour­ney, your voy­age to noth­ing­ness. There is no sex, no per­fume, no shoes, no sewn clothes and head cov­ers for men, no face mask, no cut­ting of hair or nails, i.e., absolute­ly no signs of aris­toc­ra­cy or dis­tinc­tion. In the state of Muhrim, you don’t even look in a mir­ror to see your own image. You don’t hunt any ani­mal, you don’t uproot any plant. So you kill the ten­den­cies of aggres­sion by being peace­ful to nature. You cease to remain or behave as some­body. Hajj is a move­ment to return­ing to Allah, just as Allah says in the Qur’an : Wa ilal-lahil maseer (24:42), mean­ing, ​“Unto Allah is the jour­ney­ing.” All your self­ish egos must be buried at Miqat. You wit­ness your own dead body and vis­it your own grave. By sac­ri­fic­ing your indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, you focus on real­i­ty, the basic pur­pose for which you were cre­at­ed — that being a slave unto Allah. Just as when you would be buried in two pieces of cloth, leav­ing behind all your wealth and world­ly belong­ings, here in Miqat you prac­tice a dress rehearsal for that inevitable event.

It is prefer­able that you enter Makkah dur­ing the daytime.

Each step you take toward Ka’ba, your heart pounds. The weight of being close to Allah’s house seems to get heav­ier and heav­ier. You are endowed with a mixed feel­ing of love and fear. Love, because you have wait­ed this long to get here. Fear, because you don’t know whether you can endure the strain of rit­u­als of hajj, ful­fill your duty unto Allah and be born again as an inno­cent human being.

Make du’a (sup­pli­ca­tion) for Ka’ba upon see­ing it.

Remem­ber this is the Baital Haram -– the Sacred House — appoint­ed by Allah (Qur’an 5:97). This is the first house of wor­ship on the face of the globe. It is to this house that you face while pray­ing. It is also the direc­tion in which your face would be turned when you are buried as dead. It is the cen­ter of exis­tence, faith, love, uni­ty and life. It has its own his­to­ry. It is called Baitil Masabatal-lin-nass wa amana, i.e., the House of resort for mankind and a sanc­tu­ary (Qur’an 2:125). It is also called Bait­ul Atiq -– the Ancient House –- in the Qur’an (22:29). Ibrahim (AS) prayed for its secu­ri­ty and blessings.

You per­form Tawaf (cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion) of Ka’ba sev­en times, unless it is time for a reg­u­lar prayer led by an Imam, which you need to join in.

Just as plan­ets of our solar sys­tem orbit around the sun, you orbit around the world’s sun — the Ka’ba, and become part of a uni­ver­sal sys­tem. You demon­strate your love for Allah by mak­ing Tawaf around His house. Tawaf should be start­ed from the cor­ner stone -– the Black Stone, Hajr al-Aswad — with Ka’ba on the left. This is where you make a con­tract to join all the tribes of the earth, and become like a drop of water enter­ing the ocean. The moment of truth has come and you must select your path, dis­tinct from those who had reject­ed their Cre­ator. Three of the sev­en Tawafs must be at a faster pace than nor­mal walk­ing. You should try to touch the stone with hand, and put your fore­head on it and then kiss it. By touch­ing the stone, you have shown your alle­giance to your Cre­ator, who had sent this very stone from the heav­en, so that He could know your love for Him. By touch­ing the stone, you have cut off all forms of alle­giance to any­thing oth­er than Allah, you have become free again from servi­tude of men and this world. Dur­ing Tawaf, you become part of the cos­mos. You for­get about your­self. You are in love with the sym­bol of uni­ty and servi­tude to Allah. You see noth­ing but His sym­bols, the Ka’ba and the Black Stone, Hajr al-Aswad. By deny­ing your­self you have become a lover of Him just like Hajar who migrat­ed to this land, bar­ren and rugged, with­out veg­e­ta­tion, with­out any forms of sub­sis­tence, but with com­plete reliance in Her Lord, Allah (T). And Allah did not neglect either her or her infant son. He brought out the Zamzam well and let peo­ple set­tle there, mak­ing it the most impor­tant place in the Ara­bi­an penin­su­la. Remem­ber that some rit­u­als of hajj are, in real­i­ty, a mem­o­ry of Hajar. Hijrah or migra­tion is what Hajar did. Any migra­tion like hers is a move toward civilization.

Dur­ing Tawaf, every­one encir­cles the Ka’ba col­lec­tive­ly. The move­ment is of one unit and there is no indi­vid­ual iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of men or women, black or white, red or yel­low. The move­ment has trans­formed one per­son into the total­i­ty of a ​“peo­ple”. All of the ​“I’s” have trans­formed into ​“We,” estab­lish­ing the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of ummah with the goal of approach­ing Allah. Like­wise, all your self-cen­tered­ness must go and trans­form into self-denial or ummah-cen­tered activ­i­ties. Allah’s way is the way of the peo­ple. In oth­er words, to approach Allah, you must first approach peo­ple. That is why, indi­vid­ual activ­i­ties in Islam are less mer­i­to­ri­ous than col­lec­tive actions. You step out of the Tawaf cycle at the same place you start­ed after com­ple­tion of the sev­en orbits. This is just like being res­ur­rect­ed from the same spot where you would be buried.

After Tawaf, per­form two rakah of prayer behind Maqam‑e Ibrahim in which you pray Surah al-Kafirun in the first rakat and Surah al-Ikhlas in the second.

Maqam is a very blessed place for pray­ingQur’an, 2:125. It is the near­est point to Allah. As a mat­ter of fact, there is no place in this entire earth where you get more reward than this place for pray­ing. The stone has the foot­print of Ibrahim (AS), the rebel against the estab­lished despot of his time, Nim­rod. He stood over this stone to lay the cor­ner stone — Hajr al-Aswad and to re-con­struct the Ka’ba and to prayQuran, 2:125. Do you now under­stand where you are stand­ing ? By stand­ing on the same stone, you vow to become like Ibrahim Han­i­fah wa Khalil-Allah, the upright friend of Allah, who was uncom­pro­mis­ing in his con­vic­tion of Tawhid. In Maqam, sym­bol­i­cal­ly, you shake hands with Ibrahim (AS) by pledg­ing the same ded­i­ca­tion to Allah -– i.e., to be like Ibrahim and Isma’il (AS), his son.

Run between the moun­tains — Safa and Mar­wa — sev­en times, start­ing with the Safa and end­ing with the Marwa.

This is called Sa’iy. Lit­er­al­ly it means search, a move­ment with an aim. It is depict­ed by run­ning and hur­ry­ing. Here you act like Hajar, the moth­er of infant Isma’il. She had no food, no water, no shel­ter, nei­ther for her­self nor for her child, but only uncom­pro­mis­ing, relent­less faith that the God of Ibrahim (AS) will not leave her and her only son with­out sus­te­nance. Remem­ber, when Ibrahim (AS) left her and their only son, Isma’il (AS) near the val­ley of Makkah, Hajar asked him : ​“O Ibrahim, where are you leav­ing us, while there is no habi­ta­tion of men nor any pro­vi­sion for food and drink ? Who is going to look after us?” Ibrahim (AS) replied, ​“Ilal-lah (to Allah’s pro­tec­tion only).” She said, ​“Radi­tu bil­lah (I am ful­ly sat­is­fied with Allah?” She also asked, ​“Have you done this to ful­fill Allah’s com­mand?” When Ibrahim (AS) con­firmed that by say­ing, ​“Yes,” she sim­ply said, ​“Well in that case, we have no fear, for Allah will not let us die with­out pro­vid­ing any pro­vi­sion [i.e., He will def­i­nite­ly pro­vide for us in the mid­dle of this des­o­late, bar­ren desert].” [Bukhari] Do you see the strength of her trust in Allah ? Away from the view of his wife and son, Ibrahim (AS) prayed, ​“Our Lord : Lo ! I have set­tled some of my pos­ter­i­ty in an uncul­tivable val­ley near unto Thy Holy House (Ka’ba), Our Lord ! that they may estab­lish prop­er wor­ship. So, incline some hearts of men that they may yearn toward them, and You pro­vide them with fruits in order that they may be thank­ful.” (Qur’an 14 : 37). Soon, how­ev­er, Hajar’s water and food were all gone, there was no milk or water or any food either for her­self or for her child. She start­ed look­ing out for water, run­ning to the top of the moun­tain, Safa. No, there is no water any­where. Then she comes down and looks at her infant to check if he is fine. She then goes to the top of the oth­er moun­tain, Mar­wa, and takes a deep long look to fetch water. She was search­ing water, why ? Because it is need­ed for phys­i­cal sal­va­tion, for life to con­tin­ue. So, should man work for liveli­hood, trust­ing in Allah. She search­es again and again. After run­ning sev­en times between these two moun­tains, she comes down from Mar­wa to see the con­di­tion of her infant son. She hears the sound of gush­ing water com­ing from near her son and is sur­prised to see an angel (Jib­ril) dig a well near the heel of her infant son. The gush­ing water from the well was mak­ing all that sound. She quick­ly puts a bar­ri­er around it so that water could be stored and that it did not over­flow. And this well came to be known as the Zamzam. Muham­mad (S) said, ​“May Allah bless the moth­er of Isma’il (AS). If she had not put that bar­ri­er around the Zamzam, instead of a well, the gush­ing water would have con­tin­ued to flow like a spring [and flood­ed the entire val­ley].” It was a gift from Allah to the moth­er and son, and all those who came lat­er. It is a min­er­al water rich with nutri­tion­al and med­i­c­i­nal pow­er to cure man of many dis­eases. The Safa and the Mar­wa, thus, became among the signs, indi­ca­tions of Allah (Qur’an 2:158).

On the sev­enth day of Dhul-Hij­jah, after the Zuhr prayer, Imam explains the mean­ing of hajj and exhorts peo­ple to go to the val­ley of Mina (near­ly six miles north of Makkah) next morn­ing after Fajr prayer.

Vis­it and stay at Mina on the eighth day (after arriv­ing there in the morn­ing) till the next Fajr (dawn prayer).

Go to ​‘Arafat after sun has risen on the ninth, stop­ping on the way at Nami­rah and lis­ten­ing to khut­bah before Zuhr (mid-day prayer).

Pro­ceed to ​‘Arafat (five miles fur­ther north) and seek Allah’s for­give­ness there till Maghrib (prayer after sunset).

‘Arafat lit­er­al­ly means knowl­edge and sci­ence. ​‘Arafat rep­re­sents the begin­ning of man’s cre­ation, that of our fore­fa­ther Adam. It was shay­tan who mis­led our fore­fa­ther by whis­per­ing to him say­ing : ​“O Adam ! Shall I show you the tree of immor­tal­i­ty and pow­er that wastes not away?” (Qur’an 20:120) He caused the down­fall of Adam and Haw’a (Eve). For years, they were sep­a­rat­ed from each oth­er hav­ing descend­ed at dif­fer­ent places. It was in ​‘Arafat that they met again. It was in a small rocky hill of Jabal al-Rah­ma in the cen­ter of ​‘Arafat that their sins were for­giv­en by Allah. So, here in ​‘Arafat, you act like Adam (AS) or Haw’a and seek for­give­ness for you and your loved ones.

After sun­set pro­ceed slow­ly to Muz­dal­i­fah (halfway between ​‘Arafat and Mina) with­out pray­ing (Qur’an 2:198). How­ev­er, the Imams Abu Han­i­fah and Sufyan al-Thawri (R) said it is per­mis­si­ble to pray Maghrib before reach­ing Muzdalifah.

Spend the night before Eid in Muz­dal­i­fah. Pray Fajr ear­ly. Col­lect peb­bles there (70 per person).

Muz­dal­i­fah is part of Mash’ar-ul-Haram. Our Prophet Muham­mad (S) prayed for long dura­tion here. You must be in Mash’ar by the night­fall (while you were at ​‘Arafat dur­ing the day). Dark­ness engulfs you in Mash’ar. ​‘Arafat is knowl­edge, it requires day­light for clear vision. Mash’ar lit­er­al­ly means con­scious­ness and under­stand­ing. Such blos­som at night through deep reflec­tion or med­i­ta­tion. So, Mash’ar is the stage of insight while ​‘Arafat was the stage of expe­ri­ence. Intu­ition needs no light. It can see in the dark­ness. It is the stage between knowl­edge and love, or ​‘Arafat and Mina. Here you reflect upon your­self and strength­en your spir­it. Are you not in the right way ? Are you ready to fight against Satan or his insin­u­a­tions ? In Makkah, dur­ing tawaf you joined the crowd and became part of them. Here you are alone, despite being with­in a crowd. Here you are for your­self only. There­fore, con­fess your sins to Allah. And this night is a good cov­er for your tears. Take prepa­ra­tion for tomor­row by get­ting ready tonight. There is a great bat­tle in which you have to par­tic­i­pate tomor­row. So, col­lect your weapon­ry – the peb­bles — before the day breaks. The peb­bles will be used against your ene­my. You have to act like Ibrahim (AS) here just as he fought against the insin­u­a­tions of Satan on his way to sac­ri­fice his beloved son, Isma’il (AS).

Go back to Mina and throw sev­en stones at Jam­rat-ul Aqabah, recit­ing Tak­bir each time. The remain­der 63 stones should be thrown over the next three days of Ayyam al-Tashriq (11th, 12th and 13th of Dhul Hij­jah) at a rate of 21 stones per day. Every day, throw the first 7 stones at Jama­rah near Mina, and the last sev­en at Jama­rat al-Aqabah, locat­ed clos­er to Makkah.

The tenth day has arrived. This is the day for sac­ri­fice of ani­mal. You are armed with weapons to fight Satan, the ene­my of your fore­fa­ther, the dev­il who tried to con­fuse Ibrahim (AS). Mina lit­er­al­ly means love. Ibrahim (AS) felt too much love for his only son, Isma’il (AS). And Allah want­ed to test how great or how real his love was for Him. Ibrahim (AS) saw a vision of sac­ri­fic­ing his most beloved son. That was the com­mand from Allah to test Ibrahim (AS) of his love and devo­tion. Can Ibrahim (AS) pass this test ? He pon­ders on this unusu­al, rather cru­el, test. He has grown old and he has no oth­er off­spring. In his very old age, Allah has lis­tened to his prayer and has blessed him with this son through his sec­ond wife, Hajar. As a thanks­giv­ing for answer­ing to his prayer, he has named his son, Isma’ilMean­ing : God lis­tened [to my prayer].

Yet, Ibrahim (AS) was asked to set­tle Isma’il and his moth­er in the val­ley of Makkah when the child was still an infant. And now that the lad has become old enough to walk and rea­son, Allah wants him to sac­ri­fice that son to prove that his true love is only for Allah. Just pon­der on this for a momentQur’an 37:102. Don’t you get a chill in your back ? Satan tries to cre­ate doubt in his mind : ​‘O Ibrahim, are you sure you want to sac­ri­fice your son, your true love, your joy, the mean­ing of your exis­tence, the fruit of your life ; who would there be after you to wor­ship your Lord ; don’t you have heart, any soft feel­ings toward your son?’ Ibrahim (AS) is momen­tar­i­ly con­fused. Should he or shouldn’t he car­ry out Allah’s com­mand, ​“you must sac­ri­fice your son?” Is he dream­ing or is it the real­i­ty ? No, there is no con­fu­sion what he saw in his vision is crys­tal clear ; God tru­ly wants him to sac­ri­fice his beloved Isma’il. He wins over Satan, the sneak­ing whis­per­er. But then Satan returns and tries to digress him from his task. Ibrahim (AS) wins over again. But Satan does not give up that eas­i­ly, he tries to cre­ate con­fu­sion for the third time. Ibrahim (AS) wins over Satan’s temp­ta­tions yet for the third time. He is men­tal­ly all pre­pared to car­ry out the task. His choice is obvi­ous – absolute obe­di­ence and devo­tion to Allah ; Isma’il must be sac­ri­ficed. He want­ed to share the mes­sage with his lad. Thus, he talks to his young lad, Isma’il (AS), of his dream and asks his opin­ion. And what does this ​“gen­tle” son (whom the Qur’an calls Ghu­lamin Hal­im) reply ? He calm­ly says : ​“O my father ! Do that which you are com­mand­ed. Allah will­ing, you shall find me of the stead­fast.”Qur’an, 37:102 He answers like the rock of Gibraltar !

What did you expect ? Did you expect the son of Ibrahim (AS), the upright, to be any less faith­ful than his father ? So, here in Mina, you act like Ibrahim (AS), the sol­dier of Tawhid (monothe­ism), ready to defeat, sub­due or shoot down your real ene­my, the Satan with­in you rep­re­sent­ing your per­son­al egos, desires, crav­ings, and pref­er­ences. These ​“oth­er” things, the ​“idols”, were dis­tract­ing you from the true wor­ship of God. But here in Mina, you are now ready to fight against these taghoots (demi-gods) to show your true devo­tion and obe­di­ence to Allah. You fight Satan just as Ibrahim (AS) had fought against him. To mim­ic that event, you throw stones at Satan at the three Jama­rats.

Udhiya (Qur­ban) or sac­ri­fice an ani­mal, say­ing only Bismillah.

When both the father and the son — Ibrahim and Isma’il (AS) — had sur­ren­dered to Allah and Ibrahim (AS) had flung Isma’il (AS) down upon his face and was about to put the knife on his son’s neck, Allah called Ibrahim (AS): ​“O Ibrahim ! You have already ful­filled the vision.“Qur’an, 37:104 – 5 Ibrahim (AS) doesn’t have to sac­ri­fice his son. Instead, he should sac­ri­fice this ram, which has been sent to him, as ran­som for Isma’il (AS). Unlike the false-gods of poly­the­ism, Allah, the One True God, is not blood­thirsty. He just want­ed to check where Ibrahim (AS) stood in his devo­tion and love, whether he was capa­ble of over­com­ing his per­son­al feel­ing of love for his son to please Allah. A les­son was taught by Allah –- from now on there would be no human sac­ri­fice in the altar of God. Sac­ri­fice of a halal ani­mal whose meat you can eat and dis­trib­ute among the poor is a suf­fi­cient substitute.

Pon­der again. What was Ibrahim (AS) asked to sac­ri­fice ? It was noth­ing short of the most beloved thing/​entity among his pos­ses­sion. But when he was ready, his Isma’il was returned unto him, unscathed and unharmed. And he was made a mod­el for human­i­ty : ​“And We left for him [Ibrahim (AS)] among the lat­er folk (the salu­ta­tion): Peace be unto Ibrahim. Thus do we reward the good.“Qur’an, 37:108 – 9 If you love some­thing more than you love Allah, then that thing has become your idol and you must be ready to sac­ri­fice that. Are you ready to slaugh­ter your world­ly desires, world­ly love, your Isma’il in Mina in order that you be free from all attach­ments save those of Allah ? If you are, then slaugh­ter a goat, sheep, ram, cow or camel as a ran­som towards your Isma’il. As Dr. Shariati right­ly puts it,

To offer a sheep instead of Isma’il is a ​“sac­ri­fice”, but to sac­ri­fice a sheep just for the sake of sac­ri­fice is ​“butch­ery”!Dr. Ali Shariati, Hajj : Reflec­tion on Its Rituals

For sure­ly Allah says, ​“Their flesh and their blood do not reach Allah, but the devo­tion from you reach­es Him.”Qur’an, 22:37

Men should shave their head or trim their hair, at least, one-quar­ter of head. Women should not shave their head, but only trim slight­ly at the end of the lock of a hair.
After the Qur­ban (sac­ri­fice) of the ani­mal, you have almost com­plet­ed the basic require­ments of hajj, so you can make an end of your unkempt­nessQur’an, 22:29. You have defeat­ed Satan but you may not have suc­ceed­ed in com­plete­ly killing it. You may have defeat­ed him out­side but he comes back inside of you. So, you should stay the next three days in Mina and con­tin­ue with your bat­tling of the Satan at Jama­rat.

After shav­ing or trim­ming the hair, you should go to Makkah and make the Tawaf of vis­i­ta­tion and run sev­en times between the Safa and the Mar­wa. Then your hajj is com­plete and you can come out of ​‘Ihram.

This is the lat­ter tawaf of the Ka’baQur’an, 22:29, per­formed after you return from Mina. In Mina, you have defeat­ed Satan and renewed your ties with Allah by fol­low­ing the foot­steps of Ibrahim (AS). When you first approached Ka’ba you had not, by then, puri­fied your­self. You were still impure and uncon­scious. In ​‘Arafat you gained con­scious­ness. In Mina you puri­fied your­self. So, this is appro­pri­ate that you do the tawaf and sa’iy in the puri­fied state before you return home. Dur­ing the rit­u­als of hajj you played the roles of Ibrahim (AS) and Hajar. Do not replace your role-play­ing to some­thing else when you return. Like Hajar, always trust in Allah. Like Ibrahim (AS) fight the fire of Nim­rod, i.e., oppres­sion. Like Ibrahim (AS) be pre­pared to sac­ri­fice your Isma’il, i.e., love or desires, for the sake of your faith. That is the essence of hajj. You return to Allah the way He want­ed you to be : a slave total­ly ded­i­cat­ed to his/​her Master.

In clos­ing, let me quote from Ali bin Uth­man al-Jul­labi al Hujwiri’s (R) Kashf al-Mahjub. A cer­tain man came to Junayd [al-Bagh­da­di] (R). Junayd asked him whence he came. He replied : ​“I have been to hajj.” Junayd (R) said : ​“From the time when you first jour­neyed from your home have you also jour­neyed away from all sins?” He said, ​“No.” ​“Then,” said Junayd (R), ​“you have made no jour­ney. At every stage where you halt­ed for the night did you tra­verse a sta­tion on the way to Allah?” He said : ​“No.” ​“Then,” said Junayd (R), ​“you have not trod­den the road stage by stage. When you put on the Ihram (pilgrim’s garb) at the prop­er place did you dis­card the attrib­ut­es of human­i­ty as you cast off your ordi­nary clothes?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not put on the Ihram. When you stood on ​‘Arafat did you stand one instant in con­tem­pla­tion of Allah?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not stood on ​‘Arafat. When you went to Muz­dal­i­fa and achieved your desire did you renounce all sen­su­al desires?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not gone to Muz­dal­i­fa. When you cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ed the Ka’ba did you behold the imma­te­r­i­al beau­ty of Allah in the abode of purifi­ca­tion?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ed the Ka’ba. When you ran between Safa and Mar­wa did you attain to the rank of safa (puri­ty) and muruwwat (virtue)?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not run. When you came to Mina did all your wish­es cease?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not yet vis­it­ed Mina. When you reached the slaugh­ter place and offered sac­ri­fice did you sac­ri­fice the objects of sen­su­al desire?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not sac­ri­ficed. When you threw the stones did you throw away what­ev­er sen­su­al thoughts were accom­pa­ny­ing you?” ​“No.” ​“Then you have not yet thrown the stones, and you have not yet per­formed the pil­grim­age. Return and per­form the pil­grim­age in the man­ner which I have described in order that you may arrive at the sta­tion of Ibrahim (AS).”

May Allah grant us the vig­or to fol­low the dic­tates of hajj so that this duty is accept­able unto Him.

This essay is most­ly based on the book Hajj : Reflec­tion on Its Rit­u­als by Dr. Ali Shariati.