What is Hajj all about?
The pilgrimage to Makkah in Saudi Arabia is an obligation for men and women, once in a Muslim’s lifetime, for those who are physically and financially able to visit. Hajj consists of a series of ritual acts, symbolic of the lives of Abraham (Ibrahim), his wife Hagar (Hajar), and their son Ishmael (Ismail). On Hajj, all male pilgrims, regardless of nationality or wealth, are required to dress in a garment consisting of two sheets of white unhemmed cloth. It is a pilgrimage of absolute equality between men and women, and between different races and classes. Malcolm X wrote about Hajj: “During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)-while praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of the blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the ‘white’ Muslims, I
Related Questions
- What is the rule in regard of the person performing Hajj on behalf of his mother, but at the Miqat he said Talbeyah for Hajj and forgot to mention his mother?
- What a person should do if he crossed over Miqat without putting on Ihram, intending Hajj or Umrah or any other purpose?
- Why do the men going on Hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah and the Kaah) have to wear white?
