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Same To You
Submitted by Fatima Govani

And proclaim among men the Pilgrimage: they will come to you on foot and on every lean camel, coming from every remote path [22:27].

Hajj is an amazing part of our beautiful religion. People always say London is multicultural, because of the different nationalities and religions that exist within this one city. But Makkah during Hajj is truly multicultural, the difference is, all the diverse societies, races and cultures of people have come together unified, under one God, one religion and with one purpose, to perform the pilgrimage of the house of God. Allah (swt) is showing us, that to Him it matters not what language we speak, what colour we are, how much wealth we accumulated or the number of offspring we have. To Him matters one thing, and that is our deeds, we must come to Him with a pure and clean heart. We took a plane to get to Makkah, but we also met those who came in coaches from their countries, or those who simply walked it and others that came on donkeys, with the intention to get to this holy place at the right time for Hajj. People from all over the world were there, some from places that we had never even heard of. We most certainly saw the personification of the above verse with our own eyes.

It will be a year since I went to Hajj, and part of me feels that it has been longer, much longer. This part of me is the one that lives in this busy world, with a busy life, with no time to sit, think and relax. My world is chaotic, thoughts everywhere, so much to do and such little time. But, then confusion strikes, is it really going to be a year? How? When? Where did the time go? Suddenly, the feeling changes, it now doesn’t feel longer than a year ago, rather as if it was yesterday I was in Makkah, I saw the house of Allah (swt), I stepped in the masjid of my beloved Prophet (saw) in Madinah. Really? Did I really do all that? It all comes back slowly, there is so much to write about, but I really want to reflect on one part of Hajj, that is the stoning of the three satans, the devils at the Jamarat. Dr Ali Shariati rightly calls it the battle front.

The Jamarat was a special place for me; we had collected our stones in Muzdalifa, ready to strike the satans. I remember fear, but the fear was not of the physical danger that existed at the Jamarat, rather, were we going to succeed in destroying the devil? The spirituality during Hajj is incredible, it’s so easy to forget ‘me’, it’s so easy to think of God all the time, and it’s so easy to avoid sins. Then comes the Jamarat – chaos strikes! We are not all moving in one direction like in the tawaf, but against each other. There is pushing and shoving, screaming and crying with old, young, weak and strong hujjaj. And in all this, you must not get angry, you must not hurt someone, you must enter, throw your stones, in the right place, in the right order, with the right intentions. Why do we stone the three devils? On one hand, we are throwing stones at shaitan, the mortal enemy of humanity, for his pride against God and all the evils he stands for and for his promise to misguide us from the right path. Remember his efforts against Prophet Ibraheem (a.s.) to stop him from sacrificing his son Prophet Ismail (a.s.)? On the other hand, we must also destroy the evil within us such as hatred, anger, jealousy and immorality. Once we are successful in this battle, we can celebrate our victory, and then eventually Hajj finishes and we have to go home.
I didn’t want to come back home, I wanted to stay in that peaceful place - Makkah. Why did Hajj have to finish? Why is God sending me back home? I was like child, pleading with God, “don’t send me back, I want to stay with you, please, please, don’t send me back”. I had tears in my eyes and I was begging Him. Is it because I’m scared of failing the greatest test of Hajj? Which is coming back home, living in this world and continuing the jihad against the devil, that was started in Hajj and must carry on for life. So Hajj did not really finish! It’s true this life is hectic and continuously evolving, and it’s easy to become so engrossed in ourselves that we forget the purpose of our creation, to worship Allah (swt), to do good deeds and to die with dignity to enter the real life – the hereafter. And so I remember something that Maulana Sadiq Hassan had said in his lecture to us during Hajj. He was telling us, that when we go to throw stones at the three satans, the devils, and when we stone them for the evil they represent, are they looking back at us and saying “Same to you!”?

Our beloved Prophet (saw) has said that the greatest jihad is jihad with the self. Now, one year on, I ask myself, am I winning or losing the jihad against the devils: ‘shaitan’ and the ‘self’?