Hajjnotes (4)

On the remembrance of God  

“Again the cry ‘Labbayk, Allahumma labbayk!’ was raised – a joyful cry of self-surrender and enthusiasm that swept from the tense, white-garbed pilgrims on board over the water toward the land of their supreme hopes. Their hopes and mine: for to me the sight of the coast of Arabia was the climax of years of search.” (Road to Mecca, Muhammad Asad)

  

  

(i) Whilst I was preparing for hajj, my mum insisted that I read [a particular book] (1), and I had put it off for some time due to the amount of other reading I had to do, and for some other reasons, until one day, as I was putting something back onto a bookshelf, my eye caught the gold letters on the dark chocolate spine of the English translation of that very book. I thought to myself: I will flick through it quickly as it’s in English, so that when she next asks me, I can truthfully answer that, yes, in fact I had read it. I half-curled up on the sofa, in the manner of someone not fully expecting to be there for long, but who has been caught out by enough I-Don’t-Really-Want-To-Read-This-Properly books, enough times in her life, to instinctively know that all books - perhaps only with the exception of those in airports and train stations, lest one remain stranded there forever - inherently deserve the reverence of at least a semi-comfortable position. One can never really be sure what will happen once a book is opened, and therein lies the magic. I started to read the first few pages of verses from the Qur’an, and then ahadith, about hajj. It was, of course, similar to what I had read and heard many times, so my gaze slipped easily over the pages, bypassing my heedless heart. Until I came upon the hadith,

عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ سَعْدٍ ، قَالَ : قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ : " مَا مِنْ مُسْلِمٍ يُلَبِّي إِلَّا لَبَّى مَنْ عَنْ يَمِينِهِ ، أَوْ عَنْ شِمَالِهِ مِنْ حَجَرٍ أَوْ شَجَرٍ أَوْ مَدَرٍ ، حَتَّى تَنْقَطِعَ الْأَرْضُ مِنْ هَاهُنَا وَهَاهُنَا "  (2) And for some reason, only then, suddenly, I was struck by the enormity of it all, more even than when I had read about the reward of al-hajj al-mabrur, more even than when I had read of those freed from the Fire on yawm Arafah, or how hard the day was on Shaytan. I kept thinking about it for a long time – how is this? When I say ‘Labbayk, Allahumma labbayk’, even the stones and trees will say that with me!? I will go there, to that land, and I, and millions of others, will tell God that we are here, and we will glorify Him, and all around us will be the very earth, the stones, and trees of the sacred land, repeating what we say? And then I went, to that land, and I told God that I was here, and I glorified Him, and all around me, the very earth, the stones, and trees repeated what I said.  

(ii) The talbiyah is not something that is said merely with the mouth, but rather, with every pore on every part of the human body, indeed with the soul itself. It is the believer responding to the call of her Creator. She is here; she knows that He is her Lord, that He is One; she will praise Him and glorify Him. It is the embodiment in words of a whole physical, mental, emotional, social, and above all, spiritual, experience, and in such comprehensive yet succinct words, that they could only be from God. How merciful is our Lord, that He even taught us how to remember Him, how to call Him, how to glorify Him, in the words that He loves, and how weak and utterly dependent we are, because even in that we depend upon Him. In English, we often make du’a to go to hajj, to perform the hajj, but in many other languages, the believers say, “Lord, invite me to Your House”, and only now I understand this, and believe that it is more concordant with the sentiment of the talbiyah. None will go there who is not invited, And when one is invited, it behoves one to respond, to be mindful of the favour, and to say with every step of the journey to Him:  لَبَّيْكَ اللَّهُمَّ لَبَّيْكَ، لَبَّيْكَ لاَ شَرِيْكَ لَكَ لَبَّيْكَ، إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ وَالنِّعْمَةَ لَكَ وَالْمُلْكَ لاَشَرِيْكَ لَكَ

(iii) The talbiyah is a very particular kind of dhikr. I remember reading about the grammar of it before I went to hajj, (3) but it appeared as if the words were somehow dry and empty, and I never really understood, felt, tasted, the words, until they resonated within me when I first said them there, and it were as if I never knew the words despite knowing the words. This knowing-and-not-knowing, or this mostly-not-knowing, and then a-sudden-flash-of-knowing, just enough so that you can recognise what it is to know and to not know, was perhaps one of the greatest parts of the hajj for me, because so much of my life consisted of, still consists of, knowing – or indeed, of the delusion of knowing – but not really knowing. Hajj was arriving at the mirage, to learn that what I knew I did not in fact know. This has reminded me of how one of the scholars described the similitude of the people who study and debate about hadith for a long time, its isnad, its men, their reliability, but then on determining its authenticity, leave without benefitting from the hadith itself. They are like those who sit beneath the mango tree, and discuss all its details, the varieties of mangoes, their season and harvest, and yet at the final moment, they get up and walk away, without ever tasting the mango. Their knowing did not benefit them ultimately, and they did not truly know. The person who tasted the mango, even if he were the illiterate child of the village who merely plucked it off the tree, knew more, gained more, and is altogether more superior than the one who describes it in the best language, and would be considered an expert on it, but has neither tasted it, nor can he communicate that to another.

And then I say: there are people who think mangoes are bought in the fruit aisles of Asda, (4) large, hard, and deep-red coloured, from South America; and people who think mangoes are bought at the local Asian shop, small, soft, mass-produced and artificially ripened, squashed into lurid coloured, cheap, cardboard boxes stacked in leaning piles. But what do they know, and what did I know? For of course, a real mango is not a merely a fruit, or words; it is an experience. It is the sunlight of a lazy summer afternoon streaming through the kitchen window; the slightly warm, comfortingly firm, reassuring, weight in her hand, perfectly sized, uniformly smooth; the rhythm of the knife that slices fluidly, never jarring even slightly in hesitation, its ruthless competence a perfect mercy in itself; and then, as she bites into a slice – oh – the first delight of that sweet orange flesh; the trickle of thick, sticky syrup caught just in time and hastily wiped with a finger; the slow, deep, intake of her breath whilst time slows and the gleeful shouts of the children playing outside become strangely distant; the momentary, involuntary closure of her eyes from pure joy while the taste percolates into the very depths of her body; and then finally, opening her eyes to catch the smiling glance of someone who understands exactly what it feels like, and the happiness dances in their eyes.  

Of course, real mangoes are tasted in India, in the homeland. But home is not a land, and the land is not home, and the homeland is carried in hearts. Real mangoes are also tasted in small terraced, houses nestled within clouded hills, among those dark Satanic mills, until, almost suddenly, it becomes a green and pleasant land. Every year, I ask my mum why she bothers to pay a ridiculous amount of money and reserves a few boxes of hand-picked organic mangoes from the orchards of family friends in a village in Surat. “They’re only mangoes”, I say, defiantly, “You can buy mangoes anywhere.” And she replies, “They are only mangoes, but between this and that is the difference of the heavens and earth.” This, so elevated, sublime, divine: illuminating all that is beneath it; this, tasted, savoured, enjoyed, and in which we take delight. This, in the Sacred Homeland, and this, in our hearts. This is the Remembrance of God.   

(iv) I think that perhaps a person who has not recited the takbeerat walking through the pedestrian tunnels on the way to the jamaraat, has missed out on something great in life. I heard about it beforehand, but truly, there is nothing equal to it. (5) I imagine it to be the only thing that would be even remotely comparable to Fath Makkah in our time, and I am grateful to God that I experienced it. I have always wondered what it would have been like to have been standing at the top of the mountain with Abu Sufyan and al Abbas radi Allahu anhuma, and watching the battalions of tribes pass. I am not quite sure why I never imagined what it would have been like to be in a group myself – in my mind, I was always watching. But here I was, part of it. I looked at the flags of the different countries, imagined the journeys of these people, thought about the preceding days and what we had undertaken, and as we all said together joyously, الله أكبر ، الله أكبر ، لا إله إلا الله ، والله أكبر ، الله أكبر ، ولله الحمد, our words and hearts became inexplicably intertwined – for we were grateful to God, and proclaimed His greatness for what He guided us to. (6)

Although, of course, I was familiar with the takbeerat, I never had any real emotional attachment to the words, certainly I can never remember ever feeling so completely that God is indeed the greatest, and there is none to be worshipped except Him, and for Him is all praise and gratitude. I have never spent Eid in a Muslim country, and I never experienced the joy of the believers expressed so visibly, so verbally, until it was so resoundingly clear that one could not remain unaware of it, even had they wished it. This was completely new to me, and I hope that it shall remain etched in my memory forever – the traces of the memory fill me with an excited happiness even whilst I write this, and, as I pause to look up out of the window, the grey slate roofs and grey sky look – if it is indeed possible – just slightly more yellow, sunnier, than they did a few minutes ago.

“My brethren on the right and my brethren on the left, all of them unknown to me but none a stranger: in the tumultuous joy of our chase, we are one body in pursuit of one goal… Someone in the surging host abandons his tribal cry for a cry of faith: ‘We are the brethren of him who gives himself up to God!’ – and another joins in: ‘Allahu akbar!’ – ‘God is the Greatest! – God alone is Great!’

… Amidst the din of the thousands of rushing camels’ feet and the flapping of a hundred banners, their cry goes up into a roar of triumph: ‘Allahu akbar!’  It flows in mighty waves over the heads of the thousands of galloping men, over the wide plan, to all the ends of the earth: ‘Allahu akbar!’”  (Road to Mecca, Muhammad Asad)

(v) There are two instances I remember of walking to the jamaraat which highlighted to me that it is important to do good, and also sometimes to do good publicly; to remember God, and let your remembering Him remind others of Him. (7) 

I was walking near three young men, perhaps friends or relatives, who had obviously revised the takbeerat in several different siyagh, and would work their way through a few different versions, and each time they said لَا إلَهَ إلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ صَدَقَ وَعْدَهُ وَنَصَرَ عَبْدَهُ وَهَزَمَ الْأَحْزَابَ وَحْدَهُ their voices would rise and rise, and swell above the crowd and they would look at each other, grinning. I had also memorised a few different ones, but was lazy, and it was easy to chant with the crowd. When I heard them, I consciously made an effort to try the other forms of takbeerat I had learnt, and that was very helpful for me. Most of us are either too scared or too lazy to do anything different that will make us stand out, and we console ourselves that we are doing good anyway, but those three men will have the reward not only of people following them, but of ensuring that commendable practices do not die out, and people make du’a for them still, without their even knowing it.

Another time when walking to the jamarat, amongst the hordes of people, there was a particularly strident voice that rose above the others, continuously reciting the takbeerat loudly. Usually, there are peaks and troughs, someone will lead the call for a few minutes, then there will be a lull, then someone else will pick up the baton, and our voices will rest in between, and then at the first ‘La ilaha illa-allah’ of the next person, everyone will join in until the sound swells to fill the tunnel, and how sweet is the sheer joy of that call, hopeful and triumphant.  For a long time, there was just one voice reciting repeatedly without a break, and for that reason, and because of something of the quality of it, I thought it must a recording that somebody was playing. After a while, as the crowd continued forwards and people shifted, I found myself able to see where the voice was coming from, to my right. It was not a recording. It was one man, a single man, with a megaphone, all that time. I really could not understand how he had the energy or the voice to have continued with that all this time. I thought, he must be riding the wave of some adrenaline-laced iman, because surely that is not possible for a human being? Then I realised that he must be getting the reward of all the people who followed his lead and recited the takbeerat, all those who had tired and rested, and then joined him, all those who stopped to talk and then joined him; his was the road we all rejoined. Was that not worth his effort? There is a difference between the people and this man: the people’s voices hoarsen in vain, and they will regret it; this man’s voice hoarsens in the remembrance of God, and he shall not regret it.

(vi) In Makkah, I am always struck by how close the mountains are. It may appear as if you are in a city, and then all of a sudden you look up, or catch a glimpse between two tall buildings, and there are the mountains. When I say mountains, it makes me smile a little, because I am always thinking of the green-brown rolling hills of –shire, and how they fill me with joyful awe. Sometimes, particularly in spring, before the sun is setting, on my route home from work through several small villages nestled in the hills, I slow down so I can look around better, and recite the beginning verses of surat al-Ra'd, and feel almost physically breathless at God’s handiwork. But then there is Makkah, and its mountains – real mountains – and if my words fail me, then I can utter something incoherent about great, enormous expanses of rock, constant, looming, immovable. I knew that they would never embrace me like the green hills and their brown earth, softly yielding; I knew that their craggy, harsh lines in the horizon would  never compare with the gentle undulations I was familiar with; I knew that they would always shock me when I saw them suddenly, compelling me into awe, not coaxing me tenderly like my hills did. As I walked back from the jamaraat, I would look at the mountains, and wonder at what they had witnessed – they, who had been there even when Ibrahim walked this land. Sometimes, I wanted just to stop and to stare at the mountains, my mind strangely blank, but there were too many people, and never the time, and I was pushed along.

There were two sets of verses I was reminded of: the first is from al-Isra [17:44]:  تُسَبِّحُ لَهُ السَّمَاوَاتُ السَّبْعُ وَالْأَرْضُ وَمَن فِيهِنَّ ۚ وَإِن مِّن شَيْءٍ إِلَّا يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ وَلَٰكِن لَّا تَفْقَهُونَ تَسْبِيحَهُمْ ۗ إِنَّهُ كَانَ حَلِيمًا غَفُورًا -, and to know this was truly humbling – to know that as we remembered God then, those who submitted, together, the mountains around us did too, and they witnessed this every year; and to know that we had been permitted, allowed the opportunity to voluntarily do something so great that all the creation of God is constantly engaged in it!

The second set of verses were from Taha [20:105-7] –

  وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْجِبَالِ فَقُلْ يَنسِفُهَا رَبِّي نَسْفًا -  فَيَذَرُهَا قَاعًا صَفْصَفًا - لَّا تَرَىٰ فِيهَا عِوَجًا وَلَا أَمْتًا - When you look at a mountain, an actual mountain, and then think of this, and all the other ayat that describe mountains on the Day of Judgement (8), it is truly incomprehensible – it reminds you that what is to come is beyond your wildest nightmare; it is unfathomable to the human mind, and only Revelation can tell you of it. We read the description of the Day of Judgement and it does not affect us. One of the reasons we do not relate to the Qur’an, I feel, is because of how removed from nature we are – you cannot even imagine what a mountain really is, you do not know the stars, you have never looked at the sun and moon. Makkah’s mountains remind you of the Day of Judgement – if you did not understand, then certainly its people did when it was recited unto them, and they submitted. And those that did not will have their actions go to waste. So let the mountain, and everything else, remind you of Him, and submit willingly before you are compelled to submit.

The Covenant of Remembering God (p 139)

فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوا لِي وَلَا تَكْفُرُونِ - 2:152

It is not enough to have the ka’bah, and the Prophet s. as your Messenger; rather, what matters is what you do. There is a covenant between the people and God. The Banu Israel had a covenant: يَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ اذْكُرُوا نِعْمَتِيَ الَّتِي أَنْعَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَأَوْفُوا بِعَهْدِي أُوفِ بِعَهْدِكُمْ وَإِيَّايَ فَارْهَبُونِ - 2:40. They failed their covenant. Now this is the covenant between God and the Muslims - فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ – He will help you, support you, make you successful, as long as you remember Him. And what is remembrance? It is the prayer. وَذَكَرَ اسْمَ رَبِّهِ فَصَلَّىٰ - 87:15 . Then think, do we deserve help from God? Have we upheld our part of the covenant?

In the world, there are many attractions and distractions – relationships, property, wealth, responsibilities, then how is it possible to remember God? This we must learn from Ibrahim. He had a family, responsibilities etc. and yet despite all this, he managed to be an imam and the khalil of God.

There is a Persian saying, ‘Leave everyone, but have some familiarity with them.’ i.e. leave everyone, come to your Lord, then turn to the people according to God’s command. The real thing which connects people is God’s command. You obey your parents, and care for family and others because God commands you to do that. Before you remember your father, remember your Lord. Problems arise because you want a direct relationship and connection, so then you become upset if it doesn’t live up to your expectation. But if you go to God first, you realise that this is God’s command so it is not important how other people respond as long as you have behaved correctly.

(The more I think about this now, it seems everything comes back to Ibrahim ‘alayh il-‘salam. This whole ritual of remembrance (9) – the hajj – is about Ibrahim; it is learning from Ibrahim how to remember God, and worship Him in a way that befits Him; it is learning from Ibrahim the most perfect form of remembrance: of the tongue, of the limbs, of the heart and mind, as an individual and communally with the believers. It is the natural culmination of all worship and submission.) 

Toenotes

(1)  S, you know the book?  :) Actually, bar the small amount of weirdness, even some of the stories were good and I found them beneficial. - also it reminded me of the lovely story of Hisham and Ali Zayn ul Abideen rahimahullah and Farazdaq which I hadn't heard for a long time. 

(2) رواه الترمذي ( 828 ) وابن خزيمة والبيهقي بسند صحيح .

(3) لَبَّيْكَ – What does it mean?

(4) I always remember how shocked I was when I first found out that lots of people at school had never tasted a mango in their lives; I absolutely couldn’t believe it. I think that was when I really understood that I wasn’t white. (Ok, that, and when we were taught how to wash dishes in school in Home Ec [aged 11-12yrs!! – they clearly knew nothing about the rampant child labour going on in Asian households], and the absolute horror when I realised that white people ‘wash’ their dishes by putting them in a dirty plastic bowl with washing up liquid and then take them out still soapy and stack them to dry [which is essentially the crockery-cutlery equivalent of not doing istinjaa’ or even worse, washing yourself with used toilet water])

(5) I remembered a funny story when we were doing the takbeerat, with all the flags and crowds of people, as I was thinking of how I was going to describe this to non-Muslims back home. Someone I know had worked for [important international agency] and spent some time in Iran many years ago. He spoke about it with great fondness, and said despite how apparently dangerous it seemed to people outside, with being advised not to travel there and foreigners leaving, he had been treated with great hospitality and always felt welcomed and safe. The one exception to this was once when he was in a public square, and he suddenly found himself in a middle of a massive protest where everyone was shouting ‘Allahu akbar!’, and ‘Death to –!, Death to -!’ 'Allahu akbar!', until he suddenly felt slightly out of place as a white, British man, and was desperately hoping everyone was too angry to notice him, or the British passport in his pocket! I remember laughing with him at the time, and wondered how it could be that ‘Allahu akbar’ can be viewed so differently by different people, and means so many different and contradictory things. I feel hajj allowed me the opportunity to reclaim the takbeer from what it had become, to what it really is.

Also, one nice thing which he said which I sometimes think about, was that when he first went to Iran, people on the street would stop to stare at him, or seem to try to talk to him, and he would walk quickly past them, averting his gaze, to avoid interacting with them. After some time, his host, himself an important high-flying professional person, noticing this, asked him why he did that, and he replied that he had travelled extensively and worked in several ‘developing’ countries, and wanted to avoid interacting with beggars as it always led to further problems. His host found this very interesting, and asked him to just try interacting with someone on the street the next time they wanted to speak to him. He did this reluctantly, and to his surprise, they did not want to beg; in fact they wanted nothing from him; rather they wanted to give to him. They wanted to welcome him, an obvious foreigner, to their country, and thank him for the work he was doing. They wanted him to come into the dingy back rooms of their shops, or to invite him back to their simple homes, and they wanted to share cups of sweet tea and snacks with him. He recalled this story with great humility, and even though I disagreed with many of his views, I remembered this. The poor trader from Tehran could do with his sincerity what we could not do with all the education and money in the world: he could change the heart of a man.

(6) At the end of Road to Makkah, there is a lovely description of the Bedouins returning from Arafah to Makkah, “with the tribal banners on their high poles beating like drums in the wind, and their tribal war cries tearing through the air” – read that.

(7) I’m always very conflicted about this. I think riyaa is too great a risk to mess around with usually (unless you’re really important or something), especially when you don’t have many good deeds anyway, but losing the opportunity to exponentially multiply your rewards if other people see you do good and are reminded is also not an easy sacrifice to make. One nice thing about communal acts of worship is that even sit-on-the-fencers could potentially safely stray into Camp 2 without risking too much? 

 (8) I thought to reference a couple, but there are so many ayat specifically about this, it is really quite sobering - it makes me ashamed that I never thought about it properly before.

·         Al-Kahf وَيَوْمَ نُسَيِّرُ الْجِبَالَ وَتَرَى الْأَرْضَ بَارِزَةً وَحَشَرْنَاهُمْ فَلَمْ نُغَادِرْ مِنْهُمْ أَحَدًا - 18:47
·         Al Naml وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ ۚ صُنْعَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ ۚ إِنَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَفْعَلُونَ - 27:88
·         Al Tur وَتَسِيرُ الْجِبَالُ سَيْرًا - 52:10
·         Al Waqi’ah وَبُسَّتِ الْجِبَالُ بَسًّا - 56:5فَكَانَتْ هَبَاءً مُّنبَثًّا - 56:6
·         Al Haqqah وَحُمِلَتِ الْأَرْضُ وَالْجِبَالُ فَدُكَّتَا دَكَّةً وَاحِدَةً - 69:14
·         Al Ma’arij وَتَكُونُ الْجِبَالُ كَالْعِهْنِ - 70:9
·         Al Muzzammil يَوْمَ تَرْجُفُ الْأَرْضُ وَالْجِبَالُ وَكَانَتِ الْجِبَالُ كَثِيبًا مَّهِيلًا - 73:14
·         Al Mursalat وَإِذَا الْجِبَالُ نُسِفَتْ - 77:10
·         Al Naba وَسُيِّرَتِ الْجِبَالُ فَكَانَتْ سَرَابًا – 78:20
·         Al Takwir وَإِذَا الْجِبَالُ سُيِّرَتْ –81:3
·         Al Qari’ah وَتَكُونُ الْجِبَالُ كَالْعِهْنِ الْمَنفُوشِ - 101:5

(9) This just fortuitously came up in my podcasts yesterday - I always give him a hug in my mind when I hear him explain things in his really gentle way that just reminds you of God and makes you love him lots, jazahullahu kheyra.