From Muzdalifah to Aqabah

MECCA. The people who stand at the wuquf in Arafat, in the ihram they have put on, strip themselves of every class privilege and of all the distinguishing, differentiating, distance-creating qualities acquired in this world, based on culture, nation, ethnicity, profession, status and strata.

The equality that all people experience once when they are born is experienced once more when they die. Arafat, then, is an experience, in a festival atmosphere, of dying before dying. To be able to shed, before dying, all worldly gains, privileges and differences; to be able to live the awareness that all these statuses and differentiating possessions are entrusted to us; and to be able to put this forth every year with the participation of millions in such a magnificent display.... Moreover, most people do not do this by thinking; everyone feels this living representation in which they take part in all its reality. The prayer made at Arafat, Muzdalifah or Mina is believed to be very special. It is believed there that the devil truly exists and that the stones thrown while stoning him truly weaken him.

Group or caravan leaders and guides, in a manner that is generally too intellectual, speak of how the devil here is ultimately a "symbol", and so one should not think that a bigger stone will do the Devil greater harm. Yet for the pilgrims the explanation of the symbol means less. They are sufficiently aware that they are obliged to do what God asks of them. If God has commanded "you will stone the devil", this stoning surely has a counterpart, and what matters is, in total submission to Him, to carry out the rites of the hajj exactly as He commanded us, through the hand of Hz. Ibrahim or Hz. Muhammad (pbuh), in the manner He commanded.

This part of the hajj in fact has a dimension of experience in which Ibrahim's trial, in which he was amply exposed to the devil's whispers within "the measures of reason and logic", takes place and recurs again and again for everyone in his own world. Each and every person who takes part in the hajj has a unique experience with the devil. The devil does not approach everyone from the same place, from the same angles. He approaches even the wisest from utterly foolish points. He finds a way to make some leave a hajj experience, in which they should have learned humility, with their pride swollen. Some, who should have come out of this journey having lived and felt equality among all people, he can succeed in making come out as complete racists. Conversations that begin with "how filthy this nation is, how lazy that nation is, it is all about our nation, even all about our religiosity" can be among the most unfortunate outcomes of the hajj journey. For that reason it must not be forgotten that the hajj is a trial of submission. To submit to God as He deserves.

Some may raise here the matter of the objectives (maqasid) in God's commands. Of course some of God's commands are based on visible, understandable purposes. In such commands some flexibility may be assumed until the purposes are reached, but one must also not push this margin of flexibility to the point of making religion entirely subject to our own whims and desires.

After Arafat we set out on the great trial of the sacrifice. This road is tougher than supposed. On the road you are far more exposed to the devil's whispers. Should we not slaughter the sacrifice and give alms instead? Should this sacrifice be slaughtered at home rather than in Mina? Anyway we can no longer slaughter our own sacrifice with our own hands, we take care of it by proxy. So much so that we do not even know whether the sacrifice really reaches the poor. These are just a person's questions about the sacrifice; there can be, and will be, satanic whisperings in other areas as well to which everyone individually is exposed on this road. At Muzdalifah we prepare against all these whisperings and attempts at seduction. The harshness of the struggle makes itself felt here all the more in the fact that no one has any fixed place. The equality of everyone makes itself felt here even more than at Arafat. At Arafat, for better or worse, everyone has found a tent, a place in which to pass the time until evening and rest. At Muzdalifah there is not even that. No matter how much conditions improve with advancing technological life, this is one of the places where the permanence of the hardship dimension of the hajj is virtually ensured. Hardship is of course instructive and educational; it makes one feel the seriousness and authenticity of this whole hajj experience to the marrow of one's bones.

Having left Arafat, we will stay overnight at a place called Aqaba, to prepare for the stoning of the devil. The stones must indeed be collected from here. Everyone will collect his own stone himself. The size of the stones to be thrown is also fixed. Here, of course, it is not those stones but intention, decision, will and turning to God that are essential, and it is this that will overcome the devil and drive him out of our lives, together with all his factions. But no one can say that that stone has no function in this, given that God wanted us to do this.

After the wuquf at Muzdalifah, it is the turn of stoning the devils. This is of course an entirely separate matter. Why three devils? Why do we skip the first two on the first day and head for the big devil? What do these devils correspond to? Are everyone's big, middle and small devils different for each person? There is much to say on this, and it deserves more, but it is best to listen to it all and say "God knows best".

The real question is this: why is this ummah, which does a great, heroic enough deed merely by performing every year this magnificent act of worship, this representation laden with all these symbols and meanings, not affected by this training in normal life? Or is it in fact affected? But how?