When everyone is in rows, feet in a straight line, the excited cacophony stops for a still intermezzo before the solo of the imam directs it into another orbit. The prayer, a structure of even and odd numbers – And by the even ones, and by the odd (89:3), by the living organism then, and by God: the created symmetry is rendered complete. In no other religion is prayer given such a structured framework, for the individual and for the community.
On the Hajj everyone prays together. The Haram al-Sharif is the only mosque in the world where there is no division of the sexes. In the crush all are equal, women and men. Elsewhere they pray separately, in different rooms, and if there is an opportunity to pray together, in their own home perhaps, women stand behind the men as a rule, to be shielded from their looks.
Transformations
There were still several days until the Hajj proper, the exodus into the desert, the time of purification, sacrifice and stoning; several free days to spend as we chose during which I, like many others, absolved one tawaf a day, spent as many hours as possible in the Haram al-Sharif, and on occasion read a Saudi newspaper in English. Its reports were mostly about the Muslim world. Sometimes my neighbours were Iranian women, once an Algerian foreman, another time a Senegalese student who was studying in France, and once a local committee from Indonesia. The mosque was filled up already in the early morning, a little later every square metre was taken, mostly by groups, who would take over an area and spend the entire day there, punctuating the prayers with gulps of Zamzam water. The place felt like a refuge from the haste of the world, from one’s own restlessness. The stillness was a miracle; a calm sea not rippled by tides. On a good day, a single Saudi bus driver would create more noise than the gentle murmuring and padding of bare feet in the elliptical refuge.
The meditation of the other pilgrims was infectious. I too felt the need to lose myself, but didn’t know what to lose myself in. I couldn’t recite the Qur’an in Arabic; I would read a sura or some ayaat in translation and begin to ponder the content and meaning until I realised that I had become distracted again from the tranquillity. I tried to pray, but my prayers dried up after I had fulfilled all my promises and thought of my nearest and dearest. Praying for the peace of the world didn’t seem plausible, and to pray for myself – well, it was good to discover there wasn’t so much I desired. So I prayed with my eyes, looked down from the oval, open terrace of the Haram al-Sharif to the Kaaba below: the people rotated at a steady pace, as though on the turning wheel of God. I watched this perpetuum mobile of devotion for hours on end; the colours of the day changed their hue, I lost myself in the sight, and day turned to dusk.
In the desert – for all the air-conditioning in Mecca, you are still very much aware of the desert – the colours of the day are suddenly swept away, it seems, and shapes change. In the swift transition from day to night, the returning shadows are reconciled with the harshness of day. It is as though a palette of colour has opened and the eye is amazed by the manifold shades of white that suddenly appear in the ihram. As the mosque gleams and the skies darken when a sliver of moon teeters over a minaret tower, the new calendar day commences with a kind of magic. A bird of prey hovers between the new, burgeoning moon and the Kaaba (birds do not fly over it, and airplanes are not permitted to). When a dove nears the house of God, Ibn Jubayr wrote in the Middle Ages, one of the first authors to give an account of the Hajj, it swerves either to the right or to the left.
On the terrace, too, people circle the Kaaba, those who haven’t found space below, or those in search of a change. For a little extra room they accept the greater distance. We step among the minarets, unrushed, caressed occasionally by the feathery touch of the wind. My gaze is directed downwards and I repeat ‘Allahu Akhbar’ without cease – no trace of footsteps are left on the light marble, every step a transient step, only the name of God remains – unchanged, unchangeable. Other feet enter the field of vision and leave again, just as fleeting, steps whose meaning is linked to the Kaaba alone, proof of what is beyond oblivion and futility. And the prayer beads slip through the fingers, over and over, knowing no end.
The Occident in the Orient
The Grand Mosque is surrounded by palaces, hotels and blocks of flats, plain buildings for the most part that have firmly cemented the Western style in Mecca; both in their aesthetic appearance and their practicality, they are inferior to the old Saudi houses. Once upon a time the typically high buildings were constructed in such a way that they trapped the breeze in the upper floors, and the open, jutting-out Venetian windows filtered out the sun and allowed the air to circulate through the rooms. But air-conditioning put an end to this tradition. In Dubai, the only place this old-fashioned airing and cooling system can still be admired is at the museum where it is celebrated as an example of local innovation. Some of the buildings – in particular the Hilton Hotel across from the Abdul-Aziz Gate – borrowing from townhouses long since torn down, show a certain architectural creativity. Narrow balconies with wooden shutters, extending past the facade, were once constructed to afford the female inhabitants a cool view while retaining their discretion. Two wings of a building rise higher and higher, connected by a shopping centre several storeys high, where the wealthier pilgrims retire to imbibe the worldwide taste of Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts and Pizza Hut.
Designed like an American shopping mall, this centre offers everything a pilgrim could possibly need (food, drink, CDs of the complete Qur’an), and many more items he might crave in his life outside of the pilgrimage. At one of the side entrances, fully automated massage chairs offer five-minute respites from the rigours of prayer. There is no lack of modernity in the packed halls; McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Wimpy are as established in Mecca as Gucci and Cardin, Longines and Swatch. The bag that encloses my prayer mat is called a New Yorker, its emblem a silhouette of skyscrapers. Every item in every shop is imported – matches, fruit juices, even the prayer mats are from Belgium. The displays, counters and cash desks are laid out just as they would be in Paris or Milan, and the surly service could be straight from a boutique in Berlin’s Friedrichstraße.
It is the sheer number of pilgrims that lends the sterile shopping mall a bazaar-like atmosphere. They transform the carefully decorated, air-conditioned arcades into picnic spots; they spread their rugs in the corridors and eat their pizza, chicken or falafel in front of glass facades boasting credit-card signs. The boutiques behind them offer the finest fabrics and the most elegant of shoes; the Hajjis are set apart by their modest ihram and simple sandals, but add to the attraction nonetheless thanks to their curiosity. The ihram conceals the usual clues in appearance that divide the well-to-do from the window-shoppers – an unhappy state of affairs for some, who deal with it by sporting heavy gold watches. Some people claim that even the staunchest of Muslim believers like to ogle Western goods, hoping to expose their contempt for the Western world as hypocrisy or schizophrenia. When it comes to consumption, certainly all prejudices and antagonisms are laid aside (if Coca-Cola has a bad reputation, Pepsi steps in); asceticism is only practised on certain occasions. Yet while the superiority of Western wares may be widely accepted, this certainly doesn’t equate to an acceptance of a Western lifestyle and living by secular values.
Amir
Amir loved ice cream; especially Mövenpick’s fruity flavours, but he suspected a creature of excess to be lurking within, so he usually declined my invitation. Sometimes, though, he succumbed. We treated ourselves to two large scoops each, and sat down on the steps between the two wings of the Hilton Hotel to feast on our cones. There were pilgrims on each of the steps below us, a fountain spouted a delicate spray of water into the air beside us, and the view of the largest of all mosques was framed by palm trees. We licked our ice cream, and suddenly Amir started to narrate:
‘When Allah ta’ala created people the angels were concerned.
“Why have you created them?” they raged. “They’ll only get up to mischief and destroy earth.”
> “Ah, but I know something you haven’t the slightest idea about”, Allah ta’ala said. “Take a close look at Paradise and tell me who wouldn’t want to enter?”
The angels nodded in mute agreement.
“Yes,” they said after a while, “everyone will want to enter, that’s for sure.”
But then Allah ta’ala told them about all the mushaqqat (hardships) involved, all the expectations a person would have to fulfil – and then Allah ta’ala asked a second time whether everyone would strive to enter Paradise.
“Yes, they will,” the angels said pensively and were silent for a while before shouting out: “but hardly any of them will succeed!”’
Whenever Amir gave his all to recounting these parables, his eyes shone and he smiled, transformed. He experienced a profound joy in these beautiful words of wisdom. He was at peace, balanced. He couldn’t understand why his father got worked up if someone trod on his prayer mat. He wouldn’t have noticed, he wasn’t aware of such things. They were of no importance to him. He had prayed so much recently that even his boss, a dignified, tolerant man, a Kashmiri Pandit (a member of the Brahmin caste, traditionally accepting of Sufism), had requested that he pray for him on the Hajj.
Amir didn’t confide the reasons for his religious transformation to me, but they must have been powerful for him to alter his priorities to such an extent that he joined the Tabliqh Jamaat and moved to the desert of Gujurat for four months. Like all activists in this grassroots organisation, he had to divest himself of all worldly duties for this period and be able to fend for himself. He gave up his job and his flat. He slept in simple rooms in a village in Kutch near the mosque where he spent the remainder of his time. He hadn’t seen much of his surroundings. During his entire stay he had preached only twice. When he rose to speak for the first time to this community of fishermen, workmen and unskilled workers, he found himself at a loss for words.
‘I am not here,’ he said finally, ‘to teach you anything. I am not here to lecture. I have come to learn from you.’
The Tabliqh Jamaat – founded in 1926 in the Old City of Delhi by a rather inconspicuous and shy, yet determined man by the name of Maulana Ilias – is the largest Islamic mass movement of our times, an astonishing, unorganised emergence of millions of people who attempt to strengthen their belief by travelling to an unknown place, often in an unknown land. They have no other obligation there than to pray and enter into an exchange with the locals. The headquarters are still in Basti Nizamuddin in Delhi, now a cavernous edifice of several storeys in which an atmosphere of transience is tangible. Smaller or larger groups of men, shouldering bundles, move in or out, lay down their possessions and remain there for several hours or days before continuing on their way. Venerable Maulanas give lectures, but beyond that there are no apparent organised structures. The Tabliqh Jamaat is as successful as it is because it has taken up the principle of the Hajj and utilised it in another context. Like the Hajj, it invites Muslims to take time out, albeit at different dates, also defining it differently – yet the results are similar: a deepening of faith.
One night, Amir continued, he had seen a djinn, a ghost. There had been a plastic bag nearby blown around by the draught. He wanted to dispose of it as it was disturbing his prayer. When he reached for it, he was dealt a powerful blow and fell backwards. The next day he developed a high fever. He was sick for days until an elderly mufti recommended a healing sura from the holy Qur’an.
‘You won’t believe how hard I prayed,’ said Amir. ‘During that time tears came to me easily because I had to reflect on my responsibilities, and my failings – why had I not met the right woman – about my blunders, about all the negative points I had collected. Islam is a simple faith; it is mostly simple, but can seem very difficult when you start to dwell on all you can do wrong, all the sins you may commit. God is strict; there is no room for slip-ups. It can be read in the Qur’an, over and over again: if you do not do this, if you do not follow that, then I will punish you.’
The azaan had not yet called us, but Amir was insistent we should get to the maghrib prayer ahead of time, for the time directly preceding maghrib is ideal for personal prayer. The angels change shifts at that time, and it is good if they can tell God about our prayers directly. So we stood up, threw our napkins into the waste bin and made our way through the other consumers on the steps. The taste of strawberries stayed in my mouth for a while as I complained of my indulgence to the angels.
Ramadan
A person ought to practise modesty and humility from time to time, once a year at least. He ought to be aware of the blessings he enjoys in life and experience longing, the suffering of others, and open his heart by barring the way to the stomach. About half a year into my preparations for the Hajj the phone rang late one night, and Burhan explained in a voice laden with gravitas that the new moon had been sighted: my fasting could begin. I went through to the kitchen and prepared my early breakfast, the last meal before the fasting of the day, so that I wouldn’t lose any time in the morning. I set the alarm clock for 4.30 a.m. and slept badly – my subconscious anxious that I wouldn’t wake up in time. Before it rang I turned the alarm clock off and stumbled out of bed. It was the quietest hour in Mumbai – the monster was catching its breath, gathering its strength. The Indian Ocean was a black void behind a fading sea of light. I tried to eat as much as I could – a difficult task at this time of day. My appetite was dwindling even though a day without meals stretched ahead.
After fajr I propped myself against the window and for the first time in many years, observed how the sunrise announced itself, how the emptiness of the ocean gave way to a blurring ink, how the heavens relinquished the uniform black at its edges; then that first brief moment of twilight came in which a black thread and a white one could be told apart. From this point on not a mouthful was to be swallowed, not even one’s own saliva.
Until sunset food and sex were forbidden, which I could subject myself to, but I was concerned about not drinking all day. Since I had a badly damaged kidney, I asked Burhan if I might take a single glass of water at noon.
‘In Islam,’ Burhan said, ‘you aren’t required to do anything that could be detrimental to your health. If an Islamic doctor confirms that you have to drink some water in the day, then no-one can reproach you for it. You just have to pay fidya for not fasting properly.’
The compensation I was to pay consisted of feeding a young, homeless man for the duration of Ramadan.
During the fasting period our teaching was put on hold and the ‘ulama devoted themselves to prayer and the recitation of the Qur’an. They enjoyed the privilege of not having to work. Working Muslims take holidays or work half-days. For those with physically demanding jobs, Ramadan is torturous.
In the late afternoon we gathered at the mosque. Mats were laid down in the inner courtyard and the food everyone had brought placed in the middle. We sat next to each other in rows and waited quietly for iftar, the breaking of the fast immediately after sunset. In front of us was a composition of fruits and nuts, and a lentil broth called khichdi. The papaya was bright orange, the watermelon a succulent red – the colours gleamed as though freshly created, and the smell rising from the mats promised a bewitchingly fresh start at the end of a long, hot day. We sat motionless, our eyes lowered, lost in thought, or not thinking at all.
That first day the fasting was easy, the novelty of the experience conquered hunger. But in the days that followed I grew increasingly tired as the afternoon wore on: I couldn’t concentrate, was irritable, lacking vitality. There were periods when my mind was exceptionally lucid, and other times when the weariness could be confronted only by sleep.
The muezzin’s call was heard and we reached for a date and a glass of water. It is obligatory to break the fast immediately, a superfluous command one would presume, but in that moment there was an urge within me to hold out a little longer for the food, to draw out the delightful anticipation of that first juicy morsel, and I am sure the
re are people who enter a damaging ecstasy of fasting. We reached for papaya or pieces of melon from the mat, and if they were too big we broke them in two and shared them with our neighbour. The silence continued as we ate. The men who gathered there were poor for the most part. Those who had nothing to eat themselves sat at one of the mats and joined us. Apart from the Hajj itself I have experienced nothing that fuels such a sense of community.
For about 10 minutes everyone concentrated on their eating, then got up with a certain haste because the hour of the maghrib prayer had struck; we piled into the ablution areas and rushed into the mosque, still dripping. I always found it particularly hard to free my thoughts from the liberating scent of the papaya – I devoted my prayer to the small miracles of creation.
During Ramadan the night prayer is considerably longer, as in the course of four weeks the Qur’an is to be recited in its entirety (salat al-tarawih). And since the holy book cannot be read from for reference during prayer, the hafiz among my ‘ulama brothers were very busy. Most of them had already learned the Qur’an off by heart in their very early years, and some of them, in particular Sajjid and Khalid recited in well-practised and artistic tones. They were invited to recite the tarawih in the wealthy homes of the town – for the women, who generally prefer to pray at home, or in some case have to, as not all mosques have a separate room for women. For all those who, like me, don’t have a strong grasp of Arabic, tarawih is either a meditative exercise, or at times the laborious fulfillment of a duty when time could be more fruitfully spent reading the Qur’an and dwelling upon it.
I went to bed in the evenings with a groaning stomach, and what I had feared happened at the beginning of the second week: I slept in. The day that had begun in slumber ended in hunger cramps.
Mumbai to Mecca Page 4