Oh guests of the Most Merciful! Oh fortunate ones! Oh travelers to the Haram! Congratulations on being invited by the Lord of the worlds! Be glad that He has invited you to His House! Not only that, but He has given you the provisions for travel and lodging. And not only that, but He has also filled your hearts with such love of Him and His House that today you leave your homes, your cities, your countries and embark on this journey solely for the pleasure of your Lord. Had this desire not been there then you would have never planned to undertake this journey.
How many a millionaire are there who travel
throughout Switzerland, England, America, and so on - who spend their children's
vacations over there - but never receive this invitation: Come, visit Our House!
Live in Our city! Act according to the Sunnats of Our beloved servants! Run
between the hills of Safa and Marwa just as a wife of a prophet and a mother of
a prophet did! We love this running of yours. Hurl rocks against Satan just as
Our Prophet Ibrahim (alayhi salam) did! Perform sacrifice just as a loyal
servant of Ours laid his son and ran the knife over his throat because of Our
Command! But we had prohibited the knife from even scratching the throat. Our
servant did as he was told and the knife did as it was commanded (i.e. it did
not cut); both acted under our command. Those who claim to love Us - We test
them to see whether their claim is true.
Come here as a devotee:
This is Our city and Our House. Come here as a
devotee; if you are not a devotee, then take on the appearance of a devotee! Be
content in whatever condition We keep you in. Here there are crowds of devotees.
You will be pushed and shoved; your hair will fill with dirt and dust, and your
feet will tire from walking. Be it pushing or shoving, dirt and dust, or
difficulties in Our alleys - Our devotees are proud of such difficulties and
consider them as the treasures of their lives.
Whoever thinks of these hardships and pains as
calamities should not come. He should stay at his home. But those who come as
devotees - We will wipe out their sins and return them to their homes as if they
were just born today. This is a bathing of bodies and souls rotten and spoiled
due to sins - washing these sins will require rubbing. Without rubbing how is
cleanliness obtained?
Oh travelers to the Haram! Hajj is no small
blessing. This is a great act of worship - very different from all the other
forms of worship. All sorts of outward and inward worships are combined in this.
Money is spent in the path of Allah and great effort is exerted; it is a
purification of the soul of the highest degree; it contains spiritual exercises;
there is patience and gratitude, love and ma'rifah. It is a witnessing of the favors of
the Almighty and of the acceptance of duas. There is both outward and inward
closeness. In a hadith, Rasoolullah addressed those performing Hajj
and Umrah - and today you are his addressees:
Sayyidna Abu Hurairah
Radi-Allahu anhu narrates that Rasoolullah said: (translation) The
travelers of Hajj and Umrah are Allah's special guests; if they supplicate to
Allah, He accepts their supplications and if they seek forgiveness, He forgives
them. (Hisn-e-Hasin, Ibn Majah and Nasai)
Oh travelers to the Haram! Years of spiritual
exercise and training may not yield the benefits that can be obtained from this,
if only we understand them and have a will to seek them. Oh guests of Allah! I
will not discuss with you the merits of Hajj, because if you did not know its
merits than you would have never made this blessed intention (to go to Hajj).
Neither will I mention its rites and rulings, because you can get all of this
from books and training sessions for Hajj. Rather I want to point out something
else.
You are going to the great Court of the King of
kings. When a person is a guest of a king then he learns the manners of the
court long before he goes there. Then when he reaches there, he monitors every
deed of his making sure that it does not result in disrespect.
Oh travelers to the Haram! I wish to share with
you an extremely beneficial recipe- one that you will neither find in books nor
in lectures. I know that pilgrims are subject to numerous difficulties and
hardships. In this journey, there are many trying moments, no, rather many
trying hours and days. Sometimes there is the immigration obstacle. There are
the difficulties in finding lodging and in getting to the Haram. There are the
hardships encountered in Tawaf and Sa'ee. But, my brothers! To achieve any big
goal, you must undertake hardships. Those who are mentally prepared for this are
the successful ones.
The recipe that I am presenting is called
"tafweed", which means entrusting your matters, i.e. entrusting your intentions
and desires to Allah. The opposite of this is "tajweez" which means relying on
your own plans and actions.
Tajweez
is the root of all of our worries in our normal course of affairs and
especially during the journey to Hajj. On the other hand, tafweed results in complete contentment. The
person who in his difficulties leaves matters into the hands of Allah finds that
Allah shows him ways out of his difficulties. When you reach the court of the
King, then entrust your matters to the King. If he makes you sleep on the floor,
then sleep happily on the floor. And if he makes you sit on the throne then sit
on the throne remembering that you are in the court of the King. He has invited
you here to honor you.
Never lose sight of the true
Beloved for even a blink of the eye
Lest the king glance at you
with mercy and you be unaware.
Many people return from Hajj and tell stories
about the unmannerly behavior of the people there and magnify the difficulties
they encountered there. One time I received a letter from an old man who said
that: while you give people good tidings of Jannah, I went to Hajj but found no
trace of the fear of God in the people therein. Then the man mentioned his
difficulties in such words and talked about other pilgrims and the Saudi people
in such a way that I felt sorrow over the way he mentioned this.
We are not going there to have a picnic. When
millions of people gather in a city of three or four hundred thousand, then due
to the crowd there will be pushing and shoving. The paths will be narrow and
difficult. So undertake this journey as an ardent devotee. Whoever is ardent in
the love of someone finds enjoyment in the difficulties he encounters on the way
and contentment in these worries.
-Adapted from an albalagh article. [Originally published in Urdu in Daily Ummat Karachi on 12 December 2004] .
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