About Hajj

Hajj

The Hajj is based on a pilgrimage that was ancient even in the time of Muhammad in the 7th century. According to tradition, elements of the Hajj trace back to the time of Abraham (Ibrahim), around 2000 BCE. Abraham's wife, Sarah, was unable to conceive, and upon her request, Abraham had taken their female servant, Hagar, as a second wife.

Hagar bore Abraham a son, Ishmael. It is believed that Abraham was ordered by God to leave Hagar and Ishmael alone in the desert. Looking for shelter, food and water, Hagar ran back and forth between the hills of Safa and Marwa seven times with her son. In desperation, she laid the baby on the sand and begged for God's assistance. The baby cried and hit the ground with his heel (some versions of the story say that the Jibrail scraped his foot or the tip of his wing along the ground), and the Zamzam Well miraculously sprang forth.

In the Days before the mission of Moḥammad, tribes from all around the Arabian Peninsula would converge annually on Mecca in pilgrimage. The respective faiths of the tribes was not important at that time, and Christian Arabs were as likely to have made the pilgrimage as the pagan Arabs. Muslim historians refer to the time before Muhammad as jahiliyyah, the "Days of Ignorance", during which the Kaaba contained hundreds of idols – totems of each of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, with idols of pagan gods such as Hubal, al-Lat, Al-‘Uzzá and Manat.

Muḥammad was known to regularly perform the 'Umrah, even before he began receiving revelation. Historically, Muslims would gather at various meeting points in other great cities, and then proceed en masse towards Mecca, in groups that could comprise tens of thousands of pilgrims. Two of the most famous meeting points were in Damascus and Cairo, where the Sultan would stand atop a platform on the famous Zuweila Gate to officially see pilgrims off.

In 630 CE, Muhammad led his followers from Medina to Mecca in what was the first Hajj to be performed by Muslims alone, and the only one Muhammad attended. He cleansed the Ka'aba by destroying all the pagan idols, and then reconsecrated the building to Allah. It was from this point that the Hajj became one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

Performing the Hajj was a hazardous journey for early pilgrims; Ibn Jubayr noted the skeletons of the faithful who had died of thirst en route. In the 17th century, a group of Egyptian pilgrims lost over 1,500 people and 900 camels. In 1924 around one-fifth of a group of Syrianpilgrims died and two years later, 12,000 are thought to have died during the journey.