There’s a picture I took which stands out in my mind. It was on my Hajj pilgrimage, a few weeks before the five days of Hajj, and it was taken on the rooftop level of Masjid al-Haram (the mosque containing the Kabah in Makkah). We ended up going to that section most of the time because the lower floors were always too full. The shot is taken from inside the building, just before going out onto the open rooftop. It’s about an hour before sunset – we had to go very early to make it inside for that prayer – and it captures the declining sun behind a building on a hill in the distance.
Sunlight gleams off the tiled white floor, as fellow pilgrims walk past the doorway. The shot perfectly captures the contrast of darkness and light – perhaps symbolic of my own journey from heedlessness to spiritual awareness, which began a decade before that point.
I love the mood of that shot. How it captures transition – possibility – which awaits as I was about to step through that doorway, to take my place amongst the hundreds of thousands gathered in the mosque for the approaching sunset prayer.
I don’t often think about my Hajj anymore. The emotions have long since been buried under the dust of life…almost 13 years of ups and downs, and monumental shifts as life has progressed.
I was 30 years old at the time, with one child (she was two years old), and in a dead-end job. (But still finding fulfilment in my personal writing, which is still the case today.)
I’m now 43 years old, with two children, and much more responsibility. And, hopefully, more maturity. Hopefully better in character, too….though I’m very far from where I aspire to be in that regard.
It’s a journey, though. We are always on the road to becoming, but we’ll never reach our destination, because the goalposts always shift: our human nature dictates that once we reach a goal or achieve an ambition, there’s always something else beckoning.
I sit here now past the milestone age of 40, seeing changes all around me in recent years. Parents, and their generation, moving towards their last days on Earth. Some have already left. Kids growing rapidly into the teenagers we once were. And my generation – my peers – taking the mantle of leadership in many facets of today’s world.
In a gathering, it’s common for me to be older than half the people there. The generations have shifted. And – if I live a ‘normal’ lifespan – in another two decades, I’ll be in that last stage, too: God’s waiting room, before departing like so many before me…like we all must.
I write this on the second-last Friday of Ramadaan, outside a mosque, as the light dances off the page, the sun behind a flag flying high on the minaret. These days are clearer, with the evil ones restrained1. It’s an easier time to reflect. And as I sit here, I think of whether I’ll ever make it back to that rooftop. Whether Allah will invite me back to the place where I felt such peace. It was a journey of six weeks of separation from the hustle of everyday life…a magnificent time which I’d repeat in a second, given the chance.
These days, I’m yearning to go back. Yes, I’m overly nostalgic, but I don’t want to go simply to relive the memories, because we can never recapture what’s past. I’d like to go to renew my heart. To refresh my soul. To strengthen my weary spirit, putting it on a more solid foundation for whatever awaits me in the years or decades ahead.
All this in a place which has been the hive of spirituality for thousands of years. A place visited by prophet after prophet after prophet. A land blessed for all of time.
I want to go back to that physical space – the core of our religion, on the mataaf2, directly under Bait-ul Ma’mur2 – where I cried in dua on my very last prostration right in front of the Ka’bah all those years ago.
As I prayed there that night, I knew that just as Allah was close to me for all those weeks, in that place – at His first house of worship on Earth – He would always be close to me. Closer than my jugular vein3 – even once I got home, thousands of miles away, to a vastly different environment and society.
And now, it’s 13 years later, and I feel so disconnected from that place…even when seeing it on TV: watching the endless wheel of humanity turning, as thousands circle the Ka’bah. Those blessed to visit the holy lands…invited by Al-Fattaah, the One Who Opens what is closed.
I believe I will get back there, some day, but I don’t know for sure.
But even if I never make it, Alhamdullilah – all praise and thanks to God. I’m still eternally grateful that I got to go in the first place. That Al-Wahhaab, the Giver of Gifts, gifted me the experience of making my Hajj all those years ago, when I was in the physical prime of my life.
And in the end, that is enough. Anything that comes afterwards is a bonus…
Notes:
- Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is reported to have said: “When the first night of Ramadaan comes, the devils and mischievous jinn are chained up, and the gates of Hell are closed, and none of its gates are opened. The gates of Paradise are opened and none of its gates are closed …” (Narrated by at-Tirmidhi (682) and Ibn Majah (1642).
- The mataaf is the open white area immediately around the Ka’bah. Bait-ul Ma’mur – the “Frequented House” – is situated in the 7th heaven, directly above the Ka’bah on earth. The angels make Tawaf (circle) this House like Hajj or Umrah to the Ka’bah. The Ka’bah on Earth is a replica of it. Angels perform prayer in the Bait-ul-Ma’mur. Every single day, 70,000 angels visit it. This will continue on until the Day of Resurrection.
- Quran 50:16: “Indeed, it is We Who created humankind and fully know what their souls whisper to them, and We are closer to them than their jugular vein.”
slip-sliding away..... 