Word: hajj
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With their Muslim brothers embroiled in the Iran-Iraq war, 4,700 Israeli Arabs feared that they would not be able to make the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca. Day after day they waited for buses to meet them at the Allenby Bridge spanning the Jordan River, the boundary between Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to begin their 18-hour overland journey to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia. Finally, on the tenth day of their vigil, the first of 125 dusty vehicles rolled into view. War or no war, the hajj would...
...believe that this cube-shaped structure, covered always by a black cloth embroidered in gold, was erected to God by Abraham and that it was cleansed of idols by the Prophet Muhammad in A.D. 630. The Ka'ba is the chief focus of prayer and ritual during the hajj, the annual pilgrimage that this year drew more than 2 million Muslims to Mecca...
...called five pillars of faith. They are: 1) accepting the shahada; 2) the daily prayers to God while facing Mecca; 3) charitable giving; 4) fasting during the daylight hours of Ramadan, a 29-or 30-day month in Islam's lunar calendar;* and 5) making the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca at least once in an individual's lifetime-if he or she is financially and physically able. Some Muslims argue that there is a sixth pillar of the faith, namely jihad. The word is frequently translated as "holy war"; in fact, it can refer to many forms...
During the hajj, pilgrims throng Mecca, the men clad in two seamless white garments and sandals, the women in white head-to-toe covering. The pilgrims walk seven times around the Ka'ba, a cubical stone building covered by a gold-embroidered black canopy, in the exterior wall of which is set the Black Stone. The interior, now empty, once housed pagan idols, which Muhammad destroyed. The pilgrims also visit other holy sites, act out the search for water by Hagar, the mother of the Arab nation, perform a vigil on Mount 'Arafat (site of the Prophet...
Islam is not a collection of individual souls but a spiritual community; its sectarian divisions, as well as the man-made barriers of race and class that Islam opposes, dissolve dramatically at the hajj. Once a pilgrimage made mostly by Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa, the hajj has become a universal and unifying ritual. For those who have taken part in it, the hajj acts as a constant testament to Islam's vision of a divine power that transcends all human frailties...