Tag: hajj

THE PROPHET I have thought about most in my life, after the Seal, is Ismâʿîl. I remember when it began. My father told me as a boy the meaning of his name—God Hears!—and how Ismâʿîl was the answer to the prayer for…

We have reached a point in this pandemic where most of us have adjusted to a new way of doing things. For most of our lives, we worked and studied in such specific ways that it commonly became accepted as convention. Today,…

PILGRIMAGE (Hajj) –like Prayer (Salah)– in Islam is a sequence of physical acts performed at a distinctive destination and designed to channel and to develop mankind’s innate longing to come “close’ to their Creator-Sustainer. Pilgrimage is common to the world’s religions. Central…

RECENTLY I CAME across un-mailed postcards in my cupboard. Nearly 9 years old already, they bore beautiful pictures and lovely words, written to old friends in faraway lands. They spoke of circles and lines, white and black, a presence of people, and…

"The fifth pillar of Islam conjures up mixed feelings. And for me these feelings have produced a level of obsession that pushes me to dissect, analyze, and intimately understand the Hajj before I undertake the journey. But reading about the rituals alone…