Muzdalifah

WE LEFT ARAFAH at maghrib in silence.

It isn’t far from Arafah to Muzdalifah. In normal circumstances it is only 10 minutes by taxi or bus. But when you have two million people moving all at the same time, buses and taxis very quickly come to a gridlock that takes hours. For the more fortunate the train service is quicker, but the walk there in the heat and crowds is an endeavour in itself. It reminds you of the throngs and groups that will arise on Judgement Day. Everywhere there are pilgrims walking in clusters, flags raised to indicate their groups so they wouldn’t get lost. Talbiyah rose and fell in the darkness.

But inwardly, after the emotional intensity of Arafah, something had gone quiet.

The duʿāʾ was over.

Earlier I had stood with my hands raised, asking Allah for everything I could think to ask for. Forgiveness. Guidance. Protection. Acceptance. Jannah. Unity for the ummah. Mercy for the people I love. Mercy for myself. I had emptied my heart onto the plain of Arafah.

And then came Muzdalifah.

No speeches. No climax. No great visible ritual.

Just open sky, hard ground, exhaustion, and people slowly settling themselves onto the earth for the night.

Allah mentions this place directly:

فَإِذَآ أَفَضْتُم مِّنْ عَرَفَـٰتٍۢ فَٱذْكُرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ عِندَ ٱلْمَشْعَرِ ٱلْحَرَامِ

Then when you depart from Arafah, remember Allah at al-Mashʿar al-Haram (al-Baqarah 198)

Al-Mashʿar al-Haram refers to Muzdalifah, the sacred place of remembrance. And remembrance is exactly what remains here after the tears of Arafah have settled.

The scholars say the name Muzdalifah carries meanings of nearness and gathering. It comes from the Arabic root ز ل ف, associated with drawing close, approaching, and being brought near in honour.

That feels significant.

At Arafah, the pilgrim stands in recognition of Allah and recognition of their own need. Even the name Arafah carries that meaning: to know, to recognise, to become aware.

And then the pilgrim moves to Muzdalifah, the place of drawing near.

It is as though the sequence of Hajj itself is teaching something: first recognise Allah, then draw close to Him.

Some scholars also connected the name to gathering together. Pilgrims converge there physically after leaving Arafah, but something inward is gathering too. After the emotional breaking-open of Arafah, the scattered parts of the self begin to settle and return to stillness.

If Arafah is the station of desperate asking, Muzdalifah feels like the station of quiet nearness.

I remember how different the atmosphere felt the moment we arrived. Arafah felt exposed in an emotional sense. Muzdalifah felt exposed in a human one.

There were no polished spaces here. No privacy. No separation from the earth. Pilgrims spread out sleeping mats across the ground and simply lay down beneath the sky. Everywhere you looked there were people trying to settle themselves for the night.

And perhaps nowhere in Hajj is equality felt more powerfully than here.

Elsewhere, traces of dunya can still survive: better accommodation, closer access, greater comfort, different standards between groups.

But Muzdalifah strips almost all of that away.

No VIP tent protects anyone from the sky above. No status changes the reality of exhaustion. Rich and poor sleep side by side beneath the same night sky, all of them carrying the same pebbles, all of them waiting for the same dawn.

It felt like one of the clearest glimpses of human equality I have ever witnessed. And there was something else too. Something difficult to describe unless you have experienced it.

Peace.

Not excitement. Not spiritual intensity. Not emotional overwhelm.

Peace.

After the desperate pleading of Arafah, Allah gives the pilgrim stillness. That itself feels significant.

Because the modern world trains us to associate meaning with noise and intensity. We imagine closeness to Allah must always feel dramatic. But Muzdalifah teaches something gentler. Sometimes nearness to Allah feels like lying on the earth in complete exhaustion with nothing left to say.

The Prophet ﷺ stopped here, slept here, gathered pebbles here.

After the greatest day of duʿāʾ in existence, the Sunnah was not endless striving into the night. It was prayer, remembrance, and then rest. Human rest. Sacred rest.

As though Allah was teaching us that surrender also means accepting our dependence and limitation.

And then there are the pebbles.

The first time I was at Muzdalifah I lay alone on a mat in the sand, sleep evading me despite the exhaustion, listening to the quiet murmur of voices around me. At some point I heard two men nearby, one saying to the other: let’s get some stones. Find the biggest we can so we can stone Shayṭān tomorrow. I kept my eyes closed. There was something both comic and deeply human about it, the instinct to face the enemy with the largest weapon possible. 

The pebbles are supposed to be pea-sized. Small enough to fit inside your palm. Easy to overlook. Pilgrims bend down in the darkness gathering them almost absentmindedly, preparing for the stoning of the jamarāt in Mina the next day.

The weapons against Shayṭān are gathered before the confrontation itself.

And they are gathered here: after repentance, after humility, after remembrance, after sleeping on the earth.

That order is important.

Because Shayṭān is rarely defeated in the moment of temptation itself. Most spiritual defeats happen beforehand, in heedlessness, arrogance, distraction, and forgetfulness of Allah.

Muzdalifah prepares the pilgrim before the battle begins.

And even the pebbles themselves contain a lesson. They are tiny. The pilgrim does not carry swords or massive stones. Just small pebbles held in the hand of a servant.

Perhaps because Shayṭān is not overcome through dramatic displays of strength, but through small acts of sincere obedience repeated consistently: a prayer protected, a temptation resisted, a tongue restrained, a moment of dhikr, a private act of sincerity known only to Allah. Consistent. Repeated.

Small things. Pebble-sized things. But enough to drive back Shayṭān if Allah grants them sincerity.

The sequence of Hajj began making more sense to me there.

In Mina, the self begins to be stripped of illusion.

At Arafah, the servant stands before Allah admitting complete need.

And then in Muzdalifah, the heart becomes quiet enough to gather itself again before returning to struggle.

It is the bridge between brokenness and action.

I remember looking across the valley before sleeping and seeing thousands upon thousands of pilgrims lying beneath the open sky. No walls. No real ownership. No permanence. Just human beings resting on the earth for a single night before continuing their journey.

And it struck me then that perhaps this is what Hajj keeps trying to teach us over and over again: You are not in control. You belong to Allah. You will return to Him exactly as vulnerable as this.

There is a strange mercy in remembering that.

Even now, years later, when I think back on Hajj, Muzdalifah remains one of the quietest memories and one of the deepest. Not because of what happened there. But because of what fell away there.