WHEN I WROTE the introduction to the Remembering Hajj series just over ten days ago, I framed it as a murāqabah, a watchful, honest revisit. I wanted to reflect on my own story, hold it up to the light, and ask the uncomfortable question: have I lived up to any of it?
Thirteen posts later, I am not sure I can give you a clean answer. But I can tell you what I found.
I found that every time I return to those experiences, the crowds, the heat, the moments of raw nearness, the promises made to Allah in states I can barely describe, I learn something new. Not because the memories change, but because Ihave changed. The person reading his own story now is not the same person who lived it at twenty-five or at forty-five. Time and reflection do something to the material. They clarify. They deepen. They also expose.
I saw more of what Allah desires from me than I had seen before. I also saw more clearly where I am, and where I could be. The distance between those two things is not comfortable to look at.
And yet, and this is perhaps the most unexpected thing this murāqabah produced, I came out of it not defeated but grateful for what I had been given. The opportunity to respond to that Call. And longing. Every time I revisit my hajj journey, something in me wants to go again. Not to redo what was done badly. Not out of religious obligation which has been fulfilled if Allah wills. But because those places do something to the soul that nothing else does, and because I am not finished yet, and because I believe, I have to believe, that Allah’s mercy is wider than my failures.
This is what the sacred journey does, if you let it. It does not leave you where it found you. And it does not leave you alone.
To every pilgrim who has stood on the plain of Arafah, whose lips have moved in talbiyah, whose tears have fallen in places they will never forget, may Allah accept from you entirely.
To those who are standing there this very day, you are in our hearts and in our du’a. May Allah grant you the hajj mabrūr.
And to all of us marking this blessed day from wherever we are, Eid Mubarak. May this day be the beginning of something, not just a celebration of something past. May the spirit of Ibrahim (as), of surrender, of sacrifice, of trusting Allah when the path makes no sense, find its way into our hearts, our choices and everything that surrounds us.
Living For Islam 