Pilgrimage to the house of Allah
That’s all. The buzzing swarm of pilgrims disappeared under a canopy of the airport, leaving after himself only the smells: a sweet aroma of cigarettes with a carnation, which has not been driving in the Indonesian camp; The sharpness of the fruit fell, – where a woman from Mali and Nigeria was sitting on their trays; The spirit of Curry, who remained from the Bengalians, who, by the end of the Hajj, spending the last money, go to home supplies.
Pilgrims from all over the world rushed back in the way back, and the old man stays near the take-off strip. His foot is a knot with belongings and a decliter canister with holy water – for the family and for its last ablution. He looks at the take-off airplanes, immersed in deep grief. In his 55 years, Yahiya Hamadani from India looks at seventy. All my life, he traded used tires: incomes were enough to grow children and scatter on Hajj for himself and unmarried daughter.
Three weeks ago, on the day of their arrival, in the tent camp mine, broken kilometers in ten from Mecca, 70 thousand tents burned down in a few hours. Flame taken from gas tile, devoured them like paper. 18-year-old daughter Hamadani, without lingering in this world, went straight to heaven. The body burned down, the soul – in paradise. "That, threw me here alone".
In the eyes of God, the feat of the finishing pilgrimage is a step in paradise, innocent death – the most await sacrifice, and Mecca is the most suitable place for this. "So, – says Yahiya (and truly believes can not speak differently), – what happened – the benefit. Lose her – great grief. But go to the ground here – it is more than any wealth than luxurious houses. – he wondered for a second. – More than self auto repair shop".
To fulfill the will of Allah, they all came here. All – and Yajiya, and Ibrahim, the builder from Egypt, who already dreams, how, returning home, will hide the artist to paint him on the wall of the ship and kaaba. Then everyone who also knows little literacy, like the owner himself, it will be clear: Haji lives here, the pilgrim, a man, worthy of respect. All – Even Mohammed Abbas, Director of Pakistani Radio. The thought of pilgrimage came to him after his native uncle, returned from Mecca, became another person: more attentive, thoughtful. "I am rationalist, but I shocked that Hajj changed it". One of this journey is savings accumulated years of labor, another feather stroke. Orthodox intersect the seas and oceans, go from the other end of the world to get into Mecca, to get one step closer to perfection, fulfill the fifth commandment Islam. The one who is not too Yun is not too sick or poor and settled with debts, must at least once make a pilgrimage. This is usually done on the slope of years, but there are young pilgrims – Jaruna from Jakarta has their own reason: "We in Indonesia, the girl will be more willing themselves for the one who was in Mecca".
And here the pilgrims are planted in the place, to which the people of hundreds of millions of Muslims, creating prayer, are treated five times a day. Even in the plane, the shimmering arrow on a small screen constantly points to them: Mecca.
Nine-grade holy and nice, protected city. It was ordered here with the wrong way, and Orthodox here comes from God, for one prayer in the big mosque Mecca costs thousands of other prayers. There, in the midst of the closed courtyard, it is kaaba, covered with black silk hollow cube, according to Islam, the time of the centuries served by the abdomen of God. Estimated by Adam, destroyed by the Great Flood, rebuilt by Abraham and newly dedicated to God Mohammed, the last of the prophets. Kaaba – Magnetic Pole Islam, attracting Muslims at this point of the Earth on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, in the middle of the desert.
When Mohammed, together with a handful of believed in him, fled from Mecca, fleeing from jealous of the old world order, which he wanted to expute, – Already Kaaba stood here and the land was sacred: Abraham, the progenitor not only Jews and Christians, but also Muslims, lived in Mecca. For many years later, returned here already a triumphant winner, Mohammed has established new rites: walking around Kaaba, pretty in the Valley of Arafat, breaking the stones of Iblis (Devil), sacrificing the animal. The Prophet set all these rituals to the service of uncompromising monotheism, whose dogmas claims that there is no God, except for Allah, and there is no one next to him.
For the past 14 centuries, the Orthodox rushed here. Previously, they left their homes for many years, kneading along the way to Mecca and in it the most mining of robbers. It used to come tens of thousands, now every year – almost two million, and it would be even more, do not enter Saudi Arabia in 1988 the quota: the number of pilgrims from each country should not exceed one percent of the population.
Airplanes land at Jeddah Airport, 70 kilometers from Mecca. Before boarding, passengers are changed – you need to wear them in time. In a ritual sense, this is a sign of belonging to God, abundance from all worldly; In the material – two pieces of white canvas, reminiscent of humility and the Savane, in which the pilgrim will appear in his sentence before God. You can wear belt. Linen is prohibited. In addition, it is impossible to quarrel, cut hair and nails, enter into sexual intercourse, indulge in lustful thoughts, use cologne and hunt.
Pilgrimniks today are detained on the way because of the robbers, but, for example, due to the strike of air traffic controllers. But it is impossible to stop believers. Every day for four weeks from 50 to 100 thousand people are planted in the terminal "Hajj" Dzhiddy airport. They come from all over the world: 200 thousand from Indonesia, 75 thousand from Iran, 60 thousand from Turkey and Egypt, tens of thousands of Malaysia, Algeria, Nigeria, thousands from Chechnya, China, Germany, USA and Tens – with Fiji. Afghans who belong to the Taliban movement or the tribes warring with the Taliban; Palestinians from Haifa and Tel Aviv, who are not let in Saudi Arabia on the Israeli passport and who had to produce documents of Palestinian autonomy; Iranians and Iraqis may be found on the battlefield. When Saddam Hussein, despite the UN campaign, sent a plane to Mecca with pilgrims – Saudi interceptors forced him to sit down, but all passengers were delivered without delay to Mecca. Politics here does not interfere with religion. The police stops any demonstration, such as a rally of a bunch of Iranians, chanting: "Down with Israel!". But besides the police there are also the laws of piety. Here, any female is prohibited Islam: What is the benefit of Hajj, if he is unwhaver God? Hajj is a test before God, which needs to be here and now.
They come, Sunni and Shiites. Come in a broken egg-yellow bus, which is already 34 years old and who is praised Allah! – For three weeks, they brought them to Jidda from Dagestan through Iran and Iraq, and today with a turtle speed, the remaining to Mecca 70 kilometers. They come with the world, and for several weeks, the utopian of the initial Islamic unity becomes reality. Overall politics and faith were one, but the dynasties and the capital changed, the Khalifat moved to Damascus, then in Baghdad, split into the hostric caliphants of Cordoba, Baghdad and Cairo, again found unity in Constantinople and there he met his end. The spiritual center did not move on the meter from the place that Mohammed selected in 360 pagan apartments and dedicated to the uniform, the only and unchanged God. All of them, these countless pilgrims are equal to God – and before "automatic information system Hajj". The program assigns to each personal barcode, and a sticker slippers to a passport. Now at all checkpoints before Mecca and after it, at the bus stations at the airport and in the medina the code is read by a scanner. "At any time, – explains Ahmed Gamry, an employee of the Ministry of Head, – we know where the pilgrim is located, did he not be lost. And leaned back". Nightmare Saudi Arabia: Millions of pilgrims may not return to their nurses at home, but to turn into illegal immigrants.
Saudis have to balance: the basis of the country’s wealth of oil, the basis of internal strength is a religion for which state borders do not exist. In the kingdom, which arose only two generations back, Islam permeates all his life so much that here, negotiating the meeting, they say not "at seven o’clock", a "After evening prayer". In 1985, the King of Saudi Arabia Fahd changed his title "Majesty" on "Hadim both holy places" (Mecca and Medina). Honorary title "Hadim" means at the same time I "Guardian" and "servant".
Four of the five pilgrims pay in advance several thousand dollars per ticket, including all expenses in Hajj. After arrival and register, they are collected in groups led by Metuafami conductor – heads of rites, prayer readers and apartments at the same time. This prestigious and extremely profitable profession has existed hundreds of years, and places in the Metuaf Guild are inherited. Saudi monarchs finally ended up with the unfinished rusting of visitors who have long been famous for Mecca: solid prices for religious services were introduced, they almost did not increase over decades. And that Metuafa do not lose their profits, reduced taxes on the income from the shops belonging to them. There after the end of Hajj, pilgrims are rushed behind the gifts of the remaining home.
Faith did not move from the mountain of the kingdom. But for the sake of faith, Saudi built the country with roads, tunnels, hospitals and bridges;
laid wide, as the highway, sidewalks, put thousands of telephone booths and toilets, and the big mosque was expanded so that she took Polkvartal. And anyway, during the sacred month here is too close for 1, 2 million pilgrims and for half a million saudi and foreign workers. After all, each of them, entering the right leg in a big mosque, must bypass Kaaba seven times. Kaaba – source and mouth, prologue and Epiloga Hadja, and his climax – standing in the Arafat Valley, symbolizing the phenomenon of the left in front of the Most High on the day of the terrible court.
The cold magnificence of marble meets them in the mosque. Nothing but lines and geometric shapes, of which there are inscriptions (the word of God) and the framing their ornament. No music. "Labik Alla Huma Labik" ("I’m here, Lord, I’m here"), "Rocking, in a low voice pulls each, and from this formula repeated in unison thousands of mouth, a melody arises. During prayer, the big mosque is filled, and people stand tightly clinging to each other. Then this inconspicuous crowd comes into motion in order to hit Kaaba seven times, and, like the vessels on the waves, sick with the patients and old people who are carrying on a stretcher. At night, four hours, the people in a big mosque are even more than half acend. Every hour thirty thousand people are poured into it through many entrances, and the inner courtyard of the mosque seems to be a giant whirlpool. My God, I can’t turn your anger and your kara, I can’t do without your mercy, I can not evade the troubles and I have no strength to demolish them.
This Adidia – the head – pronounced Pilgrims while visiting the holy places of Islam.
Spiral rotates and rotates, falling into the black cube. There is an object of worship – a stone, when milky white, but from contact with human sins, became dim black. Pilgrims kiss a stone – after all, he kissed the prophet. It is all written: bypass kaaba three times fast and four – slowly. But the routine is under the threat precisely because the largest number of believers wants to follow. For nowhere is written, both at the same time in the same narrow valley of the same rituals can perform two million people. "So that everything remains, as is, we need change, – says the Angawa themselves, the founder of the Hadja Research Center, the place where the intellect serves God. – Hajj is unique, and the solutions for him need unique. We collected linguists, cybernetics, biologists, mathematicians. Database for Hajja was created. We have introduced privileges for pedestrians, conducted a study of air composition and made sure that the tents are much hygienic than concrete houses with air conditioning". For pilgrims, often not able to read, a color designation system has been developed: carpets in a big mosque of different color. Special pictograms are now created. Of course, the Prophet spoke in Arabic, and in Arabic Angel, the Lord dictated the Quran. But how to be with a faithful of India, who famute Allah only in the language of Gujarati and does not even understand the values of road signs?
"Often the best solution is the simplest. From the theological point of view, the idea of Hajj is that the pilgrim can inhale that atmosphere of the desert, which Abraham and the Prophet breathed, the world with them, and the Angi themselves says so quietly, that his voice is barely heard through the murder of a small room fountain. – If millions of cage pilgrims, and the body is Islam, then Hajj is blood circulation and Kaaba – a pulsating heart (the temple and bypass from left to right, from the heart side). Lightweight is arafat, and oxygen – a long prayer and staying people alone with Allah". In Arafat, Valley 20 kilometers east of Mecca, you need to arrive in the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month – this is the main point of the title of the entire pilgrimage calendar.
On this day, half an hour before sunset, taxi drivers will be climbed by unthinkable prices. For Hajj is considered in vain, if the pilgrim will not fall into the Arafat Valley before the sun sits for mountain ridge. Even bypassing Kaaba or breaking the devil stones if necessary, someone can overrun or compensate for the sacrifice. In Arafat you need to be yourself.
In the morning or at least from noon until the sunset lasts a concentrated prayer standing. Two million people located in the Valley and in the surrounding hills, speak different languages. But all the same clothes and behavior are the same, and faith that led them here, one. Pilgrim, living in a luxury hotel, is located next to the Indian, having traded with a tray with sweets to scat on a hajj. The stroke ruster prays next to the director of Pakistani radio, and you do not treat the differences in the cloth of their white clothes. Over the valley still hanging heat. They say a little, only the appeal to Allah repeats:
Here is the prayer of the pilgrim, who made a lot of sins, the pilgrim, whose hopes went as shruh, whose tears are already shed and the life of which is close to the end. Here is the prayer of the pilgrim, who is waiting for forgiveness from you and no more. Oh God, but not will be too early before you, because your car is terrible, and do not alive too long, so as not to fall into temptation.
The wind, of course, the gift of God. It comes to the valley and spreads a foggy waters of water dust from hundreds of watering devices. This rain that can reduce the temperature in the valley for the whole ten degrees, the gift is not heaven, but the governments that built a tank of 90 thousand cubic meters. The roots of Islam – in the desert, but to soften the heat, tens of thousands of trees landed in the valley. For since the world has become less, the roads are shorter, pilgrims – older (their average age is 55 years old), and death from heart attack or exhaustion began to calculate each year with hundreds, – since then has grown among theologian controversy: what is god? Does he favors the one who watches the clinets in the hot valley, and sleeps on the outdoor naked stones?
"No, "says Imam Talal, Saudi Hadja religious issues consultant. – Air conditioners, cars, tents – this is the gift of God. Someone he inspired to create them. For what? For the use of all this for the benefit of the beige pilgrims". And Imam again distracts his silent arsenal from the radio, two mobile phones and chapels.
"Probably God overthrow her a short life", – Jahiya Hamadani’s daughter will say, whose life ended the day before her father went to the Arafat Valley. The sky in a few minutes smoked as Smin, and some pilgrims decided that "the day of the resurrection of the dead". That day, God sent a real storm. Changing the direction, she drove the fire in a narrow valley of Mina, where they are going on the day before standing in the Arafat Valley. The reason for this hell was a gas tile that flashed in a tent. During the dusty storms, some pilgrim decided to brew a tea – the investigation came to this conclusion.
Fire helicopters circled over the valley, medical teams made their way through the ranks of closely standing tents. People dressed from burns, suffocation, bursts of gas cylinders and under the legs of the running crowd. For a few hours, the fiery whirlwind of thousands of tents. The official report reported 343 dead – mostly old men from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. More than a thousand wounded accepted hospitals Mina, Mecca and Jeddah. Headquarters engaged in identification and search for missing, and many thousands of residents of Saudi Arabia voluntarily donated blood. However, in the schedule and the route Hajja Catastroph did not make any changes. Everyone who was in the consciousness, who could be carried, before the next day, were in the Arafat Valley. The fire by that time wasted, the sellers of drinks and fruit raised the price of a third, and the lamps on the trays, despite all the prohibitions, still refuel kerosene. The National Guard per day put tens of thousands of new tents, hastily brought from army warehouses. The sun is barely above the Arafat valley, the pilgrims go to the Muzdalif valley of 8 kilometers from Arafat. This transition specialists in the Travel Tracking Center are called "Bottle throat": From a narrow valley in one direction two million people are at the same time, 12 thousand buses are embedded in their stream. Another prophet prescribed the path to the Valley of the MuDelif: there you need to dial "Semizhda seven" Stones for devils. Religion and mathematics unexpectedly intersect in imitation models of Adnan Al-Yafi, which submitted the movement of pilgrims in equations and functions. "It is necessary to create such a distribution of human streams, "says Al-Yafi, – so that the pilgrims for breaking with stones, sacrifices and bypassing Kaaba not the first convenient for them, but the optimal moment". So, for cybernetics faith, prayers, the curse of the devil is turning to the question: "Cork or flow?". And for believers in the same place and at the same time, three stone pillar turn into Satan. The plot is the same as the Jews and Christians: "Bring a sacrifice", – God said to Abraham, and he took Isaac by his hand and went to the mountains with him to score stones for the altar. The difference is that the Muslims of Abraham is called ibrahim, and instead of Isaac goes instead of Isaac. But the story ends in the same way: the sacrifice of the victim turned out to be enough to please God, and there was a lamb. In the meantime, the father and son rose to the mountain, the devil tried three times to dismiss them from obedience to the Most High, and three times they threw stones into him.
Three embodiments of the devil – Big, Middle and Small Satan – still stand in the Mina Valley. These are pillars surrounded by a stone barrier, because of which stones throw them. After a deep concentration of standing, walking, prayer is the time of the explosion: if God requires righteousness, and the believer will sin still, it means that someone is to blame? So he is the main culprit of all temptations! And the valley shakes the sacred rage.
Hands, following her thousands and thousands of others – and each throws a stone, which should be no less than pea and no more bob. However, the voltage is such that many pilgrims in rage flush everything that comes on hand: cobblestones with fist, plastic slippers, empty bottles. Installed by the Prophet the norm of stones for each – Semigenda seven. Their knocking is winking only at night when the bulldozers are accepted to rake out of the pussy day. Breathing devils are covered by such religious zeal, which earlier who fell, was waiting for the right death under the feet of a giant crowd. During the Hadja 1994, a panic arose, and about three hundred people were flooded to death. It was necessary to change something, and since the devils could not move away, it was necessary to move people. Lined two ramps on powerful concrete supports, for each of them pilgrims can only move in one direction. The bandwidth of this design is 145 thousand people every hour. "Now the matter went", – relief says the Angei themselves.
Ritual breaking of the devils of the devil stones lasts three days, the first of them begins a large sacrifice. If someone in poverty can not buy an animal, then he is not obliged to repeat the offering Abraham. But most of the victim still brings. True, since the pilgrims began to come by millions, distributing the poor meat of sacrificial rams, bulls or camels partially thoughtful: it’s just nowhere to drive so much poor so that they eate the meat of millions of animals, quickly sprawling on the heat.
Today, the pilgrim can buy a sacrificial animal (they trade around the clock), give it to the Turkish or Syrian reson, who during Hajj thousands come to Saudi Arabia, and this animal will dance, leaning his head to Kaaba. Either the pilgrim pays 365 rials (about $ 100) the Islamic Development Bank and receives a receipt confirming that from his behalf an animal is clogged, it is separated and its frozen meat will send in need of one of the Islamic countries. For the year in the project "Use of sacrificial meat" differ almost half a million such receipts. The rest of the pilgrims follow the command of the prophet on bringing the victim literally. To avoid the epidemic, special brigade of garbered during the Hajj, the round day remove the corpses of animals and burn them in the crematorium.
Pilgrimage is nearing an end. After the farewell crawl of Kaaba, the first tens of thousands of orthodox goes to Medina, where Mohammed Mohammed, and where he was buried and where he was buried. About prayer in a mosque laid by the Prophet dreams of any Muslim. On the way to Medina, six Afghans were arrested who tried to sell abandoned meat of sacrificial animals. The police had suspicious of SMRAD from their van.
. And Jajiya Hamadani is sitting at Jidda Airport with the last tranquility that covers a person when he is no longer anything for what is hoping, sitting on the background of the aircraft with a deafening roar. Daughter he lost in this paradise, the son taught to trade with used tires, Allah paid his debt, and everything that he left is hope for paradise. "Life, "he says," the thing is short and unreliable. And faith is quite another matter".
This report specifically for GEO was prepared by Journalist Christoph’s Royter during the Hadja 1997.
