Zafar Bangash on the true purpose of Hajj and its despoilment under the Saudi regime

Zafar Bangash on the true purpose of Hajj and its despoilment under the Saudi regime


December 2007


This month, an estimated 2 million Muslims will gather in the Hijaz for the Hajj, the annual gathering of the Ummah in accordance with the orders of Allah swt. and the Seerah of the Prophet. But the Hajj they perform, ZAFAR BANGASH, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) says, is far removed from what it is supposed to be.


If the past is any guide, an estimated two million Muslims will perform Hajj this year as well. There is another tradition that will be followed to the letter: Hajj will be performed in a mechanical way without most hujjaj ever realising why Allah wants them to go through such a physically and financially demanding exercise. Is there any other purpose beyond visiting the House of Allah for a specified number of days? No doubt visiting the Masjid al-Haram in Makkah is a richly rewarding experience in itself; how many of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims will have this honour in their lifetime?
But it behooves us to ask what the real purpose of Hajj is, and why it is not realized at present. What factors are involved in preventing Muslims from understanding the real purposes and significance of Hajj, based on the teachings of the Qur’an and the life-struggle of Prophets Ibrahim and Muhammad, upon them both be peace and blessings, whose Sunnah the Muslims are trying to follow by performing Hajj?

Let us compare this with another obligatory duty of Muslims: the five-times daily salah. If an average Muslim were asked to describe it, the likely explanation would include the following: to be in a state of tahara (cleanliness), perform wudu, make the niyah, and the mechanics of how salah is performed. Some might even mention that since it is one of the faraid (compulsory acts of ibadah) it has to be performed regularly. All these descriptions and explanations are correct, but they do not reflect its true significance. The word salah is derived from the Arabic root sila, meaning link. Thus, salah is the renewal of our link with Allah by our standing before Him. When we utter the takbir al-ahram to start our salah, we turn our backs on the world around us and initiate direct communication with Allah, praising and thanking Him for what He has bestowed upon us and beseeching Him for His help and guidance. There are two other aspects that must be kept in mind: salah is a great leveller, and is meant to instill discipline. When we stand for salah, all distinctions of class, position and authority are obliterated; whether rich or poor, big or small, official or layman, all are equal before Allah; the only thing that counts is our taqwa.
Like salah, Hajj too has been reduced to a few rituals without appreciating its true meaning or significance. Allah subhanahu wa ta‘ala says in the noble Qur’an: “And people owe Allah [the obligation of] Hajj to the Sacred House; [that is] for those who have the means and the ability to undertake the journey” (Q. 3:97). The “means” and “ability” refer to both financial and emotional as well as physical ability to fulfil the task.
Hajj is the re-enactment of the struggles of Ibrahim and Ismail (as). But we must also remember that Ibrahim (as) was a rebel against the power of taghoot in his native land. For rejecting his people’s false gods, he was thrown into the fire by Nimrod but miraculously saved by Allah. Are we prepared to rebel against the taghoots of our time, or we are content with simply indulging in the rituals of Hajj without understanding the struggle of Ibrahim (as) or reliving it?
There are two other aspects of Hajj that demand attention. First, Hajj is the grand annual assembly of the Ummah, unmatched by any other event in history. It is meant to reflect the unity of the Ummah. Although Muslims gather from all over the world for Hajj, the vast majority come and go quite oblivious of the plight of their fellow Muslims. This is a great opportunity wasted. Allah wants us to get to know each other; Hajj provides a perfect occasion for us to do so, and yet most Muslims perform Hajj in the company of millions of fellow Muslims but remain totally oblivious of their problems or suffering.
This is not accidental; such behaviour has been deliberately cultivated. To understand how Muslims have fallen into this, we need to examine recent history. At the beginning of the last century, the British and French competed for control of the Middle East. The British had realized the significance of the Hijaz, especially the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah that were administered by the Uthmaniyya khilafah. These are important places for mobilizing Muslims. A British officer, Captain R.F Burton, later to become famous as Sir Richard Burton, had expressed concern as early as the 1850s that Makkah and Madinah could be used to propagate ideas that are hostile to Britain, which had colonised large parts of the Muslim world. This was spelled out even more clearly by the British Consul General in Jeddah, a person named Zohrab. In a message to the Foreign Office in London in 1902, he wrote: “The point of real importance to England politically, I believe is that Hijaz is the focal point of Muslim thought and the nucleus from which radiate ideas, advice, instructions and dogmatic implications… The Hijaz is also a point of much political importance to England and its relations with India… [Certain persons] I am persuaded proceed on the Hajj for political reasons. Makkah being free of European intrusion is safe ground on which gatherings can be held, and ideas exchanged. Up to the present time we have kept no watch on those who come and go… Thus meetings may be convened at Makkah at which combinations hostile to us may form without our knowing anything till the shell bursts in our midst… If this Consulate could have a trusted Mussalman agent in Makkah, I believe a great deal of valuable intelligence could be obtained.”
The British consul general’s warning and advice were taken so seriously in London that soon Britain had not one but two trusted “Mussalman” agents serving it in the Arabian Peninsula. One was Sharif Husain ibn Ali of Makkah, who had been appointed by the Turks as governor of the Hijaz in November 1908; the other was Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, founder of the present-day kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Both were paid £5,000 sterling per month and a lump sum of £20,000 annually, according to a statement by Winston Churchill, then British secretary for the colonies, in the House of Commons on March 2, 1922. The two British agents first undermined Turkish rule in the Arabian Peninsula, and later fought each other for control of the Hijaz. Abdul Aziz ibn Saud with his Bedouin hordes turned out to be more ruthless and was successful in driving Sharif Husain out of the Hijaz.
In order to placate Husain, the British carved out Trans-Jordan from the Turkish province of Palestine (which they had occupied in 1918) and placed one of Sharif Husain’s sons, Abdullah, on its throne; his other son, Faisal, was handed control of Syria. Faisal was driven out of there but the British made him king of Iraq, which they also controlled. Even that did not last long; Iraqi Ba‘ath nationalists murdered his grandson Faisal II and the hopes of Husain’s family ruling the entire Arabian Peninsula were dashed. It was left in control of Jordan only, where it continues to this day, under the pompous title of “the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan”, though it is little more than a US-zionist colony serving the interests of the enemies of Islam.
The brigand Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, who had made his mark by robbing pilgrims’ caravans, had consolidated his grip on the entire Arabian Peninsula, including the Hijaz, by 1932, thanks to British military and financial help. He named it “Saudi” Arabia in complete violation of the Prophet’s Sunnah; he (saw) had named this blessed land the Arabian Peninsula. Abdul Aziz and the Aal-e Saud continued to act as British agents until the second world war and then switched to serving American interests once the US emerged as a major power on the world stage. As part of its duties, the House of Saud prevents any activity at the time of Hajj that would lead to criticism of US policies. The Saudis serve their American masters rather than Allah subhanahu wa ta‘ala. This explains why Muslims are prevented from using Hajj as a unifying force for the Ummah or as an occasion to find solutions for its many problems.
We should also bear in mind that while the House of Saud treats the Arabian Peninsula, including Makkah and Madinah, as family property, refusing to heed Muslim advice on the status and administration of the Haramain, this was not always the case. Until 1957 the Nawab of Hyderabad Deccan paid an annual subsidy of £25 million for the maintenance of Makkah and Madinah and for services to the hujjaj. Oil had been discovered in the Arabian Peninsula much earlier, but Western oil-companies paid such a pittance for it that the House of Saud could not afford proper maintenance of the Haramain (Makkah and Madinah) without outside help. It was only after 1957 that they started to bear the costs on their own. What this shows is that the Ummah has never recognised the Haramain as the private property of Aal-e Saud; they are illegal occupiers of these holy places and have caused much damage to them.
Under the pretext of providing “better services” to the hujjaj, the historic sites of Makkah and Madinah have been systematically destroyed. In their place have emerged Western-style concrete buildings—five-star hotels, shopping plazas with such western food-chains as Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and grease-filled McDonald hamburgers that cater to the tastes of Westernized Muslims but despoil the spiritual environments of Makkah and Madinah. Throughout the world people preserve their historic sites as cherished monuments; the House of Saud is busy obliterating the holy sites of Islam. Today there is no trace of the house where the Prophet (saw) was born or of the house where he lived with Umm al-Mu’mineen Khadija (ra) in Makkah. Madinah’s historic sites have suffered similar destruction. By contrast, relics that promote and project the history of the House of Saud are carefully preserved.
In addition to the physical destruction of Makkah and Madinah, there is an equally serious attempt underway to empty the Hajj of its true divine content and meaning. Allah subhanahu wa ta‘ala commands in the Qur’an that during Hajj, Muslims must proclaim their dissociation (bara’a) from the mushrikeen (Q. 9: 1-18). These ayaat were revealed in the ninth year of the hijrah, when the Muslims, led by Abu Bakr Siddiq (ra), had already left Madinah for Makkah to perform Hajj. The Prophet, upon whom be peace, immediately dispatched Imam Ali (ra) to proclaim these ayaat at the time of Hajj. This open and clear dissociation from the mushrikeen is a Qur’anic command, yet under the weight of official dogma and historical perversion it has been abandoned and almost totally forgotten. One must ask why so few ulama draw attention to this important command of the Qur’an. In fact, these ayaat are seldom or never mentioned in the context of Hajj. Why? Are Muslims not suffering grievously at the hands of the present-day mushrikeen—the rulers of America, Britain, France, Israel, India and the like? If the answer is yes (and there is no other possible answer), why is the occasion of Hajj not used to mobilise the Ummah to defend Muslims from the crimes of these enemies of Islam? How much more suffering must Muslims endure before the Hajj can be restored to its proper role: a unique annual focal point for asserting the unity of the Ummah, commitment to the cause of Allah, and our determination to stand against all the oppressive forces in the world, in line with Divine command and the example of Allah’s Messenger (saw)? The plight of the people of Palestine and the continued occupation of al-Quds by the zionists, the horrendous crimes being perpetrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Chechnya, and other atrocities elsewhere, make it imperative that the Hajj be used as an occasion to mobilise Muslims against the enemies of Islam and the Ummah.
There is a symbiotic relationship between the ritualisation (and therefore trivialisation) of the Hajj and the imposition of Western-style architecture on the sacred environment of the Haramain. Both are meant to keep Muslims distracted by mundane things — rituals at Hajj and consumerism of the worst kind in the marketplace — so that the Muslims have no time or attention left for reflection or to find solutions to the problems facing the Ummah. Exposing the enemies of Islam would also expose the House of Saud as agents of the mushrikeen; that would hardly be conducive to their continued control of the Haramain. Their determination to prevent implementation of a divine command is in total violation of Islam’s law and is the worst kind of bida‘ imaginable. Are we Muslims willing to change all this, or shall we continue to ignore the most important aspect of Hajj and thus make ourselves guilty of violating Allah’s command?