Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 69
69 Reverence for Khana Ka‘bah Hajj occurs every year, but no speeches are given there. Still, Muslims from all over the world travel for hundreds and thousands of miles to gather around Khana Ka ‘ ba h. Every year two to three hundred thousand pilgrims congregate there. The only purpose of this crowd of two to three hundred thousand is to walk to Arafat and then from there to head to Muzdalifa. F rom Muzdalifa they go onto Mina , where they perform circuits around a house built of stone , perform the sacrifice of their animals, and the job is done. The foundation of the K a ‘ ba h was laid four thousand five hundred years ago. And this is the same foundation laid by Prophet Abraham as. It is quite likely that the Ka‘bah existed even before then. And this seems to be more probable since some verses of the Holy Qur’an indicate that the Ka‘bah existed from before. Even if you disregard this fact, for the last four thousand five hundred years, people have traveled for thousands of miles and suffe r ed all kinds of hardships along the journey. Even now , no railway has been built there, and the state of the land there is such that in comparison, the sandy grounds of Rabwah are nothing less than roads reserved for royalty. Going from Jeddah to M ecca , travel must proceed through such land s that one cannot distinguish between the wilderness, the fields, and the road. Her e we have built [some sources of] shade , w hile you cannot even find areas of shade there. The camel drivers set their camels down somewhere for the night , where s ome passengers, some camel drivers, and some travelers passing by join them for the night, believing that robbers won’t attack them if they trav e l in a group. The y all gather together and lay their heads on the sand and go to sleep. Also, so much dust flies around there that even if another person passes by, he cannot be seen beca use of the dust in the air. Despite all this, people have happily endured these hardships for thousands of years because they believe that they are fulfill ing the will of God Almighty. The Comforts of the Soul You have only experienc ed this for just a year. Next year you may not have the opportunity to receive these blessings. If by the grace of Allah , headquarters are established here, then many facilities will become available next year , but those facilities will be for physical comfort and not for spiritual. The spiritual comforts are always achieved by enduring hardships in the way of God Almighty.