How I made the hajj
In hajj - pilgrimage to holy places in Saudi Arabia, according to the teachings, every Muslim must go at least once in his life. The Muslim calendar is shorter than the Gregorian, so the dates for the Hajj are shifted 10-11 days ago each year. To make the hajj, pilgrims must arrive in Mecca and conduct several rituals there. The hajj itself lasts five days, but pilgrims usually stay in Saudi Arabia for two or three weeks.
Non-Muslims cannot get on the hajj (as well as to Mecca itself): travel can be arranged only through a travel agency approved by the Saudi Arabian government, and Western Muslims are checked separately (they must provide a written certificate from an imam confirming that he knows the person and that he is a faithful Muslim). This year, the hajj, and it ended on September 4, more than two million pilgrims arrived, among them 23,500 people from Russia. We talked with the Bashkir poet Zulfiya Khannanova about her first Hajj, about whether it is difficult to perform it physically, and how the female experience of the Hajj differs from that of men.
Hajj is one of the pillars of Islam. There are five of them altogether, the first is the pronunciation of shahad, that is, the utterance of the tongue and the recognition by the heart of the unity of the Most High. The second pillar is namaz (prayer), the third is paying zakat (alms to the poor), the fourth is uraza (fasting). Hajj is one of the fardas, that is, the mandatory prescriptions of Islam: if a person has the means and health for him, he must fulfill it. It is believed that people who visited the Hajj, if they did everything correctly, come from there as sinless, like a newborn child.
This was my first hajj, I have been preparing for it for several years. For many years I had to care for a paralyzed mother, and I still had a baby. It was difficult: at night I went to my mother and baby. I needed strength, and I got up to prayer - my mother saw me read prayers. Some time after my mother’s death, on Friday, she dreamed of me - we Muslims, it is believed that this day has righteous dreams. Mom in a dream told me: "Zulfiya, make a hajj." I did not attach importance to these words: it seemed to me that the hajj needed to be done with old age, before death, so that all sins could be forgiven and that you could leave quietly.
Last year, when I was lying next to my mother-in-law in the hospital, I had another dream. I saw a woman who said: "Zulfiya, do not make a hajj this year - you have a toothache, it can fall out. You will go to the hajj next year." I woke up and realized that the tooth is my mother-in-law, it should be treated. I set up for the next year and began to slowly save money. It was hard. I borrowed 90,000 rubles from people on the most budget hajj - and paid for everything in advance. I couldn’t leave the hajj debts - I knew that I would return everything before the trip began, and I paid for it slowly (some religious leaders, however, note that if a person has a large loan with monthly payments, he can do the hajj if he coordinates it with his creditors -Note ed.). About two weeks after I paid off everything, they called me from the administration of the head of the republic and said that the Ministry of Culture and Information of Saudi Arabia was offering a guest hajj. The organizer of the hajj tour with which I was supposed to go, said that it was a very rare good fortune, a gift from the Almighty, which must not be abandoned. I got the money back.
Umrah and Medina
A group of eight people, five men and three women, traveled from Russia: three from Ingushetia and one person each from Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia and the Chechen Republic. At first we were taken to die - a small hajj. It includes a bypass of the Kaaba (the Kaaba is the main shrine of Islam, a cubic structure that is located in the courtyard of the al-Haram mosque, or the Sacred Mosque - Note ed.), which needs to be done not during the Hajj itself, but at any other time. Then I saw the Kaaba for the first time - it is an indescribable feeling. When we walked around it, it started to rain — everyone was happy about it, and even the men began to sob. It turns out that if this happens during a round of the Kaaba, this is considered a great blessing of Allah - in Saudi Arabia it rains very rarely. The rain began when we passed the Yemeni Kaaba corner, and lasted until we walked one lap. When you do namaz, you always pray in the direction of the Kaaba - and now I clearly see it.
After that, we walked between the hills of Safa and Marwah — seven laps had to be made there. In this place, the wife of the prophet Ibrahim, left alone with a baby in her arms, climbed up one hill or the other in search of water for the child. The child was tortured with thirst, he cried, and then kicked the ground with his foot, and a spring made its way from there - this is how the source Deputy appeared. He became more and more, until the woman, so that the water did not flow too much, said: "Deputy - Deputy" (that is, "Enough") - and the spring stopped.
A few days after that, we went to Medina - the last years of his life the prophet Muhammad spent there, where he was buried. We stayed there for two days. I spent the night in the grand mosque of an-Nabawi, where the Prophet and the Sahahaby — his associates — are buried (those who came with the Prophet to Medina, and those who accepted him there). On the second day, we, three women, asked to visit the tomb of the Prophet, to make a ziyarat, that is, to make a pilgrimage to the holy place. Close women are not allowed there, you can see only through the screen. Nevertheless, we waited and were able to pray.
Hajj
The hajj itself lasts five days. It begins with standing on Mount Arafat, where you need to spend a whole day. This is a very crucial moment. Of course, it is best to stand on the mountain itself, but if you are in the area near Mount Arafat, it still counts. And if many people were worried that they were not on a mountain, then I didn’t have such a feeling - I was pleased with the fact that I was here, I cried and prayed. Usually people on the mountain pray under umbrellas, and we had more comfortable conditions - we stood under a canopy. You need to pray all day long, from morning till sunset.
After standing on Mount Arafat, we went to the valley of Muzdalifa - it is located near Mecca, between the valley of Mina and Mount Arafat. There, at night, you need to collect stones: they are then used in the ritual of stoning the shaitan. We were taught everything by Arab women - they showed how many stones you need to collect, what size they should be.
In the morning we were taken to Mecca. There we had to make a tawaf — walk around the Kaaba seven times and then pray. When I got the prayer rug, my stones were gone - they say that the devil does not like to be beaten, and builds obstacles. For the ceremony you need a lot of stones, and I was worried, but on the way to the valley others shared with me.
The rite of stoning the shaitan is performed in the Mina valley. Stones are thrown into jamrata - three huge gray stone walls. You need to have time to do this before sunset. I heard that if you miss some element of the Hajj - you didn’t get to Muzdalifa in time, you didn’t arrive in Mina in time - the Hajj is not accepted, so we tried to do everything on time. It is allowed for someone to stone the shaitan with you instead of you - usually women, so that the crowd would not crush them, pass their stones to the men. The men from our group left that evening, and I went to stone the shaitan instead of them - in the end I threw eighty-four stones. After Mina, we returned and did a farewell tour of the Kaaba.
Too heavy moments in Hajj for me was not - we had a benign regime. In Mina we were close to Jamarat, and we didn’t have to walk long under the sun. Since there are a lot of people, Kaaba can be bypassed on several levels: you can walk downstairs, but there are a few tiers of balconies - all this counts. When there are a lot of people, there is a crush, many are lost. At other levels of people, it is easier to go. We were warned that we had to start walking a lot in advance so as not to get tired during the Hajj, so there were no difficulties with this either - we were already trained.
Male hajj is different from female. Women, unlike men, do not wear ihram - special white robes. For women, any clothing that meets Muslim standards is suitable, as long as it is neat and clean. There is a difference in rites too. Between Safa and Marwa there is a stretch of path that men must run, and women walk.
Men must go barefoot - our guys even earned corns. Women are allowed to wear socks or Czech-type footwear. During the Hajj, if he is committed by a married couple, you cannot have intimate relationships - this applies to both women and men.
In Hajj, we met women from different parts of the world, for example, when we were staying in Mina. We didn’t know each other’s language, but we talked all night — then you would insert some Arabic word, then you would remember English, you would show something with gestures; we showed photos of children, husbands from the phone, told us where we work. It is indescribable.
Khaji
The men who performed the hajj are called haji, and the women - hajiyami. They have long enjoyed great respect and authority. For example, my relative made three times the hajj before the revolution - then there was no such transport, money was needed, and those who performed the hajj did not return home for years. This is a very big mission and responsibility.
I returned from the hajj, but, as we say, the bag in which sins accumulate still hangs behind my back - now we must try to behave so that it is no longer filled. We still have a lot of work to do. Being hajji is very responsible, I have to be an example in everything. You need to be a noble person, you must be a friendly, knowledgeable, sincere Muslim. Calm came: this fard is very important, and not everyone can do it, but I could. I am grateful to the Almighty - this is the biggest gift I received.
Photo: Hajj
