The author is performing his Hajj this year. It gives a different, if very subjective, reflection of some recent events.
In the embrace of Islam, Fuad Nahdi in Mecca
The Guardian, 4 February 2004
It is as strange as Mars, but less lonely. Calm has returned to Mina, the huge tent city south-east of Mecca where a tragic accident killed more than 250 Muslim pilgrims on Sunday. Such is the buzz within the camp that, only a few hours after the event, life returned to normal - except, of course, for those directly affected by the disaster.
Others were glued to radios or to mobile phones, and crowds gathered around the few television sets that were available. As a mark of reverence for their fellow pilgrims caught up in the disaster, people everywhere organised impromptu prayers for the dead.
However, the cloud of sadness over the event was mixed with a sense of optimism: in retrospect, the deaths seem so unnecessary but, people said, there are worse ways in which one can lose one’s life - by Israeli bullets in Palestine, American ones in Iraq, Russian ones in Chechnya, and Indian in Kashmir. In all, it was felt that dying at Mina was a much more satisfactory manner to end one’s life. These dead can only be martyrs.
The experiences of the past few days have more than prepared the pilgrims for the inevitability of death. As a result, the disaster is already a distant memory. Today many pilgrims, laden with their personal belongings and memories of one of the most arduous religious experiences known to human beings, will leave Mecca for Medina, the city where the Prophet of Islam is buried, on their journey home.
As I leave Mecca, I too harbour fond memories of the hajj. On Saturday, more than 2 million Muslims were gathered around me. The prayers said there were the culmination of this unique coming together of humanity, as Muslims from over a hundred countries gather in a stunning visual reflection of the diversity and richness of the Islamic universe.
For 14 centuries, merchants, sultans, saints and Sufis have gathered here to exchange views not only about God, but about political realities facing the global family of Muslim faith, the umma.
The overall mood in the gigantic mosques and the tent cities seems calm, a far cry from the usual western perception of the endlessly agitated Arab street.
“You, British?” Well, certainly. This produces an embrace, and an offer of tea and sweets; then I am expected to explain the deep mystery of Britain’s policies vis-à-vis the Muslim world. Palestine is still an open wound. And now there is an intifada in Baghdad. Why is Blair behaving like an American Bible-basher? There is little hostility, but much bafflement: most of the queries express a genuine concern about British behaviour.
Everyone here believes that Muslims have the right to expect more wisdom from Britain, whose empire once claimed Islam as its most widely followed religion.
Muslim politics and the cack-handed, vengeful Americans, are discussed between prayers. But people, while angry at the west’s blundering into Iraq, and its kid-glove treatment of Ariel Sharon, lack any noticeable Osama bin Laden-style hatred. They are just mystified.
They are deeply confused by the conflicting messages coming out of London and Washington: the politicians who call for a Middle East in which the wishes of the people will be paramount, but who then ignore these wishes.
Everywhere I find well-produced leaflets focusing on spiritual aspects of hajj. The literature is more inclusive and more tolerant than one used to expect - in the past, this kind of spirituality would have been banned, or cursed from the pulpits.
The men in uniform are looking for political troublemakers, and no longer bother to harass Muslims who have brought with them traditional practices that the official royal scholars consider unacceptable, such as religious songs and chants. The religious thought-police, once all-powerful, and perfectly able to administer a caning if they overheard a religious poem they considered improper, seemed subdued and disheartened. Everyone is, in consequence, having a good time, within an atmosphere of prayer and meditation.
Last week, in Jeddah, my car was stopped and thoroughly searched at least three times. My fellow passengers joked that we were stopped because two of the passengers looked like mojahedin, with long beards.
There are fewer Saudis, particularly from the central regions of the country from which most extremists are said to come. Those who have made it complain of endless difficulties in getting the necessary papers. The pre-hajj bureaucracy, I am told, is now used by the police to screen potential extremists.
Non-Saudi scholars are currently playing a more visible role. Once the mosque in Mecca was a great university, in which scholars from across the Muslim world - men and women - could teach to pilgrims and residents alike. That remains a distant memory, but one can notice from the wholesomeness of the prayers being recited, and the depth of the issues explored in sermons and impromptu study groups, that this hajj has somehow returned the pilgrims to an older and less disturbed, less totalitarian age. The people pray for peace in the world and relief for human suffering.
Between noon and sunset the Islam perceived by the west is abolished, overwhelmed by mercy, prayer and forgiveness. The crowd remembers that this is an anticipation of Judgment Day, and is properly contrite and reflective. There is no more room for conspiracy theories, religious hatred and sectarian rancour. It is a pity that western analysts and policy makers can see and feel nothing of this.
· Fuad Nahdi is editor-in-chief of the Muslim magazine Q-News