National Geographic: Inside Mecca
October 22, 2003 7:00pm
October 23, 2003 2:00am
What do a successful executive from suburban Malaysia, a religious radio commentator from rural South Africa and an Irish-born college professor from the United States have in common? They’re all about to embark on the spiritual journey of a lifetime — the sacred Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca known as the hajj.
With privileged access to Islam’s holiest city, a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIAL follows these three Muslims from different backgrounds as they embark on an epic five-day reaffirmation of faith and quest for salvation. “Inside Mecca,” airing on PBS Wednesday, October 22, 2003, (check local listings), captures the look and feel, spiritual uplift, claustrophobia, grandeur and grit of the largest annual gathering of Muslims in the world.
One of the five pillars of Islam, the hajj is required of all who can manage it at least once in a lifetime. Each year, Muslims from all over the world travel to Mecca to praise and give thanks to God, to ask pardon for their sins and renew their spiritual commitment through an elaborate series of rites and rituals.
“Inside Mecca” intimately documents the pilgrimages of Fidelma O’Leary, Ismail Mahbob and Khalil Mandhlazi, beginning with their preparations at home and carrying through to the climactic events of the hajj itself. For each, the journey presents a unique challenge. Mahbob, a successful Malaysian businessman, must leave behind his family and the material comforts to which he is accustomed in exchange for the austere lifestyle of a pilgrim. Mandhlazi, who takes to the radio each week to bring the teachings of Islam to his fellow South Africans, seeks a chance to see an ideal world of Islam in action, yet finds that even Mecca is not free from economic and racial discord.
Perhaps the most striking story is that of O’Leary. A blonde, green-eyed woman with a faint Irish lilt, she hardly looks the part of the stereotypical Muslim. Born in Ireland to a devout Catholic family, O’Leary converted to Islam while in college. Now, she embarks on hajj having fully embraced the faith, but there are moments when it seems her fellow pilgrims have difficulty accepting her as a peer.
“I had some women in my group try to tell me what it’s like to be a Muslim and ask me, ‘Are you really Muslim?’” said O’Leary. “I think they forgot for a moment that you can only be here if you’re Muslim. It gets a little bit tiresome day after day. It can be upsetting.”
Since hajj calls for a state of ritual sanctity and mental purity, pilgrims must be patient and persevere, not letting themselves be swayed by anger or frustration. Despite the physical and emotional challenges that each pilgrim faces on hajj, the spiritual rewards of performing the pilgrimage prevail.
“Inside Mecca” also tells the story of an ancient holy city that welcomes some two million visitors at the same time and accommodates everyone with relative ease and efficiency. Yet, behind the scenes in Mecca, planning for the hajj is a monumental effort that requires year-round planning.
“If you can imagine having 20 Super Bowls in one stadium, when two million will come to the same stadium, and if you add to it that these two million people will be taking part in playing the game as well … it may give you a glimpse of the preparations needed for … that mass movement represented by … hajj,” says Iyad Madani, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Hajj. “Sometimes I have a hard time convincing people that we never stop preparing for hajj. We prepare for hajj every single hour. During hajj. Immediately after hajj. Before hajj.”
Truly, Mecca is a city like no other. At its heart is a great mosque called the al-Masjid al Haram, and at its center is the Kaaba, the 50-foot tall, black-draped shrine that is Islam’s most revered structure. While there are many stories detailing its origins, according to Islamic teachings God commanded the Prophet Abraham to raise the foundations of the Kaaba as a place for worship. Thousands of years later, after the Kaaba had become a center of pagan worship, the Prophet Muhammad cleansed it of its many idols and rededicated it to the worship of the one God, who in Arabic is called Allah. Today, pilgrims retrace the steps of Abraham and Muhammad as they perform the rites of the hajj with their fellow pilgrims.
Part of Mecca’s mystique stems from the fact that non-Muslims are strictly prohibited from entering the city. For this reason, very few non-Muslims have ever witnessed the rites and rituals of the hajj. To gain access to the city for “Inside Mecca,” National Geographic assembled an all-Muslim production team. Led by Anisa Mehdi, who, in 1998, was the first American woman to report on the hajj on location in Mecca for U.S. television, the team obtained many never-before-seen images that capture the essence of Islam’s remarkable pilgrimage.
