A Letter From Hajj
Imran Musaji
Posted Jan 7, 2006 •Permalink • Printer-Friendly Version
One of my sons, Imran Musaji, is on Hajj this year, and after the collase of the Hostel in Mecca managed to get to an internet cafe last night to send me an email and let me know that he was alive and well, and that no one in their group was injured.
I will share some bits from his email as an update on the collapse in Mecca. In his email he said:
I was surprised to find that while Mekkah is the holiest of cities, it was Medinah that moved me, that was the most beutiful and welcoming, full of friendly people and alive day and night with a warm, reassuring presence. It was easy to contemplate oneself and to focus on prayers in that city, and I felt especially moved in the Prophet’s Mosque. There were some sillinesses, and some exasperating moments, but they were the exception.
Mekkah, on the otherhand, turns all that around. The city is dirty, grungy even. People litter, push, shout, fight. While Arabic traffic is always loud and unpredictable, Mekkans seem to take glee in scaring everyone, honking incessantly, and cutting each other off. Some traffic is even worse—wheelchairs for example. More deadly than cars, they DO run people over regularly and I shudder to think how many serious injuries like broken toes are caused daily. While I experienced the worst crowding and pushing at the prophet’s grave in Medina, there was at least an explicable reason for peoples mob mentality. Here in Mekkah I have witnessed stampedes and pushing and shoving and lifting because of a pigeon flying into the mosque. There are many reasons for this paradox, from population to history to psychology to philosophy. I can write about all that later.
While this strange atmosphere surprises me, and while the challenge is no longer getting to the city but seeking the spiritual moments WITHIN the city, I am glad to be here. The Tawaf (where we go around the Kabbah) was powerful and moving, and I was glad to go because I was able to greatly help a few members of our group to complete their own Tawaf because of my height. In fact, helping them was more rewarding and helpful to me than any prayer I could think of.
I understand that the collapse of the hostel in Mekkah has made the International news, so wanted you to know that everyone in our group is alive and well. We have heard that the count of the dead is now up to 50 with many more injured, and they are still trying to remove wreckage. The hostel housed mostly Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian, and Emirati pilgrims. The building was really close to the Masjid, and it collapsed just after salat, so it is possible that many of the occupants were outside at the time.
Strange as it may be, the deaths are not the most upsetting bit of this incident. For most of the people here the deaths are looked on as something of a blessing, as death on Hajj grants an instant “Go straight to Heaven” card, do not wait for Judgement Day, do not collect $200. Here, with millions of people, it is inevitable that people die every day. When they do, they are carried into the masjid for a last prayer, millions of people say a special, simple prayer for them, and then they are taken to “al harooj”, the cemetery. It is considered a blessing to die on Hajj by most people.
Personally, I am rarely upset by death as much as the circumstances and consequences involved. For example, the families who survived those individuals and will not have any chance to say goodbye—this upsets me. However many people may die, only one prayer is said, and no names are mentioned. There is no obituary or eulogy. You can neither see the faces, nor offer condolences to the family. There is no marker on the graves. This is both beautiful, and incredibly, overwhelmingly sad. While the cemetery here was a place of peace and calm, I worry about those survived by the dead and how they are handling this tragedy which seems to have been avoidable.
Also upsetting to me is the seeming obfuscation of the Saudi governement in releasing information (originally it was reported as a 4 story building that collapsed, only 14 people died, and all of the pilgrims were supposedly on an outing for the day). I feel particularly upset for those injured, and I pray for those who may still be stuck in the rubble. The dead had the least painful lot in all of this.
What we are hearing is that this was one of the many buildings that are old, and usually overcrowded with pilgrims from third world countries packed in like sardines. There may have been a fire that started the process of collapse, and there may still be live people buried in the rubble.
And tomorrow I will look toward the Masjid, and towering above the city, higher than everything else is a skyskraper under construction, perhaps a few hundred feet from one of the most sacred sights on earth. Millions (perhaps billions) of dollars spent by the Saudi Government for an ugly, monstrous tower, and I wonder how much it would have cost to maintain that hotel? Or at least to inspect it, and others like it, where those hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who are not from rich countries are packed in. How many other buildings are nearing catastrophe? How much would it cost to make changes that would reduce pollution, traffic, trash…
Am I in Mekkah, or am I in Babylon, standing in the shadow of a tower soon to be completed which seems to me, like a lot of things here, an affront—if not to God then to ourselves.
But I have found spirituality here, and great people, and beauty, and good company, and humor. I have glimpsed virtues, and lessons, and am glad to be here. I am grateful and blessed and inspired to be here.
It is just that I see signs everywhere that I might be one of the last generations of pilgrims who can still see through the veneer of all the newly built high rises to the underlying grace and awe and wonder. Left unchecked, uninspected, unrepaired, I feel this whole city might soon collapse. But the tower will be shiny, so who cares…
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