Here I come, O Lord (final)…My Spiritual journey to Mecca for HAJJ
Cont'd from Friday, 26 March
By Justice Saeed Kwaku Gyan
Their good names are now cast in gold. Countless numbers of the faithful remember and pray for them every day-ceaselessly.
The first place the Prophet lodged in Medina, after fleeing from Mecca, is called Quba. A big Mosque has been constructed over this place. It is equally customary to visit this place and to perform ritual prayers in honour of the Prophet.
Equally significant to visit and offer prayers is the grave yard of the martyrs who perished during the Battle of UHUD as a result of the tragic betrayal of the Prophet's trust. The Battle of UHUD was the second battle the early Muslims in Medina fought against the Meccan invaders. The first was the Battle of BADR where 300 poorly equipped Muslims routed a thousand experienced and well armed Meccan army. The Meccans triggered off the Battle of UHUD in order to avenge their humiliation at Badr. The Battle of UHUD took place some distance from Medina. Ultimately, the Muslims had 700 fighters as against a more experienced and far better prepared and equipped Meccan Force of about 2,500.
Against this back ground, the Prophet posted 50 Muslim fighters to guard a strategic narrow hilly pass and with specific instructions to remain on guard there what ever was the outcome of the ensuing war. The war broke out and the Muslims appeared, initially, to have routed the larger Meccan Army and put them to flight.
At this stage, majority of the 50-man Muslim guard disobeyed their Commander as well as the very specific and strict instructions of the Prophet to keep to their post come what may. Only the commander and a small number remained at post.
A smart General of the fleeing Mecca Army noticed the security breach and remobilized the Meccans to regroup. They easily killed the few remaining Muslims on guard at the pass, took over the overlooking mountain and suddenly attacked the seemingly victorious Muslim army from behind, thereby inflicting on them a painful defeat. The Muslim casualty level was high and devastating.
The Prophet himself was almost fatally injured. He lost a number of his front teeth. He was even declared by the enemy forces to be dead. The few remaining Muslim guard, who held out at the pass at Uhud and who were easily slain by the Meccans, were buried at the battle ground. That grave yard has been sanctified and preserved as an eternal testimonial and a reminder of the terrible consequences of disobedience and betrayal of trust. For 1,500 years, Muslims have regularly visited this sacred Grave yard of the Martyrs of Uhud to pray for them and to recall their sacrifice for the survival of Islam.
Standing and praying at this spot, and looking at the mountain which the Meccan army captured and then succeeded in turning defeat into sweet victory for themselves, it occurred to me that the everlasting lesson of the Battle of UHAD is that, even today, and to the end of time, every Muslim who conducts himself in a manner which undermines Islam or brings the religion and the Holy Prophet into disrepute repeats the CRUEL BETRAYAL at UHUD and thereby joins the party of those Muslim guards who caused the Muslim defeat at the Battle of UHAD by reason of their disobedience and betrayal. This grave yard, accordingly for ever, reminds Muslims of the grave danger in disobedience to lawful authority and the devastating price of personal betrayal of a great cause.
Today, Medina is a sprawling and growing city, with high-rise solid marble-clad buildings dotted all over the place. Like Mecca, Medina is exploding into a city of huge hotels and mighty commercial edifices. And yet, my HAJJ colleague, Alhaj BALA, a prominent Kumasi businessman, told me that when he first visited Medina in 1976, it was an ordinary-looking small township with dirt streets everywhere. The transformation is phenomenal.
Before, we departed from Medina for Mecca, I decided to go round the Prophet's Mosque and to examine whom each set of the intricately decorated Golden Gates had been named after. My expedition started around 8.00 p.m., after the last evening prayer (Ishah). When I got back to where I had started, it was nearly 2.00 a.m.
That should give an indication of the sheer size of the Mosque. Little wonder then that, during the HAJJ season, if you entered the Mosque without taking specific note of the number of the Gate you had entered through, and considering the large crowd of worshippers gathered therein, you would get completely lost in the bowels of the giant Mosque of the Holy Prophet at Medina.
Yet, as I later found out, this Mosque is not anywhere near in size to the Grand Mosque of the KAABA (THE HARAM) in Mecca!.
One great and truly remarkable feature of Medina, and I found the same to be true of Mecca and other Saudi cities too, is the fact that MOSQUES have sprung up there as though they were mushrooms. Many of the Mosques are named after distinguished and notable Companions of the Prophet. One such Mosque is named after BILAL, the first ever MUEZZIN (i. e. the caller to prayer at the Mosque). He was a BLACK freed slave and one of the earliest persons to accept Islam.
The five ritual daily prayers are rigidly kept. As soon as the call to prayer is heard, every shop is hastily closed. Most often, this is done with scanty textile curtains. The shop owners and their attendants would even sometimes leave you behind in the shop and go for prayers at the nearest Mosque. And here, I speak of even very expensive jewellery shops and other Departmental Stores. If you decided not to join them you will often have to wait for them to return from the ritual prayer before accepting your money in payment of goods purchased.
In the circumstances, most shops found it more convenient to work during the night, and to re-opened very late in the morning, usually after 10.00 a.m.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
As a first time visitor to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, my immediate impression was that the Authorities there appear to be applying their awesome oil wealth in developing the Kingdom's physical infrastructure in a remarkable way.
Travelling from Medina to Mecca, and then to Jeddah, one is struck by the physical development. Mighty dualized high-ways are everywhere in evidence. The roads which cut across solid rock terrain, and tunnels dug through hard rocky mountains are sufficiently suggestive of the extraordinary investments made to open up their nation.
The electric lighting system prevalent there makes one wonder whether electric bills are ever paid. The light never seems to go off-night or day.
The countryside appears rather barren, and the terrain is everywhere either sandy or solid, mighty rocky mountains and hills. Yet one can find all sorts of fresh fruits, vegetables and foodstuff in their shops.
One marvels at the type of organization which had been put in place to facilitate the feeding of millions of pilgrims who persistently and systematically troop in to the Saudi Kingdom, without the country suffering from any suffocating shortages. The same goes for water supply.
Now, I believe that, what all these imponderable developments in Saudi Arabia today help to establish is to provide clear proof of the truth of the Holy Prophet Muhammed of Islam. They also proclaim the Might and Power of the God WHO sent the Prophet to deliver His message to mankind.
The extra-ordinary wealth and riches evident in Arabia today contrasts sharply and dramatically with the conditions prevalent during the early days of Islam.
It is reported that, on one occasion, very hungry companions of the Holy Prophet had marched to his house in the hope that, as their leader, they could find food there. In an interaction with the Prophet, he was compelled to bare his belly only for the starving visitors to notice that their Leader had tied a big stone against his stomach. The Prophet revealed that he had himself not had food to eat for three days, and that he had tied the stone to assuage his hunger pangs.
On that occasion, the Prophet told his starving companions that his concern then was not the pitiable poverty-stricken condition his followers were in. He told them about a vision he had seen and stressed that he was rather worried about the future condition of Arabia and the situation of his future Muslim followers. He predicted that a time will come when Arabia and the Muslims would become so fabulously rich that gold would literally fall from under the feet of Muslims, so much so that their wealth would become a great source of trial and tribulation for the Muslim nations.
Can any one doubt the literal fulfillment of this nearly 1,500 year-old prophecy at this point in time, considering what is happening to the Muslims and Muslim nations all over the world?
On Saturday, 14th November, 2009, we left Medina for Mecca to start the HAJJ activities. We set foot on Meccan soil after mid-night following a six-hour bus ride.
In Mecca, there are Secretariats established to receive all groups of pilgrims arriving for HAJJ. Here, each pilgrim is registered and given a water-proof wrist band with basic information in Arabic showing where you are accommodated and other personal particulars which could help in tracing you should you invariably get lost in the city.
Visibly tired as we were, after the long exhausting journey from Medina to Mecca, immediately after we had taken our lodgings, some of us decided to proceed to the KAABA to undertake the first set of activities connected with the HAJJ. This involves the ritual circling of the KAABA seven times. This is referred to as TAWAAF. Then you say two RAKAATS of ritual prayer near the KAABA. You then proceed to walk vigorously or trot seven times up and down two hillocks called SAFA and MARWA in symbolic imitation of the action of Hanna, the second wife of the Prophet Abraham.
According to Islamic traditional history, upon a directive of Allah (God), Abraham had taken his second wife and son Ishmael and abandoned them in the wilderness of Parran (now Mecca). As the infant boy lay on the ground crying and pounding its little feet on the ground, out of hunger and, especially thirst, his mother anxiously ran up and down the two hillocks of SAFA and MARWA in a vain search for water to quench her son's thirst.
After going up and down severally between these two hillocks, she came and found, to her shock and amazement, water springing from under the ground where her infant son had been pounding with his feet. That water came to be called ZANZAM and has ceaselessly flowed for thousands of years since the days of Prophet Abraham.
That spring water has now been piped and is available all over the Grand Mosque and is drunk by the millions of pilgrims who go for HAJJ. Millions of gallons of this water is drawn from the spring and is made available for all during the pilgrimage and to take home upon return.
This water is reported to have potent medicinal properties. It also quenches thirst in a wonderous sort of way whilst easing fatigue in a most remarkable way.
I beheld the KAABA, for the first time ever, late night of Sunday 15th November, 2009. It is a sight to behold. The KAABA grips one and catches your immediate attention with a mysterious sort of intensity as one beholds it. It stands as a tall, square and black structure within a large open space surrounded by the huge and expansive Grand Mosque of Mecca. There is a surreal luminosity about its blackness and exudes clearly a certain magnetic pull that is impossible to ignore.
In deed, one goes through a cascading mix of emotional expression as you perceive the KAABA in all its unusual simplicity. It is a spiritual transformation that is palpable, almost tactile and tangible. In short, the KAABA truly has a holy presence. Little wonder the tempo of emotive expression around and about the KAABA is awesome.
As late as about 2.00 a.m. when we first got to the precincts of the KAABA, you could count pilgrims in the hundreds of thousands. People were like ants milling around the place.
Clearly, one needs a guide to see you through the labyrinthine bowels of the Grand Mosque of Mecca which encloses the KAABA. The safest way is to go in a group and to ensure that you hold to each other by clutching the clothes of one another as you engage in the crunching and crushing effort, among the milling crowd, to undertake the ritual seven (7) times circling of the KAABA.
Sometimes, one almost feels like being caught in the folds of a huge python and being strangled by that monster. In a situation like this, it is apocalyptic to trip and fall. You may just be trampled upon to pulp. Whatever the value of what you drop, you do not attempt to retrieve it, lest you do so possibly with your life.
I observed that the precincts of the KAABA is the one place where, in a Muslim assembly, segregation on the basis of GENDER lost total meaning, as every body squeezed every other person in a tsunamic sort of movement. Every one was virtually oblivious of the others, and people were loudly reciting all sorts of prayers and supplications in all kinds of languages. It is the broadest manifestation of the quintessential, speaking in tongues.
I dare say that even though most of the activities associated with the HAJJ all come in the form of mass participation, the feeling and spiritual experience, more often than not, is personal, private and unique. Everybody who undertakes the HAJJ pilgrimage will have a special and peculiar experience of his own to narrate.
I know not what your faith or belief is. Nor even whether or not you have any concept of or belief in God. Speaking for myself, however, I can say without hesitation that HAJJ 2009 re-inforced in me the belief of a Supernatural Being, and the fact that God is not a fanciful, but a very tangible and palpably real Entity. I witnessed the manifestation of His Power, Might, Mercy and Grace in a very definite manner.
A few simple occurrences confirmed for me the physical reality of supernatural intervention in the affairs of mortal man – even ordinary sinners like me.
When I decided to undertake the HAJJ with my wife, my greatest preoccupation, my worry and concern was over her health, her safety and security.
My wife is afflicted with the sickle-cell disease. Stress, shock, strain, undue physical, emotional or psychological exertion usually pushes sicklers into a crisis. Sudden weather changes, especially cold weather, trigger off distressingly painful and frequently near-fatal sickling attacks. Previous experience had shown that almost always after my wife had been involved in organizing a big party, she suffered sickling crises owing to the stress and exhaustion entailed in such an activity.
The sickle-cell disease is not a very common medical condition which is known and can be easily diagnosed or treated every where, particularly outside Africa.
The HAJJ can be a really stressful, physically exacting and emotionally exhausting activity. It may therefore be said that the HAJJ activities cannot ordinarily be sickle-cell-patient-friendly. Despite the spiritual benefits, the dangers to her health and life were real and frightening. Consequently, prior to our departure, I prayed fervently and requested all my friends to offer intercessionary prayers.
In Saudi Arabia, something interesting and almost monumental happened. On Wednesday, 25th November, 2009, we left Mecca for MINA (the tent city) to start the HAJJ programme proper. Until then, the weather had been warm – even hot. It had not rained for a long time in Arabia, and no change in weather conditions had been expected.
However, just as we were about to settle in at MINA, there was a heavy thunder storm. It was reported that the storm caused deaths in the Arabian Port City of Jedda. It was that devastating.
For me, the sudden storm set off my worst night-mare. The weather had suddenly changed from being hot to being a frighteningly cold and windy affair. We were housed in “vulnerable” tents. I feared that my wife would naturally suffer a sickling attack. Incidentally, that night, I received no emergency call respecting her state of health.
The following day, my wife informed me about what she had experienced, upon her arrival at Mina. She said as soon as she settled down in her tent, and before the rain set in, she found herself in a trance-like state. She knew she was not sleeping, but then she found herself as though she was dreaming.
In that state, she saw herself walking towards a dark looking structure on which was boldly inscribed the Arabic expression which translates to the effect that there is none worthy of worship except Allah (God). She said, thinking it was a Mosque, she entered the structure and found herself sitting all alone inside.
My wife continued that, after a while, she heard a voice in distinct Fante language asking her why she was just sitting there and saying nothing by way of a prayer request or supplication. She looked around and saw no body. She then re-acted by asking aloud, also in Fante, whether what one had to do in that room was to make a request. Whereupon she raised her hands and prayed to God to free her from her sickle-cell condition to enable her complete all the activities, and to withstand the pressures, associated with the HAJJ pilgrimage.
Just then, she “woke” up from her “dream”. Soon thereafter, the storm set in, and with the heavy rain came the sudden icy-cold weather change. Despite not being properly clothed for the cold weather, she went through the night absolutely without any hint of a sickling attack.
Even more remarkable is the fact that for the one month that we were away in Saudi Arabia for the HAJJ, my wife was able to withstand all the rigours of the HAJJ activities. She walked and ran over long distances; she experienced extreme physical, emotional and psychological pressures.
She suffered no sickle-cell crises. She slept over-night in the open, and under rather cold weather conditions, at a place called Muzdailifa, as part of the HAJJ tradition. She went through numerous otherwise, physically crushing experiences, including the morbidly punishing schedule of circling the KAABA on several occasions under very humid conditions and having delicately to pick her way through very dense crowds.
On the day of our return to Ghana, we were held up at the Jedda Airport for some thirteen (13) hours and she was exposed to unexpectedly very cold weather, dressed in obviously inappropriate light clothing.
Absolutely to the glory of God, my wife went through all these without any sickling attack whatsoever. Additionally, since arriving home, she had gone through various other very stressful activities which, in the past, would almost certainly have sparked off a sickle-cell crisis.
None has so far occurred. Now, after 55 years of very regular, and persistent, sudden and crippling sickling attacks, can anybody give me a logical and physical explanation for this apparent dramatic and almost revolutionary transformation of my wife's health status? I personally have no human answer except my conviction that there had been a divine intervention.
My earnest prayer is that the mortal remains of my wife's sickle-cell condition, which were buried in Saudi soil, will forever remain interred there and that no ghost will ever pop up to haunt her again. Even for what has transpired thus far, I cannot thank God enough.
On my part, there are quite a number of spectacular testimonies I could give. For many a doubting Thomas, they may amount to nothing. For them, such incidents may just be mere co-incidences. But I sincerely believe that it went beyond happenstance. I sensed the Hand of God in all of that.
Perhaps, one simple example may suffice. Due to certain transportation challenges which confronted the Ghanaian HAJJ contingent, my colleague, Justice Tanko, of the Commercial Court, Accra, had persuaded a number of us to walk all the way from MINA to ARAFA on 26th November, 2009. Included in our walking party was 71-year old Alhaji Bala, a prominent Kumasi businessman. We had all obviously under-estimated the nature of the journey, having been gripped by the euphoria of huge columns of people trooping and chanting excitedly in the direction of ARAFA.
Inexplicably, I had all night suffered from a running stomach. I embarked upon the walking expedition without giving any thought to my condition. The journey took us five hours of brisk walking. We got to ARAFA and literally jumped from the boiling oil into the fire.
ARAFA is the heart-beat of the HAJJ. It is the place every pilgrim had to assemble for prayers and to listen to the HAJJ sermon.
Undergoing all the rites of HAJJ without going to ARAFA for that special exercise rendered the HAJJ pilgrimage null and void. In the circumstances, millions of pilgrims had gathered at ARAFA on that particular day. By sun-down, all had to depart from ARAFA and settle overnight at the open grounds of MUZDHAILIFA.
All countries had been given particular locations at ARAFA. Our group had to trace the location for the Ghanaian pilgrims. We got swallowed up by the dense crowd. For one and half hours, we battled desperately among this dense and opaque crowd trying to locate the Ghanaians. Where we had been trapped was a thick, dense forest of white human beings, none of whom we could get to speak English or give us appropriate direction.
After one and half hours, our situation appeared desperate and almost hopeless. Thick, tall Justice Tanko was our natural leader who cut through the dense human thicket by the sheer force of his size and who also by his height served as the guide-post for us to follow.
Clearly, we were lost. We were hungry and thirsty. We were naturally, physically exhausted and psychologically drained. We were losing steam. Yet, no salvation was apparently in sight.
Just then, a prayer dawned on my heart. I prayed silently and earnestly to God to save us; because we were clearly at the end of our tether.
Believe it or not, within just five (5) minutes of my passionate silent prayer, Justice Tanko sighted a black person talking on phone. He dashed towards him and thought he heard the man speak a Ghanaian language. The person turned out to be a Ghanaian. He helped us to locate the Ghanaian contingent. I rushed to the wash place to perform my ablutions to enable me say the afternoon prayer. Without realizing it, I had become highly dehydrated.
Just as I started performing the ablution, I went into a swoon and collapsed against a roofing sheet structure. I dragged myself up and moved to a resting place, received emergency medical attention and immediately went off to sleep for two straight hours.
When I came round, it then dawned on me how lucky I had been. Had Justice Tanko not detected the Ghanaian talking on telephone at the time he did and had I collapsed in the dense, anonymous crowd which we had been struggling through for one and half hours, I would today be a HAJJ season death statistic. Clearly, my life had been saved through a timely divine intervention.
It was consequently, with a great sense of relief that I landed at Kotoka International Airport on 12th December, 2009, by the first return flight (Egypt Air). To my amazement, just as the Aircraft taxied to a stop, I received a telephone call from my junior brother informing me that there was a bus load of people from my home town of Ekumfi Ekotsi at the Airport to welcome my wife and I from Mecca.
We were so tired that we had decided previously to take the very next flight straight to Kumasi, upon arrival at Kotoka International Airport. Being informed that an even larger group had assembled and were waiting for us at the outskirts of my home town, and further that the Chief of the town and his Elders were also sitting in state to receive us, we had to change our plans immediately and re-direct our way to my home town.
We ended up there as late as 4.00 p.m. The people were still waiting with their waiving handkerchiefs and cloths. The Chief and his Elders, who had assembled in the Palace at 7.00 a.m. were still waiting to welcome us. The welcome was euphoric and infectious.
I was dumb-founded and totally humbled. We had to sleep over in my home town, on the first day of our return rather than going to Kumasi. I am definitely sure that my wife and I received the largest welcoming party at the HAJJ village near El-wak Stadium than any other returning pilgrim.
How much more can I be grateful and thankful to God, my Creator and Provider. To Him, in deed, be the Glory.