In the Land of Invisible Women (16 page)

“The area is very small and so crowded. So we decided to get women out of the sahn (Ka'aba area) to a better place where they can see the Ka'aba and have more space,” said Osama al-Bar, head of the Institute for Hajj Research. “Some women thought it wasn't good, but from our point of view it will be better for them…. We can sit with them and explain to them what the decision is [about],” he said. “The decision is not final and could be reversed.”

I knew I was privileged to be at Hajj at such a young age and as a single unaccompanied woman. I didn't know that one day I might be restricted from approaching the Ka'aba by the invisible and very devious forces always at work in the Kingdom. For now, I was already looking beyond the representative of the Custodians of the Sanctuary, already searching for my Maker. As our personal search was completed by the voiceless shrouds, I began to understand. Arriving in Mecca, at the threshold of the Ka'aba, I was entering a pristine, divine garden where all creation was welcome irrespective of what a male committee of mullahs might think. Here every life was equally valued and had been so for more than a millennium. I was walking in the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) into the House of God. I was walking into the light.

There could be no turning back.
¹²

THE CHILD OF GOD

C
ROSSING THE THRESHOLD, WE ENTERED the brilliantly illuminated marble mosque and walked onto a glossy causeway. Lanterns suspended from a ceiling high above our heads (each large enough to cage a man) spilled their molten light, bathing the sea of pilgrims in white brilliance. Dazzling rays chased out the encroaching night, left bereft at the threshold. Wave upon wave of pilgrims carried us forward like flotsam. Pilgrims moved no more than a quarter-stride at a time, edging cautiously, as though on the verge of a precipice. Each footstep of mine dissolved into the collective footfall.

We were on the ground floor of the three-story mosque, able to hold seven hundred fifty thousand at once. The oval-shaped mosque was a product of four expansions since the 1950s. The Saudis had dedicated more than $25 billion just to the renovation and modernization of the Hajj sites.

I gingerly moved forward, carefully judging my steps. The ground was cool and refreshing underfoot, a brilliant feat of underground water engineering. A network of pipes conducted cold water under the marble, vital when Hajj occurred in the hotter seasons and air temperatures here could exceed 129ºF.

To the sides of the causeway, carpeted areas were filled with pilgrims in different stages of supplication. Many sat, simply reading the Quran, or stopped to take sips of ice-cool ZamZam
⁸
water, stored in orange plastic urns stationed all around the mosque. For the first time I noticed my thirst, despite the humid night. They were drinking holy water, the same water that had arrived while Hagar searched desperately in the desert, fearful that her son Ismail might die without it. I remembered the story well:

While she ran frenzied, she left her child on the dusty desert ground. As the crying babe's heel struck the barren earth, ZamZam flowed for the first time, at exactly his footfall. The ZamZam still flows today deep under the ground below the Mosque, and has never run dry in the centuries since. Each Hajj, 141 million liters of ZamZam water are consumed by pilgrims and taken in containers to their friends and families at home.

In Riyadh, a blue-eyed Bedouin father had asked my permission to anoint his 16-year-old son with ZamZam water while the son lay in the ICU dying from terminal lymphoma. I watched as he applied the precious drops with his gnarled fingers, daubing it on like costly French perfume. His arthritic, roughened fingers, wet with ZamZam water, ran over the broken skin, bleeding, blistered, the holy water mixing with blood in wounds that had failed to heal themselves. The boy died hours later, but the family still thanked me, accepting his death as “God's will.” ZamZam has healing properties, and the poor father had wanted to try every last hope.

I looked at the lines of orange vessels surrounding the worshipers around me (more than 6,300 peppered the mosque) and at once knew this father must have collected the water here. ZamZam had galvanized his final hopes until lymphoma snuffed that flame too. Even ZamZam cannot change God's will.

At the very perimeter of the causeway, lines of wooden cubby holes no more than two feet high contained the shoes of pilgrims. Muslims remove their shoes to recognize the purity and cleanliness of any place of worship. Most were wrapped in small bags and stashed carefully away in the white wood pigeonholes until the pilgrims returned for the footwear when leaving the mosque. I kept my shoes with me in the small plastic bag, knowing well I would never be able to relocate them in the massive mosque.

As we descended yet another set of steps, the pilgrims ahead of us came to an abrupt standstill. Quickly we halted. I strained to see the cause of the delay ahead. Sounds vanished into silence. Thousands melted from vision. I found myself alone, standing at the gate of God.

I gazed upon the Ka'aba, eyes widening with wonder. The unobstructed view blurred with salty, unexpected tears. I was overwhelmed. A lump constricted my throat, then released, dislodged by a torrent of undammed, silent emotion. Tears were now flowing freely across my face, dampening the shabby veil around it. Unashamed, my feelings were vibrant with a divine energy.

I continued gazing. I was unable to peel my eyes from my Maker. He was here. He was everywhere. He had gathered me. He had forgiven me. My shoulders straightened, relieved of a heavy burden. My head lifted, unbowed without the weight of perpetual shame. My heart ached as it lurched open, stretching, suddenly swollen with relief. Inside me, the force chased away debris accumulated within once narrow, dark corners. I could hide nothing from Him and found myself no longer fearful of discovery. All my follies were exposed to my Maker and yet He loved me still.

In these brief private moments, I placed the burdens of my broken life aside, discharged of shame. I stepped forward lightened, free, absolved. In a cast of millions, in that moment of electric intimacy, my Maker welcomed me. Like the Prophet had said, “If you take one step toward God, He takes ten steps toward you.” I could feel Him hurtling toward me, a colossal, joyous Father. I stood before Him, at last, His child.

It was full minutes before I returned to my surroundings, to my senses. Other pilgrims were in a similar state of ecstasy. None was aware of any other pilgrim. I reminded myself of the effect of group dynamics in such a huge crowd but no rationalization could explain what I felt. I stared and stared at the cuboid building, bewildered at the energy emanating from its black-draped walls that beckoned me closer. It radiated light that even its sooty blackness couldn't extinguish. Here, there could be no shadow, only light.

My eyes strained to see something, anything, to explain the phenomenon. The black building reverberated with animal vitality as though a heart pumped within it, or a soul stirred under the black Kiswah. The Ka'aba actually seemed to throb. My eyes were liars. While I could see nothing, I knew what I felt: palpable Divinity, proximal Grace. God was very near.

Before Islam was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), when he was about 35 years of age, the Ka'aba had fallen into terrible disrepair, losing a roof, and the wealthy Quraish tribe set about restoring the former House of God to house their symbols of pagan worship.
¹³
Their efforts were thwarted by infestation. Symbolically, a snake had come to dwell in the walls of the Ka'aba. Eventually an eagle soaring overhead descended, snatching away at the frightening serpent which had a habit of emerging in the sunlight, scaring away the Quraish who wanted to rebuild the shrine to their idols.
¹⁴

During this time, four of the most powerful tribal leaders of Central Arabia disagreed on who should be allowed to place the revered Black Stone into its proper eastern corner in the Ka'aba after the building's renovation. Each leader believed himself the most worthy of this rare honor. Even though the Prophet was repelled by their pagan beliefs, he still mediated with dignity and kindness as the invited arbiter. Muhammad (PBUH), who by now earned the name “al-Amin” (most trusted), displayed his famed diplomacy, memorialized in a famous parable.

Rather than choose one leader over the others and so engender the perpetual enmity of the remainder, he sought to appease all. He asked each leader to grasp the corner of a four-sided robe or cloak, himself placing the Black Stone upon it. Together the leaders lifted the stone in the makeshift hammock, carrying it to the correct site in the building. The Prophet then lifted it from the cloth, returning it to its resting place, where it remains today. The leaders accepted the solution because of its perfect equality. So the stone has remained at the corner of the Ka'aba. Some choose to believe the Black Stone has been blackened by the absolution of human sin over the centuries.

I looked at the pilgrims kissing the Black Stone. I was disturbed by the paganistic and ritualistic qualities of the scene. But I knew this was an ancient rite utterly distinct from the stone worshipers of centuries earlier.

Muslims are very clear that only God is worthy of worship. The stone is only honored because Muhammad (PBUH) demonstrated his reverence for it by kissing it, but never worshipped it, worshiping only his Maker. The second Calipha of Islam, Umar ibn al-Khattab (580–644), came to kiss the Stone, and made the critical distinction once more.

“No doubt, I know that you are a stone and can neither harm anyone nor benefit anyone. Had I not seen Allah's Messenger kissing you, I would not have kissed you.”

Even from this remote distance, hundreds of meters away, I could see pilgrims struggling to touch the Black Stone, emulating this reverence stretching into lost centuries.
⁹
Some fortunates were close enough to kiss it as they revolved around the Ka'aba in ever-decreasing circles. Seized with fervor, others had stepped partway onto surrounding men in a quest to reach the stone which lay encased in silver housing about five feet from ground level.

So I found, as I would time and again in the days ahead, that in this holiest of Islamic rites, deeply pagan rituals had survived the passage of time, persisting even after the dawn of Islam.

The crowds ahead had eased enough for us to see that the congestion would be too great for us to make circuits on the lower levels. We headed for the immense roof to begin our Tawaf.

We hurried to find the green marble demarcation in the floor which specified the site of the Black Stone far below us, the marker for each one of the seven counterclockwise circuits we would perform. In these circuits, we were following in the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who had circumambulated the Ka'aba in the same way.

I looked upward into the night sky. Above us in the heavens, angels were similarly revolving around the Baitul Mamoor, the heavenly home to the Throne of God said to be directly above the Ka'aba. When we identified our starting point, we made the Takbir. Lifting our right hands up to the Ka'aba, facing it with our palms, we hailed God, “Allah hu Akbar! Allah hu Akbar!”

Randa and Sherief led the way at a brisk pace, counting our first Tawaf.

It would be hours before we could finish. My pilgrimage had begun.