Is Al-haj Rituals Paganism ?

My friend said while rubbing his hands with relief and smiling a sly smile that showed his molars, and his eyes shone with that sparkle that appears on the face of a boxer when he prepares to deliver a fatal blow.

- Don't you notice with me that the rituals of pilgrimage to you are outright pagan? That stone building that you call the Kaaba, and you touch it and circumambulate it, and stoning the Devil.. and jogging between Safa and Marwa, and kissing the Black Stone..

And the story of the seven rafts, the seven stonings, and the seven jogs, which are remnants of the myth of the talismanic numbers in ancient sorcery, and the garment of ihram that you wear over meat.

Do not blame me if I hurt you with this frankness, but there is no shame in knowledge.

He slowly exhaled the smoke of his cigarette and watched me from behind his glasses.

I said quietly:

- Don't you also notice with me that in the laws of matter that you have studied, the smaller one circumambulates the larger one?

The electron in the atom revolves around the nucleus, the moon around the earth, the earth around the sun, the sun around the galaxy, and the galaxy around a larger galaxy, until we reach the “absolutely greatest” which is God. .

And you are now circumambulating around it within your solar system despite your nose, and you have no choice but to circumambulate, for nothing is fixed in the universe except God, who is the Samad, the Steadfast, the One who is still, and everyone is in motion around Him.

This is the law of the largest and least in physics.

As for us, we circumambulate by choice around the house of God..

It is the first house that man made to worship God.

From that time immemorial, it became a symbol and a home for God.

Don't you go around a mummified man in the Kremlin, glorifying him and saying that he benefited humanity, and if you knew Shakespeare's grave, you would race to visit him more than we race to visit Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him..

Don't you put a bouquet of roses on a stone monument and say that it symbolizes the unknown soldier, so why do you blame us because we throw a stone on a symbolic monument that we say symbolizes Satan?

Do you not live in a jog from your birth to your death, then after your death your son starts jogging again, and it is the same symbolic journey from Safa (purity or emptiness or emptiness a symbol of non-existence) to Marwa, which is the spring that symbolizes life and existence..

From nothingness to being, then from being to nothingness.

Is this not the pendulum movement of all creatures?

Don't you see in the rituals of Hajj a deep symbolic summary of all these mysteries?

And the number 7 that you are making fun of.. Let me ask you what is the secret that the degrees of the musical scale are 7 sol la se do re mi fa, then after the seventh denominator the answer to the sol comes again.. We do not find 8, but rather we go back to seven other degrees and so on, as well as the degrees of the spectrum Light 7 Likewise, electrons revolve around the nucleus of an atom in ranges 7, and the fetus is not complete except in the 7th month, and if it is born before that, it dies, and the days of the week are with us and with all members of the human race 7 and they put it like that without sitting down and agreeing..

Doesn't that indicate anything..or are all of these sciences also talismanic sorcery?

Don't you accept a letter from your sweetheart... Are you pagan? So why do you blame us if we kissed that black stone that our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, carried in his dress and kissed him? There is no paganism in that at all.. because we do not turn our worship rites towards the stones themselves.. but rather towards the deep meanings, symbols and memories.

The rituals of Hajj are several occasions to move the mind, rekindle feelings, and arouse piety in the heart. As for the ihram garment that we wear over the flesh, and we stipulate that it not be stitched, it is a symbol of leaving the adornments of this world and of complete detachment before the presence of the Creator. And we say: Nothing befits the majesty of God except to be stripped and to take off all adornments because he is greater than all kings, and because nothing is appropriate in standing before Him except complete humility and detachment. and riches.

Hajj is a great gathering and an annual conference.

Likewise, the Friday prayer, which is the small conference in which we meet every week.

They are all beautiful meanings for those who think and meditate.. and they are far from paganism.

And if you stood with me in Arafah among several million people saying God is great and reciting the Qur’an in more than twenty languages and chanting “Labbaik, O Allah, at your service” and crying and melting with longing and love – you too would have wept without knowing and dissolving in the great crowd of people. He holds the reins of everything.