The Five Pillars: Hajj (Pilgrimage)

It has been almost one month since I posted on my blog, because I have been on a four-way Hajj.

My primary Mecca was San Francisco, where my work sends me every year in November. Whenever I can, I stay afterward to enjoy some free time in the Bay Area, and also to make a secondary pilgrimage, to the home of my cousin Doris, who lives on top of a mountain in Saratoga. My third destination this year was Berkeley, where one of my old housemates lives, and finally, I paused in Kentucky on my way back to the East Coast, to celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving with my family.

My travels and my work and my inattention to this blog project meant that I skipped four Bahai holidays in November, and overlooked the beginning of Advent for liturgical Christians on Sunday, November 29. The moon waxed full on the first day of my travels on the West Coast, and it was new again by the time of Thanksgiving in Kentucky. This new moon brought with it the beginning of the Jewish month of Kislev, which will end with Hannukah; the Hindu month of Agrahayana; and the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah, the final month of the Muslim year, and the month of the Hajj.

HAJJ #1: SAN FRANCISCO

My trip to the Bay Area coincided, uh, by the grace of God, with the nationwide protest against California's passing of Proposition 8, the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment. For me, and my Hajj, the gilded dome of San Francisco City Hall stood in for the Ka'aba, and two handsome local activists kissing behind the speakers' podium stood in for an imam's call to prayer.

The fight in California, of course, was not irrelevant to the subject of religion, with the "yes" side arguing strenuously that gay marriage leads to religious discrimination and sanction for punishment against denominations that preach against homosexuality. Personally, I don't think these arguments wash, of course, and yet pro-gay-marriage advocates don't always do all they can to disabuse the evangelicals and the Mormons of these false notions. There were protesters at the rally carrying signs that said: "Destroy the Mormon church," "Fuck Mormons," and the word "mormons," with a slash through the second "m."

Other protesters took on the religionists much more tactfully and intelligently, by praising the Biblical relationships between David and Jonathan or Naomi and Ruth, for example, or pointing out what traditional marriage really means for those inclined to read the Bible literally. These signs reminded us of Jacob and his two wives, or King Solomon and his 700 wives, supplemented with 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). If I had brought sign-making supplies with me, I might have followed this theme and condensed a story told in the book of 1 Samuel about how King David added to his harem of 12 wives by slaying 200 Philistines and slicing off their foreskins as a dowry presentation for his new wife's father.

HAJJ #2: DORIS

Eighty-four years old, widowed, energetic, thoughtful, passionate, creative, and kind, my cousin Doris lives alone in a house on a mountain overlooking the village of Saratoga, and -- in the distance -- San Francisco Bay. She has oranges and avocados growing around her house, and when she found a dead deer on her property a year ago, she enlisted a neighbor to help her with the task of dragging its carcass into the woods. She is independent and fierce, and I look up to her the way I never have to one of my elders since I was a child. She sent regular birthday letters to me in Kentucky until I was 18, and then we lost touch until I started making regular trips to the West Coast in my thirties.

Doris founded the first Presbyterian church in Saratoga, and has been one of its elders for more than 40 years. She attends church every Sunday, makes food baskets for the poor, and recently lamented to me that she does not think she should go on her church's upcoming mission trip to Guatamala because of her age. Also, Doris voted against Prop 8. When I first came out as gay to her, she told me she thinks I am wonderful, and then she asked me why I don't have a partner yet. She asks me that every time she sees me, just like a Grandmother who wants a grandson to settle down with a nice woman and start a family. It's not annoying. It's kind of a pleasure.

Like me, Doris has differences with the religion she was raised to believe. She has strong words for Southern Baptists (her parents' denomination), and she doesn't shy away from her vocal opinion that my Fundamentalist Christian parents, in their late fifties, are too old to change their views. She and I disagree on that point. Her liberal attitude and free spirit and mistrust of Baptists notwithstanding, Doris also continues to speak the language of the Christian church. She places dilemmas "in God's hands," talks about "God's will" for her future, and when she is at her most outraged about the church's disapproval of homosexuals, her hands begin to shake as her eyes flash and she shouts: "Jesus died for all of us! He died for all of us!"

HAJJ #3: DAVID

Ah, beautiful David, with that energy, that smile, those legs, that way around a kitchen, that joy of living (and that long-distance girlfriend who remains in Washington, DC). Doesn't he need a concubine to complete that picture? Doesn't he know that's traditional? The shared source-text for our two faith traditions says so!

On the walk from the BART to his apartment, David told me about his first Yom Kippur experience in Berkeley. "It was so different from what I was used to, growing up in Philadelphia," David told me about his Berkeley High Holidays. "Usually, when they talk about the gates closing, it's fearful. You want to make it through, and you're afraid they're going to close on you. But these people out here... whoa! It wasn't like that. They were dancing in the aisles. They were singing at the top of their lungs. It's like the gates were closing, but they didn't care. They were going to storm those gates."

I thought of asking him if he'd be interested in going there for Shabbat while I was staying with him, but we both ended up having other plans Friday night. Still, on Saturday, with David I had the most religious experience of my West Coast journey, as we spent the day in the beautiful natural diversity of Marin County. We started the day in the tidepools, investingating the orange and rust-colored starfish and the crabs and mussels and snails. We climbed rocks to watch the waves crash, and then we climbed a mountain up into a redwood forest. By the end of the day we emerged on a bald hill overlooking the ocean, from which we could scan a 270-degree panorama, watch the fog roll in, and witness the sun sinking fast into the Pacific.


HAJJ #4: THANKSGIVING

My mother sat at the head of the table, and announced the Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table and naming one thing for which we are thankful. This tradition began when Thanksgiving was just me and my sister and my parents as a group of four. In recent years, we've morphed into more of a motley collection of single or widowed cousins or friends of my parents -- compensation for the fact that my grandparents are dead, my parents are both only children, and my sister and I are childless.

This year, we had ten people around the table, including my sister's new boyfriend, who had never gathered for Thanksgiving before. The "thanks" that each of us spoke aloud largely centered on being thankful for the group of people assembled, and for the health of a hospitalized cousin who just beat prostate cancer. On my turn, I followed suit, naming the same things. I had other ideas in my head, such as thanks for all the workers involved in getting the food to our plates, praise for my mother's work in the kitchen, thanks for the turkey who gave its life, a recognition of the white settlers' unfairness to the native people, and gratitude for the Obama win -- but I tend to censor myself in my parents' home.

At the end of the go-around, my father concluded with a formal prayer to God, in Jesus' name. He repeated the thanks for the cousin's cancer dodge (my dad had a cancer scare of his own this summer that he didn't mention), and for the family members who had gathered. He thanked God for the food that God had set before us, and he asked God to be with those who do not have enough to eat. He asked that God's will be done in all things, and he compared us to the food with favorite phrase of his asking God to "bless this food for the nourishment of our bodies, and us for your service. All these things we ask in Jesus' holy name, Amen." This is the way he prays.

Ramadan, part ten (Laylat al Qadr)

Sunday was Laylat al Qadr, the night observed during Ramadan as the anniversary of Allah revealing the first verses of the Koran to Mohammed -- but I don't remember this being mentioned at the progressive Muslim group's iftar I attended.

The iftar was held in a suburban townhouse in Virginia, where I arrived with my potluck offering of steamed green beans and peppers, along with a fellow I'll call BD, who picked me up in his SUV at the Metro. We arrived a few minutes late, and the religious roundtable had already begun in the living room off the foyer. I put my bags down and quickly shook hands with a couple of men who were watching the Redskins game off the other side of the foyer on the largest television I have ever seen in my life, before pulling a chair into the circle in the living room.

The group was in the midst of going around the circle explaining what Ramadan had meant to each of them this year. As I sat down, a woman who had converted to Islam four years ago was explaining how she often brings food to her colleagues in her office, and that this year, during Ramadan, she asked for donations for the food, and would be applying those donations toward feeding the poor.

Others talked about working harder this year to make it a priority to pray with their family, about feeling closer to God during Ramadan, or about their realizations about certain aspects of their faith -- such as how Allah has planned the Fajr well, making it the shortest prayer of the daily five, so it's easy to get up and do it quickly, and go back to bed, if you want to. One man shared that his new workplace is closer to a mosque than he’s ever before, so he's been able to pray with a community more often during the week. One woman shared that her work to coordinate holiday events for others had distracted from her own observance of Ramadan.

On my turn, I shared versions of thoughts that I've already written in this blog, including the note that -- while it might seem more pagan than Muslim -- Ramadan had connected me to the rhythms of the natural world, through paying attention to each day's sun-up and sunset, and through my initial sighting of the moon that had set the holiday in motion. The leader of the group, a convert from Christianity whom I'll call Richard, piped up to say that Islam is a "natural religion" and that noticing the sun and moon is part of it, "as long as you don't start to worship the sun – worshipping created things, instead of the Creator!"

I noted that this statement echoes almost word-for-word some instructions given by Paul to Christians in the book of Romans, and that led to a short discussion of Islamic/Christian overlaps. Richard then reminded the group that he had converted to Islam shortly after September 11, 2001, while he was a Christian Marine researching Islam in order to debunk it. A gregarious man with a loud voice, big smile and a lot to say, Richard delivered his punchline: "I picked up the Koran wanting to prove it wrong... And instead it proved ME wrong!"

Next, a woman spoke who had found her Ramadan to be difficult. She found that she couldn't eat after the fast, she said, because her "stomach shut down," so then she would be unable to fast the next day due to hunger. She would eat like normal that day, and then try fasting the day after that, and the cycle would begin again. She seemed somewhat ashamed of her failure to fast, and the group was instantly very supportive, offering Islam-sanctioned alternatives, such as feeding iftar to others who are fasting, or feeding the poor. There was lively discussion about what alternatives are acceptable, with group members deferring to an agreed-up on expert in the room, a woman I'll call Alia, who went on the Hajj last year.

Alia explained a complicated bartering system of equivalent actions that can cover for a day of breaking the fast, or multiply the days that you did fast, and so on, which I could not retain well enough to repeat. There was some laughter from the group about some of the barters, and Alia explained that "When you hear it explained in English it sounds like a point system, but in Arabic the word for it is 'reward.' It's a system for setting up your reward."

(This resonated with something I recently read regarding Islam. I read that once the Ramadan fast is over, if you fast for six days in the following month as well -- though there is debate about whether the days must be consecutive -- Allah will credit you with having fasted for an entire year. Knowing that the Yom Kippur fast is coming up next week, and that fasting can be appropriate for the Hindu holiday of Navaratri that starts tomorrow, I figure I will get some fasting in during October that may count for three different religions at once!)

Soon, it was sunset, and the dates were passed around before prayers were held in the basement. I volunteered to be on childcare duty upstairs with a couple of others who weren't praying, and once the group downstairs had returned, we all broke our fast, in the most convivial atmosphere I'd experienced yet for iftar.

Over dinner, people seemed more eager and willing to discuss religion than at the previous week's iftar, so I asked Alia about her trip to Mecca. She talked about what it was like to worship with millions of people at once, and how in Saudi Arabia, when the call to prayer is sounded, people stop in their tracks and pray. She found the experience very moving, and while telling about it, she made mention that men and women pray together when the masses have gathered for the Hajj. I wondered aloud if this practice might sometime spread and become normative, if worshippers see that it is okay to mix the genders during such an important occasion as the Hajj. "I hope so," said Alia, and then she asked me when I had converted to Islam.

This was the most common question that others asked me at the iftar, and though Tish -- the hostess who invited me – had been very supportive when I clearly communicated that I am not involved in a conversion process, but in an exploration process, I found that the reactions I received at the iftar were definitely mixed, with some people registering a sort of "what are you doing here" look. Alia was not one of those, and she proceeded to ask me more questions about what I have been reading and doing, and how Ramadan has affected me.

I mentioned visiting mosques, both the primary Islamic Cultural Center, and the Ahmadiyya mosque. Alia raised her eyebrows at the mention of the Ahmadis. She listed off some of the Ahmadi beliefs, and then, referring to herself as a traditional Muslim, stated: “The Ahmadis don't think we are real Muslims."

We talked more about what the Ahmadis believe, and Alia echoed some negative sentiments I had already heard from BD in the car. "They believe that there were more prophets after Mohammed," said Alia. "But Mohammed was the last one. How can you believe there are more?"

Not having the same perspective on this issue as Alia, I mostly just nodded and asked her questions to learn more. When she got up to retrieve some more food, the woman who had been sitting next to her -- and whose name I did not catch -- leaned in to comment on my visits to mosques.

She was young and pretty and wearing a low-cut blue tunic with black leggings. She reminded me in appearance of a friend of mine with whom I waited tables years ago. She started out smiling.

"Are you going to get serious about becoming Muslim?” she asked me, her smile fading quickly into a scolding face. “Because you can't just go to any mosque you want to like some kind of religious tourist. Those people are there to pray."

She took issue with the beard I’m currently wearing, but I didn’t follow her implications of why it is offensive. She got up and walked away without giving me a chance for questions or a response, which both interested me and troubled me. I am sad that I somehow gave this woman the impression that I do not have good intentions. She avoided me for the rest of the night, so I had no further chance to ask about her thoughts. If I assume good intentions on her part, then I must accept that she felt a responsibility to protect the sanctity of other Muslims' houses of worship.

The evening went on, and I alternated between non-religious conversations and conversations beginning with the ubiquitous "When did you convert?" question. Eventually, I ended up deep in conversation with a man I'll call Basim on the topic of renewable energy and climate change. It was the friendliest and best conversation of the evening. We covered energy efficiency, solar gadgets, phytoplankton blooms as carbon sinks, tidal power, and more. Inevitably, Basim also found his way to the question: "When did you convert?"

He seemed unbothered by my explanation of exploration, and was eager to tell me teach me things he assumed I would not know – such as the existence of splinter sects with divergent beliefs.

"For example,” he said, “I belong to one of those other groups. I am Ahmadi.”

"Oh, yes, I know about Ahmadis," I replied. "I've been to an Ahmadiyya mosque. It was an accident; it's just the closest mosque to my work. I didn't even know Ahmadis existed until a few weeks ago."

Basim was smiling and delighted and twittering in that way people do when they want to tell you everything about a new topic.

He started in on explaining that Ahmadis “… believe that Jesus survived the cross and ..."

"... went on to die of old age in Punjab," I finished.

"Yeah!" said Basim. "And we also believe that Jesus' second coming was fulfilled by ... "

" ... Mizra Ghulam Ahmad, who was also the Mahdi," I finished.

"Oh my!" Basim exclaimed.

I was worried that I was being snotty by showing that I had done my homework on the Ahmadis, but Basim seemed clearly pleased that a random non-Muslim white boy would know something about his religion. He was familiar, of course, with the mosque I'd attended near my work, and the two of us talked for awhile about the book the imam had given me there. Basim's wife was getting ready to go, so eventually we had to cut our conversation short, but not before he explained why he was so happy to meet somebody who had been to an Ahmadiyya mosque.

"You see, there are all kinds of Muslims in the world," he said. "But mainstream Muslims, they reject us. They say we are not real Muslims."