The Hadj by Michael Wolfe

Author:Michael Wolfe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

The Bible casts Hagar in a passive role. Weeping, lost in a wilderness, she sits with eyes averted, unable to watch her child's death. Muslim legend describes a more active agent. In these stories Hagar runs between two hills, passionately seeking water in a desert. Her drive is emotional, physical, existential. At stake are faith and her family's survival.

The course of Hagar's quest, I now discovered, is still in active use within the building. Our last labor of the night was a ritual jog between the hills. The rite, called sa'y, takes place in the concourse on the long side of the key. To reach it, we crossed the Ka'ba floor, saluted the stone, then walked out of the courtyard, heading south.

A series of arches led through cloisters to a gate. Here the head of the mosque and its shaft were joined, forming a marble lane called the mas'a. Later I heard one hadji refer to it as the racecourse. I was unprepared for the length of this passage: a quarter-mile stretch of covered mall, split in two lanes for pilgrims coming and going.

The course began at the top of a hill called al-Safa, jutting from the base of Mount Qubays. It ended at the second hill, al-Marwa, in the north of the building. I had never seen hillocks housed inside a building; domes had been set in the ceilings to accommodate their crowns. A complete lap covered about eight hundred yards. Here, as around the Ka'ba, old age and illness were shown consideration. Down the center of the mas'a, on a median strip dividing the two lanes, frail pilgrims were being wheeled in rented chairs.

Saluting the shrine at the top of each relay, we completed seven lengths, or about two miles. My legs began to throb in the third round. The contrast between the mystical tawaf and this linear, headlong rush could not have been greater. Wandering loosely between fixed points, doubling back on itself around the hills, the rite expressed persistence and survival. The sa ‘y was not a circle dance. Its intent seemed to be to instill compassion for the victimized and the exiled. This was the mall of necessitous desire.

We finished our run and stepped down onto a ramp beside al-Marwa. By now our ihram towels were streaked with dirt and sweat. We had come through the ‘umrah. We were muta ‘ammirin. As we stood shaking hands (Mohamed Fayez high-fived me), two self-appointed barbers stepped from the wings, offering their services. In order to put aside the ihram clothes, a pilgrim who plans to return to them for the hadj is supposed to have a desacralizing haircut. Generally this means a token snip of three or four neck hairs. When it was done, we returned to Bab al-Malik for our sandals.

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