It’s done.
Everyone is absolutely shattered. The men are all limping around comically with blistered feet and chafed thighs, laughing as they compare freshly shaved heads.
 Nobody told them it would be this hard. In all their preparations, all their conversations with veteran hajjis, nobody had mentioned the mountains of garbage they walked through in Muzdalifa, or the prospect of marching six miles in cheap sandals through choking crowds desperately trying to keep your group leader's flag in sight.
Several pilgrims have wondered whether there’s some sort of conspiracy of silence at work among hajj survivors.
Maybe people just don’t want to discourage prospective pilgrims; maybe the experience gets rosier upon reflection. Or maybe it’s simply impossible to do these experiences justice with mere words and you simply have to experience it yourself.
Either way, it’s done. It was a religious obligation and it’s done.
For many, it was the hardest thing they’ve ever done, and at times it was sheer misery. But now that it’s over, they’re already getting a little nostalgic.
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
Photo: Young California pilgrims relaxing in Mecca after a grueling hajj.
Snapshots of hajj chaos:
• Imad Jomaa and his brother Ali spent hours wandering through the crowds in Mina, searching for somewhere to rest. But they couldn’t even sit on the sidewalk for long without being approached by a Saudi police officer yelling “Move hajji, move!” Finally they were taken in by a group of Iranian pilgrims, who offered food, water and a place to sleep for a few hours.
• Imam Moustafa Al Qazwini had to evacuate his son Mahdi from Mina after Mahdi collapsed due to illness, dehydration and a violent allergic reaction to mosquito bites. The ambulance was completely penned in by the crowds, so he half-carried Mahdi until he found a wheelchair for hire. Then he hailed down a motorcycle and squeezed both of them onboard for the final stretch back to Mecca.
• Yasmina Jennane spent 20 hours straight on a bus as it crawled through traffic on the road from Mt. Arafat. Finally the bus returned to Mecca while Yasmina’s husband Hakim completed the first phase of the “Stoning the Devil” ritual on her behalf. After a brief rest in Mecca, Yasmina and several others walked 45 minutes to Mina to reconnect with the main group, but had a hard time finding their campsite. Exhausted, they lay down and slept on the sidewalk of a highway overpass.
• In the chaotic 48 hours that followed Tuesday’s Mt. Arafat prayer vigil, the Costa Mesa pilgrim group splintered into multiple sub-groups. By Thursday afternoon, pilgrims began straggling back to their Mecca apartment building and swapping harrowing tales of confusion, exhaustion and hunger.
All were relieved to hear that despite the chaos, their pilgrimages were religiously valid.
One key point: the only truly non-negotiable aspect of the hajj is the Arafat vigil. All other steps, if missed, disrupted or taken out of turn can be compensated in a variety of ways — through extra prayers, slaughtering additional sheep or having a proxy perform the step on your behalf.
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
 The final step before pilgrims can leave the sanctified state of ihram: a head-shaving for the men and simple, symbolic trim for the women. Teams of barbers are on standby in Mina just outside the "Stoning the Devil" complex to provide the service for about $4 per pilgrim.
— Ashraf Khalil in Mina
A video clip showing pilgrims throwing seven stones each at a large wall symbolizing Satan. There are three walls inside the Mina complex, known respectively as the small, medium and large Satans.
The ritual is meant to symbolize each pilgrim overcoming his or her own temptations and inner demons. It all goes back to the Old Testament take of the Prophet Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his son on God's orders. The details differ slightly between the Old Testament and the Koran, but in the Muslim version, after God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael, Abraham was approached three times by Satan who tried to talk him out of it. Each time he resisted temptation and threw rocks at the devil to send him away.
— Ashraf Khalil in Mina
 After sleeping on the ground for a few hours in Muzdalifa, the pilgrims join a mass procession walking toward Mina to complete the ritual of "Stoning the Devil."  — Ashraf Khalil in Muzdalifa
Anyone out there still harboring any illusions that the hajj is simple or easy, please take a look at the following video clips. — Ashraf Khalil in Muzdalifa
 Here are some photos of pilgrims at Mt. Arafat. Click on the image here to launch a photo gallery.
— Ashraf Khalil on Mt. Arafat
The Costa Mesa pilgrim group has run into problems on the road from Mt. Arafat.
Snafus with the Saudi authorities meant the group's two busloads of pilgrims left late for the Muzdalifa Plain — where they were required to arrive before sunrise Wednesday to head off on foot for Mina and the "Stoning the Devil" ritual.
The Arafat-Muzdalifa road was absolutely jammed and after about five hours, it became clear the buses wouldn't make it to Muzdalifa before sunrise. Imam Moustafa Al Qazwini led one busload, about 40 people, on foot for a two-hour pre-dawn walk through a chaos of teeming pilgrims and choking exhaust fumes. A second bus full of female pilgrims was trapped even farther back on the road and several of the men in our group had no way of knowing if their wives were all right.
Our group arrived in Muzdalifa on time and slept for about two hours on the ground before continuing the foot journey to Mena. There they completed the stoning ritual, but then — according to Shiite custom — had to wait for confirmation that the ritual sheep slaughter had been carried out in their name by Saudi authorities. Until the slaughter is confirmed, the pilgrims cannot remove their ihram clothing.
For reasons still unclear, the slaughter confirmation — which normally takes about three hours — has stretched into more than a day.
As of this posting, it's Thursday morning in Saudi Arabia. The two busloads have split into at least four different groups with many members still unaccounted for. A large pilgrim group remains at a campsite in Mina — essentially trapped in ihram. Small groups are trickling in to the group's Mecca home-base.
"I didn't know it would be like this," said one tearful female pilgrim.
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
Here's a quick video clip showing our Southern California pilgrim group in their tent on Mr Arafat. Here, Imam Moustafa Al Qazwini is leading the group through their statement of intent to carry out the noon-to-sunset prayer vigil.
Apologies for the amateur quality of the video and for that annoying bit of dangling rope that I didn't notice when I was filming. — Ashraf Khalil on Mt. Arafat
National flags are everywhere during the hajj. Both as a display of pride and an attempt to keep track of one another, pilgrims here place their country’s flag on their buses, their bags and even on the back of their veils.
A quick glance through the streets or in Mecca’s Grand Mosque during prayers reveals flags from India, Turkey, Indonesia and Iran. One man sitting in the mosque last week wore a beige vest with “Kazakhstan” across its shoulders in large red letters.
But there are no American flags anywhere — despite a significant number of pilgrims from the U.S.
The group from Al Salam Tours in San Diego may not have U.S. flags sewn on its clothes, but members also aren't hesitant about telling people they’ve come from America.
Despite ongoing tensions between the U.S. and most of the Muslim world, the Southern California pilgrim group members say the issue really hasn’t come up.
“Not that many people have cared, which is actually nice,” said Ellen Hajjali. As a fair-skinned Muslim convert who wears the veil, she’s accustomed to sticking out in America. But Caucasian Muslims are a common sight during the pilgrimage — Bosnians, Albanians and American and European converts.
“There’s lots of people here with fair hair and blue eyes,” Hajjali said.
Blog Mapper: Tracking the hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
The cries of the hawkers started up as soon as midday prayers finished at Medina’s Mosque of the Prophet.
“Fifteen riyals! Fifteen riyals!” shouted a young man named Badr, switching between Arabic, Farsi and Urdu.
A crowd of women descended on his box of black and red abaya gowns, rifling through the contents and initiating polyglot negotiations.
Ten feet away, a man who identified himself only as Abdul Rahman sold multicolored scarfs for 5 riyals (about $1.50) each. The crowd nearly engulfed him, pulling fresh packages out of his hands before he could unwrap them.
Always keeping one eye peeled for the baladeya — the local police — the hawkers were doing a roaring business. Inside the more legitimate Medina storefronts, business was equally brisk.
“This month is worth the rest of the year for me,” said Ahmed Ali, an Afghan merchant who owns a clothing store.
Read on »
According to Hannah Allam of McClatchy Newspapers, those who can’t make it to the hajj this year will be able to experience it virtually.
Just make sure you figure out how to put on those virtual pilgrims' robes first.
Blog Mapper: Tracking the hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
The hajj is meant to be an escape from your everyday reality — a time to leave the material world behind, don humble pilgrims' robes and focus 100% on your relationship with God. But according to a front-page article in Thursday's Saudi Gazette, the material world will soon be whizzing through the air around Mecca's Grand Mosque.
Saudi authorities are establishing 70 different WiFi access points throughout the holy sites. WiFi Internet access will even be available inside the Grand Mosque. The spiritual implications of this move are still unclear, but we're expecting a fatwa any day now.
Blog Mapper: Tracking the hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
 Murtaza Sakha, walks on his tiptoes with an exaggerated side-to-side swing, as if his hip-joints are locked in place.
He can’t walk for very long, and often needs to be carried or pushed in a special chair resembling an oversized stroller.
Afflicted with muscular dsytrophy, Sakha, age 9, has been brought to the pilgrimage by his father Moustafa. Both are quietly hoping for a miracle cure for the disease that is systematically weakening Murtaza’s muscles.
Born in Southern California to Afghan immigrants, Murtaza had seen pictures of the hajj before, of course. But to actually be here, he says, is “amazing.”
His disability, however, is a serious concern amid the frantic crowds of pilgrims — particularly during the ritual revolutions around the Kaaba inside Mecca’s Grand Mosque.
“The first time we went, I was in the chair and it was way too crowded,” he said. “So we went back another time and I rode on my dad’s back.”
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
A pair of videos courtesy of guest videographer Mohammed Jafri.
The first shows hundreds of pilgrims crowding to get into the tiny cave where the prophet Muhammad is believed to have first received the message of God.
The cave, located in Mt. Hira outside Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is the site of the original miracle that led to the founding of Islam. Muhammad, then a wealthy merchant living in Mecca, is believed to have been meditating inside the cave when the angel Gabriel appeared, bringing the first revealed verses of the Koran, ordering him to read. Muhammad was illiterate, and said he couldn't, and then Gabriel ordered him to recite after him. The second video is MUCH weirder. The area around the cave is inhabited by a pack of wild baboons. On the day this video was shot, one of the baboons made moves to attack a pilgrim. The man fell while running away, badly cutting his foot.
Anyone out there with information or theories on how a family of baboons came to be living on a barren mountain in the Saudi desert, please write in. — Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
Far superior images will be running in the paper soon courtesy of photographer Irfan Khan.
But for now, here's a quick amateur video of Mecca's Grand Mosque shot from the 30th floor of a nearby building. If you look closely, you can see the motion of thousands of Muslim pilgrims performing ritual revolutions around the black cube of the Kaaba. Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
 The Hajj this year is an extended family reunion for Imam Moustafa Al Qazwini, leader of the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County in Costa Mesa.
His brother Mohammed, an imam in San Diego, is here; so are his sons Hadi and Mahdi, who are both studying in the seminaries of Qom in Iran. His father Mortada, who served at a mosque in Pomona for more than a decade and moved to Karbala after the fall of Saddam Hussein, has come to Mecca as well.
Qazwini comes from a family of "sayyids," the honorific bestowed on those who trace their lineage back to the prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima.
Religious service is in the Qazwini blood. Moustafa al Qazwini’s grandfather died in an Iraqi prison after a crackdown on rebellious Shiite imams. In 1971, when Moustafa was nine, his father fled Iraq with his family — one step ahead of a government execution order. Eventually the elder Qazwini settled in Pomona.
The Qazwinis have become possibly the preeminent Shiite religious family in the United States.
Of the six Qazwini brothers, four are imams in the U.S. and a fifth is completing his religious studies in Karbala. The sixth brother is the odd one out, a professor of biochemistry in the United Arab Emirates.
Now a third generation of Qazwinis is carrying on the family tradition.
“You’re exposed to it at a young age,” said Mahdi Qazwini, 20, who spent a year at Mt. San Antonio College and thought about studying law before deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“You see your father and your uncles and your cousins and everybody doing it, and it does encourage you,” he said. “When you’re part of a sayyid family, you do feel a little obliged to serve.”
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
Photo: From left, Mahdi, Moustafa, Hadi and Mohammed Al Qazwini in Mecca
It starts with a head cold then moves into your chest, accompanied by a low-grade fever. The Hajj is equal parts religious ceremony and punishing physical endurance test—and few pilgrims manage the whole process without their bodies breaking down at some point.
It’s a combination of factors: the sun, physical exhaustion, crushing crowds and close proximity with pilgrims carrying exotic contagions from around the world. “Nobody escapes it,” said Imam Moustafa Al Qazwini, who is himself starting to come down with the package of symptoms he calls “The Hajj Flu.”
Several people in Qazwini’s pilgrim group have already succumbed. During quiet moments in Mecca’s Grand Mosque, the sound of pilgrims coughing echoes off the marble columns.
Qazwini, who has made 15 pilgrimages, recalls one trip several years ago where he actually made it through in perfect health. “I came back to California proudly declaring myself the sole survivor,” he said. “Then I ended up in bed for the next two weeks.”
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
The pilgrim group we’re accompanying entered the sanctified state of ihram yesterday before traveling to Mecca — symbolically donning identical white towels and robes. This first ihram stage lasts less than a day, and is sort of a prelude for the more difficult longer ihram phase coming next week that includes all-day outdoor vigils and treks through the desert.
The following except is from the “The Hadj” by Michael Wolfe — an American journalist and Muslim convert who detailed the sights, scenes and emotions of his first pilgrimage.
“The ihram had a powerful impact on me too. For one thing, it put an end to my months of arrangements. In a way, it put an end to me as well. The uniform cloth defeats class distinctions and cultural fashion. Rich and poor are lumped together in it, looking like penitents in a Bosch painting. The ihram is as democratic as a death shroud.”
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
As if the pilgrimage wasn’t steeped in enough religious symbolism, the hajj group from Al Salam Tours has had to contend with the swarms of locusts that inhabit Mecca, Medina and other Saudi cities.
The insects were out in force throughout Medina’s Mosque of the Prophet. At one point pilgrim Ellen Hajjali of Altadena was distracted mid-prayer by a locust that planted itself right in front of her as she was bowing. “It really felt like he was staring at me,” she laughed.
During the five-hour late-night bus trip between Mecca and Medina, the group stopped off at a roadside rest stop. As pilgrims trudged through the parking lot toward the public restrooms, they encountered a virtual minefield of locusts that would flare up to waist-height as they walked past.
This was actually a serious religious challenge for the pilgrims, who at that point were in the sanctified state of ihram. Pilgrims in ihram are forbidden to kill any living thing — even by accident.
When they re-boarded the bus, one young woman discovered that a locust had somehow crawled under her robes and up her arm. There was a brief moment of concern, as the pilgrims debated how to dispose of the insect without harming it. The woman and her husband got off the bus for a minute then returned to report the crisis had been averted: The locust had been freed unharmed.
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca
Maybe I’m the only person who’s entertained by these paradoxes, but after the Singing Santas in Bahrain, we now present a Starbucks branch in the shadow of the Mosque of the Prophet.
And yes, I couldn’t resist getting a latte… — Ashraf Khalil in Medina
Arabic is, at its heart, a naturally flowery language. And as the language of Islam, it provides baroque poetic prayers for every occasion.
But the words spoken by all Muslims as they walk past the gravesite of the prophet Muhammad are endearingly simple.
Muhammad’s grave is embedded within the Mosque of the Prophet — a vast marble monument built around the remains of the humble mosque from which Muhammad preached to the first community of Muslims.
Visitors to Medina line up in packs to view the large wooden box that conceals the gravesite. As they walk past, each says just one simple sentence: Assalamu Alaikum ya Rusool Allah. “Peace be upon you O Prophet of God.”
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Medina
Today’s experiment from the holy city of Medina was to actually manage to take some pictures outside our hotel.
 The crowds of pilgrims are crawling with uniformed and plain-clothed police and even amateur photography is heavily restricted. Our concern was that my colleague, photographer Irfan Khan, wouldn’t last 10 minutes on the streets with his professional camera rig before being accosted by aggressive authorities.
The solution: Secure an escort from the Ministry of Information whose job would basically be to run interference and protect Irfan.
This required months of back-and-forth e-mails with the ministry before our trip. Then after we arrived and realized that our e-mails had produced absolutely zero results, it required a day of frantic phone calls to a half dozen officials.
Finally we got our wish. A ministry employee met us this morning and stuck with us throughout the day as Irfan photographed street hawkers selling scarves and fake gold watches after midday prayers outside the Mosque of the Prophet.
At first it seemed too easy. Irfan wandered the crowds at will and our minder never had to lift a finger.
But the realities of the situation became clearer later in the day. Irfan and I were waiting outside the mosque to meet up with our minder so he could take us up to a nearby hotel rooftop for some high-angle shots. Irfan wasn’t even taking pictures at the time, just standing around with his camera gear.
Suddenly a tall man in a beige robe appeared and started barking at Irfan to come with him. I intervened and the man took me to meet a heavyset guy astride a red moped who identified himself as an officer with the secret police.
I explained who we were, flashed my business card and said that our ministry escort was en route. He seemed satisfied and drove off, but it was definitely a little unsettling.
Anyway, through it all we managed a successful day of photography, as evidenced by this photo of Indonesian pilgrims.
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Medina
This is a subject we’ll be exploring more in a future story, but I wanted to share a quick first impression of the incredible ethnic diversity on display during the days leading up to the hajj.
I knew it would be like this. But nothing can quite compare to the feeling of wandering the grounds of the grand mosque in Medina (site of the grave of prophet Muhammad) and seeing seemingly every nation on earth represented around you.
The Vatican evokes a similar feeling, but the difference is that devout Catholics visit through the year but the hajj happens during a specific four-day span each year, drawing millions.
It all makes me wish I had brought along my copy of the Autobiography of Malcolm X. It was his experience at hajj that fundamentally altered his understanding of Islam and shook the foundations of American social politics.
Experiencing the hajj in the midst of such diversity changed Malcolm. After seeing white Americans (who he had spent years vilifying) moved by the same beliefs, he returned to America and renounced the race-based ideology of the Nation of Islam.
Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Medina
I had hoped to kick off what will be several weeks of blog posts from the midst of the hajj with something elegant about universal faith and the wonder of millions of pilgrims gathering for a common spiritual purpose.
But along the way, I came across a sight so surreal that it had to be shared.
The scene: Bahrain airport, where pilgrims already dressed in their white ihram robes strolled casually past Christmas decorations and a robotic all-Santa band. Unfortunately, I had to run to catch my flight, so I didn’t get the chance to film the Singing Santas lurching to life and belting out “Let it snow.” Blog Mapper: Tracking the Hajj
— Ashraf Khalil in Medina
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