SAUDI ARABIA: Technology and the hajj, Part 1

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

SAUDI ARABIA: Praying for a miracle

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

SAUDI ARABIA: Baboons around the prophet's cave

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

SAUDI ARABIA: The holiest site in Islam

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

SAUDI ARABIA: All in the Family

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

SAUDI ARABIA: The Hajj flu

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

SAUDI ARABIA: 'An end to me'

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

SAUDI ARABIA: Next up, frogs and boils

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

SAUDI ARABIA: Sacred cappuccino

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

SAUDI ARABIA: Greeting the prophet

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

SAUDI ARABIA: Adventures in Hajj photography

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

SAUDI ARABIA: United colors of hajj

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