Hajj, one of the pillars of Islam, is a form of worship. For those who have the resources to perform Hajj, it is obligatory for them to do so once in their life time. It is not mandatory for those who have neither the ability nor the resources to undertake this pilgrimage.
To perform Hajj, one has to leave one’s home and travel to Hijaz in Saudi Arabia. The pilgrim then goes to Makkah and does the circumambulation of the Kabah. After that, he runs between two hillocks, called Safa and Marwa. He next stops at Arafat, where he casts stones at Jamrat. He then sacrifices an animal. In this way, different rituals of worship are performed in the month of Zul Hijja. All of this is what constitutes Hajj.
This Hajj is a symbolic form of surrendering oneself to one’s Lord. Through these acts of worship the pilgrim pledges to surrender himself before God, so that his life revolves around God alone, and to signal that he is ready to perform all kinds of sacrifice for the sake of God.
During Hajj, the worshipper remembers the two pious men who built the Kabah, Prophet Ibrahim and Prophet Ismail. He sees the historical places associated with the Prophet Muhammad. He spends some of his time in this environment where the history of Islam initially took shape.
In this way, Hajj becomes a means of bringing a person closer to God and his prophets. It reminds one of the lives of people who were reputed for their virtue, thus creating a living relationship with the history of Islam.
Hajj, moreover unites God-worshippers from all over the world. It refreshes the reality in the mind of the believers that however much their races and nationalities may be different, they all believe in the same God and in the same Prophet: this is a great source of unity. They might be living in different lands but being worshippers of God, they are all as one. Hajj is basically a form of worship of God, but practically there are many other benefits associated with it. One of these is fostering of unity in all the believers.
Source: The Spirit of Islam
