Hajj and Hag to the Center of the Spiritual World

Extinct relatives of modern humans, like Neanderthals and Homo erectus, that lived in the Levant around 100-120,000 years ago, did not engage in mass hunting but preferred selective and strategic hunting of wild cattle. Scientists suggest that this way of life might have put them at a disadvantage when living alongside modern humans (Homo sapiens) in the same areas.

The social structure in archaic human being societies remains largely unknown. Did they live in large well-connected communities or in small groups dispersed across different regions? Most scholars suggest that the populations were small and disconnected, unlike modern humans who were more organized living. This difference may have increased modern humans’ chances of survival in regions where both groups co-existed.

Religious pilgrimages of mass gatherings promoted trade of products and ideas of mass-hunting techniques which were developed and practiced by Homo sapiens around 40-50,000 years ago.

Holiness can be best experienced in a sacred place or at a sacred time; and best of all in a sacred place at a sacred time. Pilgrimage offers religious, and even not so religious people, the wonderful opportunity to experience both kinds of holiness uplifts simultaneously.

Thus, the Torah tells the Jewish umma, and the Qur’an tells the Muslim umma, the importance of picking yourself up and going (Hajj in Arabic, Hag in Hebrew) with masses of other members of your umma, to a holy place at a holy time.

The following narration about one holy place was transmitted orally from the age of Prophet Adam (some say Prophet Noah), in both Arabic and Hebrew throughout many many generations, until it was finally written down is several different versions in the 19th century. It offers all Christians, Jews and Muslims hope for a peaceful future.

Two brothers who had inherited land from their father, divided the land in half so each one could farm his own section. Over time, the older brother married and had four children, while the younger brother was still not married.

One year there was very little rain, and the crop was very meager. The younger brother lay awake one night praying and thought. “My brother has a wife and four children to feed and I have no children. He needs more grain than I do; especially now when grain is scarce.”

So that night the younger brother went to his silo, gathered a large bundle of wheat, and climbed the hill that separated the two farms and over to his brother’s farm. He left his wheat in his brother’s silo, and returned home, feeling pleased with himself.

Earlier that very same night, the older brother was also lying awake praying for rain when he thought.

“In my old age my wife and I will have our grown children to take care of us, as well as grandchildren to enjoy, while my brother will probably have no children. He should at least sell more grain from the fields now, so he can provide for himself in his old age.”

So that night, the older brother also gathered a large bundle of wheat, climbed the hill, left it in his brother’s silo, and returned home, feeling pleased with himself.

The next morning, the younger brother was surprised to see the amount of grain in his barn seemed unchanged. “I must not have taken as much wheat as I thought,” he said. “Tonight I’ll be sure to take more.” That same morning, the older brother standing in his barn, was thinking the same thoughts.

After night fell, each brother gathered a greater amount of wheat from his barn and in the dark, secretly delivered it to his brother’s barn.

The next morning, the brothers were again puzzled and perplexed. “How can I be mistaken?” each one thought. “There’s the same amount of grain here as there was before. This is impossible! Tonight I’ll make no mistake. I’ll take two large sacks.”

The third night, more determined than ever, each brother gathered two large sacks of wheat from his barn, loaded them onto a cart, and slowly pulled his cart through the fields and up the hill to his brother’s barn.

At the top of the hill, with only a little light from a new moon, each brother noticed a figure in the distance. When the two brothers recognized the form of the other brother and the load he was pulling, they both realized what had happened.

Without a word, they dropped the ropes of their carts, ran to each other and embraced.

God looked down at the two brothers and thought; “Their love and concern for each other has sanctified this place Hallal and Kosher to become a holy sanctuary. Someday their descendants will each be directed to build and rebuild a holy House in this place. Yet a place is never holy through the choice of humans, but only because it has been chosen in Heaven and revealed by God’s Prophets.

So when all those, both near and far, who revere this place as a standard, share it in love with everyone else who reveres it, then God will do as Abraham requested, and “Make this a land of Peace, and provide its people with the produce of of the land”. (Qur’an 2:126). Then will all the children of Adam and Abraham live in Holiness, Peace and Prosperity.

All three religious have historical traditions that teach that their religious capital is located at the center of the world. Since Jerusalem and Mecca are 765 miles apart by air and 910 by auto, they can’t both be the center of the world. But that is only from a human, earthbound, point of view. From God’s universal point of view; they can both be at the center of the universe; just as a pair of lungs are at the center of the respiration system that keeps all us animals alive.

Jerusalem’s Qiblah, the Bait al-Maqdis or Al-Haram al-Sharif encloses 35 acres of buildings and open spaces. Within its southernmost space is the Al-Aqsa Mosque; and 200 yards north of Al-Aqsa is the Dome of the Rock. The entire Al-Haram al-Sharif area, enclosed within its own wall, is often regarded as Bait al-Maqdis or Al-Qudus and comprises less than one sixth of the total ancient walled Old City portion of Jerusalem, the City of David.

However, it is clear that the silver-domed Masjid al-Aqsa and the golden Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra) are two separate structures. The two are not synonymous with each other—as is often mistakenly assumed by some people. This provides a potential peaceful religious solution for the three religious communities that make up the heirs of Abraham.

All humans are part of larger groups of social, ethnic and religious communities of birth and/or shared beliefs. Every monotheistic religious community has its center in the one God they are religiously committed to because all the sub-atomic particles we are made with now, were at the beginning of Allah’s creation, entangled with each other and still can remain entangled even after the ‘big bang’ separated them by immense distances.

So everyone’s universe is a tiny bit different and yet related religions which are ritually different can share the same experience of the centrality of our relationship to the One God who created the whole universe. Or as the great poet Jalal al-Din al-Rumi taught, “Ritual prayer can be different in every religion, but (basic) belief never changes.” (Fihi Mafih)

“The place Prophet King Solomon made to worship in, called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth, water and stone, but of intention, wisdom, mystical conversation and compassionate action.” RUMI “The Far Mosque” Chapter 17: Solomon Poems, p.191