Salah: Sharing Biblical and Muslim Hajj Pilgrimages

Are the Hajj to the Ka’ba in Makka and the Hajj to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem alternate swings of a single sacred pendulum connected to one central Divine source in the heavens? Let me explain.

The Ka’ba was the original center of Hajj. Destroyed in the days of Noah, and later rebuilt by Abraham and his son Ishmael. After several centuries it was desecrated by later generations of idol worshippers. During the centuries when the Ka’ba was desecrated, Prophet Solomon built a Temple as a center for Haj on the site where Abraham bound his son Isaac as an offering.

Four centuries later the Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 587 BCE by the Babylonians. Then the Temple was rebuilt with the support of Cyrus the Great King of Persia, and lasted for almost six centuries. As Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – c. 50 CE) states; Jewish pilgrims came to Jerusalem from the ends of the earth, and from all the compass points.

But with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, the pilgrimage Hajj aspect of the week long harvest festival of Sukkot, began a gradual decline in the spiritual consciousness of the Jewish People because Emperor Hadrian had rebuilt Jerusalem in the mid-second century as an idol filled pagan Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina.

Two generations after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, a second major Jewish revolt (132-135 CE) occurred in the land of Israel. Afterwards, the Romans rebuilt Jerusalem as a pagan city filled with idols, That stopped all Jews from coming to the ruined site of the Jerusalem Temple–Bait ul Muqaddas/Beit HaMiqdash.

Very few Jews today realize that for more than 1.000 years, while Jerusalem’s First and Second Temple–Bait ul Muqaddas/Beit HaMiqdash stood, the Jewish festival of Hag Sukkot was celebrated as a Hajj, a pilgrimage festival. In Biblical times the Hebrew word Hag was pronounced Hajj.

The Torah declares, “Celebrate Hajj Sukkot for seven days after you have harvested the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.

For seven days celebrate the festival to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Hajj of Matzah, the Hajj of Weeks, and the Hajj of Sukkot. (Deuteronomy 16:13-16)

The Hajj of Sukkot was chosen by Prophet Solomon to dedicate the First Temple in Jerusalem. (1Kings 8; 2). Hajj Sukkot was so important during the centuries when Solomon’s Temple stood that it was often called simply “the Hajj” (1 Kings 8:3; 8:65; 12:62; 2 Chronicles 5:3; 7:8) perhaps because of the very large numbers of Jews who came up to the Temple in Jerusalem,

On each of the first six days of Sukkot it was traditional to circle the Temple alter while reciting psalms. On the seventh day of Sukkot the custom was to circle the Temple alter seven times. As the Oral Torah says: “It was customary to make one procession around the altar on each day of Sukkot, and seven on the seventh day.” (Mishnah Sukkah 4:5).

Each circle is done in honor of a prophet; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David. Muslims will see some basic similarities and many ritual differences between the Jewish Hajj and the Islamic Hajj.

For Muslims, the Furthest Sanctuary is located in Jerusalem. “Glory to He Who carried His servant by night, from the Holy Sanctuary to the Furthest Sanctuary, the precincts of which We have blessed. so that We might show him some of Our signs. Surely He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing. [Qur’an 17:1] It is significant that the ruins of the Jerusalem Temple was the site of Prophet Muhammad’s ascension—miraj– up to the heavens.

One might say the destruction of the Furthest Sanctuary center of monotheistic pilgrimage in Jerusalem by the pagan Romans was, five and a half centuries afterward, overcome by Prophet Muhammad’s ascension—miraj up to the heavens, and the soon to be realized removal by Muhammad of the 360 idols from the paganized Ka’ba in Makka.

Not only did the Prophet rid the Ka’ba of all its impurities, but he also reinstated all the rites of Hajj which were established by Allah’s Permission, in the time of Prophet Ibrahim. Specific injunctions in the Quran were revealed in order to eliminate all the false rites which had become rampant in the many centuries of the pre-Islamic period.

All indecent and shameful acts were strictly banned in Allah’s statement: “There is to be no lewdness nor wrangles during Hajj.” [2:197] The Prophet also put a stop to the practice of circling the Kaba in a state of nudity and the argument that the pagans put forward to justify this ritual was sharply rebutted in Allah’s question: “Say: Who has forbidden the adornment [clothes] given by Allah which He produced for His Slaves?” [7:32]

Competitions among poets in the exaltations of their forefathers and their tribesmen’s achievements were all stopped. Instead, Allah told them: “And when you have completed your rites [of Hajj] then remember Allah as you remember your forefathers; nay with a more vigorous remembrance.” [2:200]

The deplorable practice of spattering blood from the sacrificed animals on the walls of the Ka’ba and hanging their flesh on alters was rejected: “It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah, but it is Taqwaa (piety) from you that reaches Him.” [22:37]

Since almost all rabbis believe that the Jerusalem Temple will only be rebuilt in the Messianic Age of world peace and universal justice it would seem that the cycle of the pollution and destruction of the two Holy Sanctuaries, first built by Prophet Abraham and his two sons, has now come to an end.

The Prophet Zechariah envisions a future time when God helps us to establish worldwide peace. All the nations in the world will then travel to Makka and Jerusalem to worship God.

During Hajj Sukkot, a future Jerusalem Temple will welcome both Jews and non-Jews, including those who were previously Israel’s enemies: “Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem, will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate Hajj Sukkot.” [Zechariah 14:16]

Just as the Ka’ba has always welcomed all Muslims who answer the call: “Call upon the people for Hajj. They will come to you on their bare feet or riding any weak camel and they come to you from every far desert.” [Qur’an 22:27].