Stripped of Social Status

Then there are the rites that are related to it. One enters into a ritual state, which is called iḥrām. For a woman it is taking a bath and dressing in her normal dress; women tend to wear white on the Hajj — they do not have to, but they tend to, just as a tradition. The man enters into what is called iḥrām, which is two pieces of cloth: a loincloth, and then a cloth over him. It can have no stitching. It is woven, but it cannot have stitching by hand, because it represents complete impoverishment before God, and everybody has to be the same. So it is encouraged that everybody looks the same: the rich man, the poor man, the free man, the bondsman, the king, the pauper — everybody becomes the same. And that is the idea: that humanity before God is equal. There are absolutely no differences. So even in clothes, a rich man cannot wear rings; he cannot wear any display of worldly wealth. Somebody who normally wears jewellery has to take it all off. So one sees a person and does not know if they are rich or poor — one does not have a clue; they just look the same as everyone else. The idea is literally that humanity completely strips itself of all its social accruement, its social status, and goes there before God, equal.

The first ritual is that one enters into the place of Mecca and goes to the house, and does a circumambulation, seven times: one goes around the house seven times, which according to the tradition is what Ibrāhīm did, and the Prophet (peace be upon him) purified it and renewed it again. After going around the house, one kisses the black stone. The black stone is a stone that has been identified as a meteorite, but traditionally it was believed that it came from heaven, and that it was originally white and became black from the wrong actions of the people who touched it. One goes and kisses the stone, and the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that the stone is like the right hand of God on the earth — in other words, it is symbolic: as one goes and kisses the hand of the king, or as the Catholics would kiss the ring of the Pope, one goes and kisses the stone as a symbol of being invited to the house of the King. One kisses the stone, and then prays two rakʿahs, two prostrations, at the place of Ibrāhīm. It is called Maqām Ibrāhīm, where Ibrāhīm built the house; there is an actual place, a maqām, and there are two footprints in it that are traditionally considered to be the footprints of Ibrāhīm.

Then, at that point, one goes and drinks from the well of Zamzam and makes prayer; it is a good place to make prayer. And then one goes to Ṣafā and Marwah, and goes between them seven times; and there is a stretch where one actually does a quick run — not a sprint, but a jog — which symbolises Hājar's running through that area. After the seventh time, when that is completed, one goes to Minā. Minā is a place where one prepares for ʿArafāt: one cleans oneself again, and then the next morning one sets out for ʿArafāt.