Hajj is the last layer of the Shariat, the cacred law of divine guidance, commandments and limits. In it is also Ma’refat or gnosis of the Almighty. For those who do not understand the reality of the rites and symbols of Hajj or pilgrimage, for them Hajj amounts to only certain rituals. Hajj is a symbolic journey to God, in which a seeker of God leaves behind people whom he loves taking pains in this journey. The spiritual significance and inner meaning of Hajj are many folds but here the primary ones: When all vain glories and pride is swept clean from the heart, all egoic confinement are bade farewell, after the desire for material, wealth and fame is divorced – the unity and harmony of mankind, of one family of God is realized – in that the real purpose of Hajj is attained.The teaching of Hajj is the message of universal love, single brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity and world peace. Now a days because of modern transportation system traveling to Hajj is made very easy. It takes only few days to go to Hajj and return. In early days, people would endure tremendous struggle to reach for the Hajj, sometime walking by foot for many hundreds of miles, sometime by traveling by sea for days and months. In this age of modernity, even inside the rites of the Hajj, modernization have made the experience as easy on people as possible. However the Hajj of the Tariqat, of the Path remains as challenging as ever, the spiritual effort required to attain to the highest reality of Hajj is one of the most refined goal of spiritual attainment, no matter which or what spiritual tradition he or she may belong. In the Universal Way of Islam, every pillar of submission to the Almighty Allah is recommended to purify a person’s heart and to give strength to the connection with the Almighty Allah and to give a wider scope to the meaning of submission to Almighty Allah. Once a seeker of the Almighty Allah feels submission to Almighty Allah at the core of his or her being, that person feel freedom from the heavy impact of life and materialism that put people to psychological torture. Nothing else in life is equal being within the sphere of the Almighty Allah’s pleasure. Among the basic five pillars over which the towering meaning and core of Islam is built is Hajj. The five pillars of submission are: To testify in the oneness of the Almighty Allah, to Pray, to fast, to give charity to poor and to perform Hajj. There are very few self sacrificial acts than Hajj.
The spiritual significance of Hajj is also attainment of Allah’s pleasure. May Allah accept and be pleased with us all.
In this act, in submission to the call of the Almighty one leaves one’s wealth, business, job, family, relatives only to remember and fulfill the commandments of the Almighty Allah. All sacred commands have no other better reasoning and goal but the pleasure of the Almighty Allah. For a true believer of the Almighty Allah when he or she sets out for the Hajj with the aspiration to achieve its Haqiqat (reality) he or she must remember death and prepare as he or she may prepare for the final journey. Hajj is the outward journey to remind the inward journey, the journey which is terribly real, the journey that takes on from the unreal and passing world to the real and eternal world. Thus the spiritual significance of Hajj is also attainment of Allah’s pleasure. May Allah accept and be pleased with us all.