OPINION: An Irreverent Guide to the Aussie Hajj ...

Recently one of my favourite editors announced he was packing his bags, partner and kids off to the Iberian peninsular. I was a little confused at first as to why he was going. I thought it might be some kind of pilgrimage.

I went to his farewell at his house in the inner-city of Sydney . Lots of wine and beer was flowing, none of it down my throat but plenty of its fumes up my nostrils. Once we were in a sufficient state of intoxication, I think I remember us having the following conversation:

HIM: So are you gonna visit me over there?

ME: Maaaate [in Tony Abbott style], I'll only go if you take me on pilgrimage on the road to Santiago de Compostella.

HIM: Mate [this time less like Tony Abbott], when are you taking me to Mecca ?

ME: You've got a point there. Still, they should let you in this time, now that you've grown a beard!.

I guess that's the problem many non-Muslims face. They simply can't get into Mecca even if they wanted to. I mean, I'm sure plenty of Aussies would absolutely relish the opportunity to spend a fortnight in a desert wilderness enjoying the 45-plus degrees celcius heat (without having an ice-cold VB as a consolation prize), the noise, the crowds, the pick-pockets, the rudeness of Saudi customs officials and police etc etc. What better way to spend Christmas?

An Aussie Hajj-a-holic's guide to the pilgrimage

For those of you who ever wondered what it was like to go on the Hajj - the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, now located in the modern (and I use that word in its broadest possible sense) Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - here is a step-by-step guide to the experience.

No, not my experience. I've never been. In fact, I'm not allowed to go until I've paid all my debts. Though my exceptionally South Asian mum has. In fact, she's already been there three times. And worse still, she wants to go again! I reckon it's because she wants to commune with God. Though I could be wrong.

I vaant to go a-ghen, to get aveh frum yoo and yoor faadhar. Olvez mek
me doo-ing iss-stoopid cooking!

(Trans: I'd go again just to get away from you and your father! When are
you two gonna learn to cook??)

Yep, she's a bit of a Hajj-a-holic.

The crowd

The first problem mum points out is with the crowds. If Byron Bay and Sunshine coast locals thought they had it bad with schoolies and toolies, they should spare a thought for the people of Mecca. Each year, over 5 million people visit this sacred Muslim city.

The biggest numbers are at the time of Hajj, the sacred pilgrimage all able-bodied Muslims who can afford it are expected to make at least once in their lifetime. This year, over 2.7 million people are expected to converge on this ancient city for this annual assembly of monotheism.

The pilgrims come from just about every part of the planet. Despite the enormous cultural, linguistic and sectarian differences amongst Muslims, there is a surprising degree of consensus when it comes to the rituals of the Hajj. These ancient rites date back 1,400 years and are based on an even older story.

The Hajj story

Some people in Australia talk about "Judeo-Christian" values, as if they haven't quite figured out that there are at least 3 monotheistic faiths that emerged from the Middle East. And that's not including all the other monotheistic faiths (such as Sikhism).

Really, what we should be talking about are "Abrahamic" values. The triplet faiths of Islam, Christianity and Judaism all respect and honour Abraham, an Iraqi chap regarded by all three traditions as the father of ethical monotheism.

According to Islamic tradition, Ibrahim (Abraham) married an Egyptian woman named Hajira (Hagar) who bore him a son named Ismail (Ishmael). He also took a second wife Sarah (pronounced slightly differently in Biblical English) who bore him a second son Ishaq (Isaac).

For some domestic reasons, Ibrahim feels the need to leave his first wife in a desert valley named Bakkah with the baby Ismail. Like all good mums, Hajira's primary concern is the survival of her toddler. But where will she find water in this wilderness?

The well and the cube

She heads for a hill, finds nothing and so heads in the opposite direction to another hill. She again finds nothing. In desperation, she runs back and forth around 7 times before setting eyes on her young boy kicking the ground to uncover a spring. Quickly she builds a make-shift well.

Within a short period, the well attracts the attention of other travellers through this area. Hajira watches her son become a grown man, and receives a visit from Ibrahim again. Ibrahim and Ismail are ordered to build a temple in honour of the one true invisible God. The temple was a simple cubic structure, in the direction of which people would pray.

The valley of Bakkah eventually became known as Mecca. The cubic temple is known as the Kaaba (an Arabic word which just means "Cube"), and is traditionally draped in a black embroidered cloth. The well kicked to the surface by the infant Ismail is known as the Well of Zam Zam.

The age of pilgrims

The elders teach that the reward for a successful Hajj is nothing less than forgiveness of all sins and paradise. In many Muslim cultures, this means people tend to leave performing Hajj to the end of their life. In the Indian sub-Continent, where my parents come from, people tend to perform Hajj after their kids have grown up, married and left home. Cynics (like my dad each time his wife books her Hajj package at the travel agent) recite an old Hindi/Urdu phrase which can be roughly translated as:

After eating several thousand mice, the fat cat finally decides to head off for Hajj!

In places closer to our shores, people tend to go much earlier. In Malaysia, it's common for young couples to treat the Hajj as a kind of spiritual honeymoon. According to the Prophet Muhammad, a person who married has completed half the faith. So if you're a boofy bloke like me and you are lucky enough to marry some gorgeous Malay (apologies for the tautology) princess, it's like a heavenly 2-for-1 deal. You've got guaranteed loss of your virginity, gain of half your faith and your sins forgiven in one go!

And for those who believes neo-Con fictions about Islam, the deal doesn't even include the fictitious 72 heavenly virgins!

Multicultural Aussie Hajj

Each year Australia sends a few hundred people to perform Hajj. When they come back, they're given the honorific title of "Hajji" or "al-Hajj". If their Hajj was successfully completed, they should come back with their sins are washed away and as pure as the day they were born.

(Anyone who has had to deal with Saudi officials at Jeddah airport will know why forgiveness of one's sins is furnished so readily.)

In Australia, the Hajj trip is performed by people of various ages. More young people accompany their elderly parents on this difficult journey.

Then there are the different nationalities and their interesting idiosyncrasies.

Hajj Hansonisms

In Mecca, all street signs are in various languages. But there are certain signs you'll only find in Urdu, Bengali and Hindi. These signs simply state: "Spitting here is forbidden!". Or something like that.

Why? Across the Indian sub-Continent, people chew a special blend of nuts and paste wrapped in leaf known as paan which they chew and spit out into gutters or even against walls, leaving a nasty and distinct reddish-brown stain.

Turks travel in large groups and are extremely fussy about cleanliness. In one part of the Hajj, all pilgrims stay in tents on a plain called Mina for the night. The place becomes tent city for the night, with a range of facilities including toilets and kitchens. You know you're in the Turkish section because tents look shiny-new, the sand looks like someone has rubbed Mr Sheen into it, and the toilets are spotless to the extent you could make a sandwich on their floors.

Cronulla rioters will be pleased to learn that according to a reliable source (my mum), Lebanese pilgrims basically spend most of their Hajj sitting around cracking jokes and drinking coffee strong enough to keep you awake until the next Hajj.

Nigerians are tall and heavy-set. A major part of the pilgrimage is to circle the cubic temple seven times in an anti-clockwise direction, all the while shouting "Labayk! Allah humma Labbayk!" (roughly translated as "I'm here, Oh Lord, I'm here" though if you're on the receiving end of the rampage, you should read "My God! Here they come!!"). It's generally not advisable to slip if you find yourself in their path. When you see a group of them with arms clasped rushing toward you screaming the prayer, it's scarier than seeing 500 All-Blacks doing the Haka.

I have no idea what Kiwi pilgrims are like. I doubt they scream the Haka at any stage of the rituals. Plus people at Hajj tend to use sheep for slaughtering purposes.

And what the dinky-di Australian pilgrim do at Hajj? Maybe throw a halal shrimp on the bbq, have a game of sand cricket and sink down a few non-alcoholic VB's.

Hajj dress code

Despite the weird and wonderful characteristics of various cultural groups at Hajj, everyone dresses the same. Blokes wear a white-coloured two-piece towel thing, and ladies wear some additional stuff which is also white coloured. If you landed in Mecca at Hajj time and you didn't know where you were, you'd think it was a huge toga party. Except at this party, everyone is praying and no one gets pissed or stoned.

Despite this, Mecca does have some rather nasty features found in big secular cities. UK stand-up comic and columnist Shazia Mirza often talks about her Hajj during her routine. She was circling the Ka'aba when some dude pinched her behind. She turned around but couldn't recognise the culprit in a sea of sacred togas. She kept going when, within a moment or so, it happened again. She turned around, and again she couldn't locate the deviant.

Later, Shazia caught up with her sister, who also complained of being pinched. Shazia then relates to her audience: "We both concluded it was the Hand of God".

Boom boom!

(Don't panic. I didn't just let off a bomb.)

Meanwhile, back home...

Believe me, the party isn't just happening in Mecca. Across the world, Muslims celebrate their own party. In fact, it's the biggest feast of the year, and is known as Eid al-Adha (or Bayram for Turks, Hari Raya for Indonesians/Malays, Baqrah Eid for South Asians etc).

Thankfully, this year Eid and Christmas (or Hari Natal for all you Indonesians out there) are both happening around the same time. But for Aussie employers with Muslim employees, it's a huge pain in the butt. Here's why.

Aussie Lunar-tics

I'm sure all you (non-Orthodox) Christians find celebrating Christmas fairly straight forward. For a start, you at least know when it is. But spare a thought for us Muslims. The absence of any central priestly or scholarly authority in Aussie Islam means that we simply cannot agree on when the feast is to be celebrated.

Imagine being office manager in a medium-sized law firm in Sydney's CBD. It's Tuesday afternoon. Sekire (pronounced "Shakira"), a law clerk of Turkish ancestry, approaches you to confirm her leave on Wednesday to be at home helping mum with the cooking while her fiancé, brothers and dad go to the mosque for Bayram prayers. Her community's imams have settled religious festival dates until 2,987 A.D.

Then high-powered solicitor Suraina approaches you on Wednesday morning to take Thursday off for Hari Raya Haji. Her family and her metro-sexual husband (apparently the managing director of Petronas) are flying in from KL for the occasion. She only found out last night it was Hari Raya. She assures you a barrister had been briefed and will attend her hearing on Thursday.

Then on Friday morning, you get a call from the barrister's clerk. Thursday's hearing was adjourned to this morning, and the barrister Mr Yusuf can't make it as he heard last night that the Bakra Eid moon has been sighted.

But heck, don't blame us lay Muslims. Blame our lunar-tic mullahs, imams, sheiks, hojjahs, maulanas etc who can't seem to agree on how to calculate the beginning and end of lunar months!

The End

So that's the end of my slightly irreverent look at Hajj. For more information, go to your local mosque and convert. Then get on the first plane you can to Mecca, and you might arrive in time for the last rites.

First published in ABC Unleashed on 19 December 2007.

Words © 2007-8 Irfan Yusuf


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UPDATE: Why Muslims across Australia are performing Eid prayers on the wrong day ...

The vast majority of Muslims will be performing their Eid al-Adha prayers and celebrating the biggest Islamic religious festival on the wrong day. The vast majority of mosques will be holding their Eid prayers on Monday 8 December 2008. These include mosques whose imams sit on various imams' boards and councils. All these imams are nowhere near as qualified as one alleged scholar of Islamic sciences from Sydney who has issued a fatwa (ruling) to the effect that the prayers for Eid al-Adha can only be held on Tuesday 9 December 2008.

This date will be the only legitimate and valid date available to Muslims. Those Muslims who choose to perform their Eid prayers on Monday 8 December 2008 will be engaging in grossly sinful behaviour. You can find out more about this issue by visiting this website here.

I wish to reproduce a chain of e-mails between myself and this self-proclaimed imam and one of his Adelaide students. On Sunday August 3 2008, I received this e-mail from a student of this esteemed scholar to this effect:

Assalaamu ‘alaykum,

Please find attached letter confirming the commencement of the lunar month of Sha’ban on 3rd August, 2008. The observation for the next lunar month, Ramadhan will be on 31st August, 2008, insha Allah.

We encourage people to return to physical observation of the crescent, as the correct method to establish the lunar months, hence the month of fasting- Ramadhan.

Wassalam

The student was promoting a newly established body called the "Australian National Crescent Sighting Coordination Centre" which allegedly included a range of imams including Dr Shabbir Ahmad, Imam of the Rooty Hill Mosque managed by the Islamic Society Western Suburbs Sydney. I thereupon wrote back to the student on Monday August 4 2008 as follows:

Have you contacted Dr Shabbir Ahmad to see if any such entity as "Australian National Crescent Sighting Coordination Centre" exists? And how do you expect ordinary Muslims with real jobs and real lives to rely on your insistence on physically sighting the moon before announcing the beginning and end of lunar months?

Just a thought.

The student of this "imam" provided this response on same date:

Wa ‘alaykumu salam br. Irfan,

‘Ayn Academy is part of the Australian National Crescent Sighting Coordination Centre, as are many other organisations throughout Australia. If you have a need to check, contact Dr. Shabbit [sic.] Ahmad yourself and clarify the issue for yourself– you are the one with these thoughts.

The Fiqh of crescent sighting is very clear and our insistence on it is sourced from the Islamic insistence on it. And in fact, not everybody has to leave work to physically sight the crescent . The matter is a Fardhu-ul-Kifaya matter, that is, it is a Communal Obligation and if one part of the community fulfils the obligation, the rest of the community is freed from it, so this is exactly the public service that the Coordination Centre offers.

Wassalam,

On same date, I wrote back to the student of this "imam" as follows:

Thank you for your response. Please advise as to which organisations belong to this coordination centre.

I am not suggesting that each and every Muslim is required to leave work to physically site the moon. What I am suggesting is that the insistence on physical sighting of the moon causes great inconvenience to a large number of Muslims.

Personally, I understand that there are good solid arguments supporting the proposition that lunar months are to be determined using physical sighting. In fact, it is a proposition I find most compelling. However, there are other scholarly opinions which support other methods of determining the commencement of lunar months.

I do not claim to be qualified in deciding between these conflicting positions. And I doubt anyone at the Ayn Academy or the al-Ghazali Centre is qualified to decide either. If they are, they should produce their qualifications for all to see (I certainly won't be holding my breath ...).

It really is a shame if our religious scholars (both actual and self-proclaimed) cannot come up with a solution that makes life easy for Muslim employers and employees.

MS

On same date, I received this reply from the "imam" himself as follows:

Wa Alaikum Assalaam,

The Australian National Crescent Sighting Coordination Centre is a network of organisations and individuals, and soon insha Allah the details of all people participating in the coordinating of crescent sighting will be released more widely. We are unable to work on your timetable, Irfan, my apologies but we will try to fit in your request.

The insistence of crescent sighting is Shar’i and scientific. The notion that Muslim employees are inconvenienced, apparently greatly by your measure, is a matter those Muslims will need to resolve about the employment, and not about crescent sighting, and what they can do to remove such “inconvenience” due to their employment. Fiqh rules already cover what ought to be done by individuals based on levels of “inconvenience”.

Your suggestion that there are “scholarly” opinion to determine the lunar months by “other methods” is simply not true. Indeed, there are assertions, but not such methodology actually exists, hence much of the confusion and inaccuracy.

I do hold appropriate qualification about crescent sighting, and your continued slander of me in this regard is something you need to deal with, not me or anyone else.

The real shame is that people keep blaming the ‘Ulama about this matter. Whilst they all take a significant responsibility in the chaos and confusion on the matter, the larger responsibility is upon the individuals to know what needs to be done given that knowledge about establishing lunar months is Fardh al-‘Ayn. But then, it has been the trend of many to point fingers at everyone else rather than sort themselves out first.

The issue of inconvenience on employers is much exaggerated by you, but it does
exist. But that is a different problem, and many of us assist employers understand the matter and everyone of them we have spoken to understands and accepts. It is when they are left in the dark about the matter that frustration has been the result. And, that is the unfortunate problem mostly created by the Muslim employees, and has nothing to do with the fact that the crescent has to be sighted.

Was Salaam
Afroz Ali
Founder & President-
Al-Ghazzali Centre
for Islamic Sciences & Human Development

The self-proclaimed "imam" did not specify which employees he has spoken to. Nor did he specify how he was qualified to issue rulings on such matters contrary to the rulings of the vast majority of Australian imams. On same date, I wrote to His Shaykhdom in these terms:

Thank you for your response, "imam" Afroz ...

Thank you also for declaring that scores of Turkish Imams and a large number of Imams of Arab descent (including Sheik Tajeddine Hilaly) are not expressing opinions which have any basis in sharia.

It is now open to you to prove that your qualifications are superior to theirs. Please post full details of your academic qualifications so that we can see why you have more right than the majority of Australian imams to pontificate on these issues.

Go on, "imam" Afroz. You have avoided this issue since 2005. You claim your views are more authoritative than those of qualified Imams. Prove it.

On Saturday 6 December 2008, I sent the following e-mail to the "imam" in question:

Dear "imam" Afroz Ali,

I was hoping you might provide a response to my e-mail, sent to you on 4 August 2008. I would have thought three months is sufficient time for you to provide some kind of response.

Ma salameh.

Readers are free to draw their own conclusions.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Eid al-Fitr is to be held on ... ?

Last week, a friend advised me that all Turkish mosques in Sydney are holding Eid prayers on Tuesday 30 September 2008.

Today, I telephoned the office of the Lebanese Moslems Association. The receptionist advised me that ...

"The Mufti has advised that Eid is to be held on Wednesday."

It's great ro see Sheik Fehmi el-Imam back in action and able to travel to Sydney to determine this issue.

And when will the Pakistanis, Fiji-Indians and other lunar-tics have their Eid? Your guess is as good as mine.

As stand-up comic Azhar Usman once said:

"For an organised religion, Islam is the most disorganised religion on earth."

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: Jewish union leader negotiates religious holiday for American Muslim workers ...

The New York Times reports that a poultry plant in the American state of Tennessee has decided to award Muslim workers a paid holiday for its 1,200-strong workforce, a large proportion of whom are of Somali Muslim background.

Unfortunately, the move has been met with prejudice by some ...

“You are a union that is proud of achieving a Muslim holiday and prayer room?” one person wrote the union. “A union in the U.S.A., a country based on Christianity. You call yourselves Americans? Have you forgotten 9/11?”

Another wrote: “You had no right to drop Labor Day. Muslim employees must integrate Labor Day into THEIR lives if they are going to live in America.”

The move to allow Muslim workers to take Eid as a holiday instead of Labor Day was negotiated by Stuart Applebaum, who also serves as President of the Jewish Labor Committee. It only applies in one of Tyson's many hundreds of factories.

The usual array of far-Right fruitloops, including chronic Muslim-hater Robert Spencer, have condemned the move. Read this paragraph and wonder ...

The problem is that the accommodation of Islamic holidays and practices abets, however unwittingly, an avoudly supremacist agenda that is directed toward supplanting American laws and mores and imposing Islamic law here.

Using this logic, any legal accommodation to American Muslims must be opposed. Next, Spencer will be calling upon planning authorities not to grant Muslim groups with permits to build mosques. But more than that, Spencer is actually accusing the President of the Jewish Labor Committee of being a conduit for the imposition of Islamic law in America. Applebaum should get legal advice about commencing defamation proceedings against Spencer.

You can read echoes of Spencer's imbecilic rants in the comments section to this article. You can read more such comments here. Adolf Hitler will be smiling in his grave.

One so-called Christian questions whether Tyson's Foods can still call itself an American country. Don Swarthout , President of Christians Reviving America's Values (Crave), provided this hysterical response ...

What makes this particularly upsetting is that Tyson is replacing a secular holiday with an Islamic Religious Holiday. If we wanted to replace a secular holiday with a Christian holiday the company or the courts would not allow us to do such a thing.

That may be true, except that Christmas day is already a public holiday! The last time I checked, American Jews weren't lining up to celebrate Christmas day.

After all this hysteria, the company issued this press release. The press release sets out the background behind the decision ...

This change came about as a result of union demands brought to the negotiating table, and was agreed upon by Tyson in an effort to reach a contractual agreement with the union. The contract that calls for this change was unanimously recommended by the 12-person union bargaining committee, which included three Somali employees. The contract was then overwhelmingly agreed to by 80 percent of the rank and file membership of the union at the Shelbyville plant.

Imagine that. Four out of five union members supported this proposal. Democracy in action. But don't expect cyber-fascists like Spencer and Schlussel to have any respect for democracy.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf