Page 14 - Demo

14No. 293 | May 2025Hajj, he arises and moves away from the routine environment. %u201cBefore departing to perform Hajj, all of your debts should be paid. Your hate and anger toward relatives or friends must disappear. A will must be drawn. All of these gestures are an exercise in the preparation for death (which will overtake everyone someday). These acts guarantee your personal and financial clearance. The last moments of farewell and the future of man are symbolized. %u201cHajj represents man%u2019s return to Allah, the absolute, who has no limitations and none is like Him. To return to Him signifies a definite movement toward perfection, goodness, beauty, power, knowledge, value, and facts. This is the beauty of Hajj. However, with the usurpation of the rightful place of the Divine Guides, this valuable Abrahamic legacy was reduced to the mere superficial display of religiosity devoid of its revolutionary import. Hajj would have remained a mere physical calisthenic if not for Imam Hussain giving it substance by leaving Mecca to offer his Ismael in the desert of Karbala. To acknowledge the responsibility of sacrificing one%u2019s Ismael, one is required to look deeply inside and see who his Ismael is. Is it %u201cyour wife, husband, partner, child, job, talent, sex, power, rank, position, name, %u201cyou%u201d, or anything or whatever is so dear as Ismael was to Abraham? Some of the signs of your Ismail are whatever takes away your freedom and stops you from performing your duties, whatever joy entertains you, whatever keeps you from hearing and knowing the truth, whatever persuades you to rationalize rather than accept responsibility, and whoever supports you only to receive your support in the future. You must search and find it in your life. If you are going to approach Almighty God, you should sacrifice your Ismail in Mina.%u201d The Imperative of Disavowing Polytheism in the Hajj The main importance of Hajj is the actualization of surrender, submission, and subservience to God alone as the fulfillment of the covenant with God to be His vicegerent on earth, making the denunciation of polytheism a must. This is epitomized by Abraham willingly obeying Allah to sacrifice his beloved Ismael, manifesting his regard for Allah%u2019s primacy over anything, even one%u2019s self-interest. This is symbolized in the stoning of the three idols in Mina, which represent Satan, who tried to tempt Prophet Abraham. Hitting first the largest Stone-Heap, followed by the Middle Stone-Heap, and lastly, the Little Stone-Heap, this disavowal of polytheism represents the slaying of the inner and outer despots. As Ayatollah Mazaheri has stated, %u201cIf one is able to crush %u2018Al-nafs Al-%u2019amm%u0101rah%u2019 during the stoning of Jamrat al%u02bfAqaba (the Jamrah of Aqaba), then one has taken the next step in attaining closeness to Allah, and since between the servant and Allah there is no more than the distance of one step, if one has been able to take this step and make it past one%u2019s own low desires and wishes, then that which follows is the level of closeness to Allah. During those two or three days after the Eid that one is in Mina, one must stone the three jamar%u0101t, meaning that one must trample upon his internal despot (an-nafs al-%u2019am%u0101ra), the external despot of the Shaitan and from the Jinn, and the Shay%u1e6d%u0101n from among the humans - the enemies of religion and of humanity- despots, fascists, capitalists, the peddlers of ignorance and the manipulators of man%u2019s feeblemindedness who erect systems that create conditions that may cause people to adhere to polytheism under the cover of monotheism. The stoning of the three jamar%u0101t is, in essence, the trampling upon the despots and waging war against all of them. When one focuses on them and the hatred for them, then one automatically focuses with complete attention upon one%u2019s self %u2013 and rightfully so %u2013 while stoning the jamar%u0101t, one %u201cHajj represents man%u2019s return to Allah, the abso-lute, who has no limitations and none is like Him. To return to Him signifies a definite movement toward perfection, good-ness, beauty, power, knowledge, value, and facts.