Hajj And The Plight Of The Palestinian People

Zafar Bangash

Dhu al-Qa'dah 24, 1445 2024-06-01

News & Analysis

by Zafar Bangash (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 54, No. 4, Dhu al-Qa'dah, 1445)

This year, Hajj will fall in the middle of June. In summer, temperatures soar to 45 to 50 degrees celsius. The only escape from such high temperatures is in indoor spaces where air conditioning is available. Outdoors, under the blazing sun, it is extremely uncomfortable, not to mention hazardous for pilgrims. Sun stroke is a real risk.

While such physical risks are real for the hujjaj, there are far greater challenges facing the Palestinian people in Gaza. The zionists are perpetrating a genocide. More than 36,000 Palestinians among them at least 15,000 children have been murdered.

The entire infrastructure of Gaza lies in ruins. People have been forced to flee three or four times, first from their destroyed homes after surviving the Israeli bombardment, and now even forced to flee from the camps. The genocidal zionists pursue them relentlessly.

With two million plus pilgrims performing Hajj this year, the barbaric zionist genocide of Palestinians will naturally be uppermost in the minds of most. Will there be any discussion of the Palestinians’ plight and how their suffering can be ended? What about identifying the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes: zionist Israel and its underwriter, the US?

If past experience is any guide, pilgrims will face severe restrictions if they express sympathy with the Palestinians. The Saudi occupiers of the Haramayn have in recent months arrested pilgrims for displaying Palestinian symbols such as the kaffiyeh, the chequered Palestinian scarf.

The arrest and interrogation of British actor and presenter Islah Abdur-Rahman came to light when he put his story on Instagram. He had gone to perform Umrah (the lesser pilgrimage) last October. He was arrested and interrogated for wearing the kaffiyeh. It was taken away from him.

Pilgrims have been arrested in both al-Masjid al-Haram in Makkah and al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Madinah for wearing the kaffiyeh. One is constrained to ask, whether there is any verse in the Qur’an or a hadith of the Prophet (pbuh) which prohibits Muslims from praying in the two most sacred Mosques, or any mosque in the world seeking Allah’s help?

Allah tells us in the noble Qur’an: “And your Sustainer says: ‘Call upon Me, and I shall respond to you…” (Surah Ghafir, verse 60).

In another surah, Allah reminds us about His help when He poses the question: “Who is it that responds to the distressed when he calls out on Him, and who removes the ill [that caused the distress]? (Al-Naml, ayah 62).

Turning to Allah in times of distress is the natural inclination of Muslims. Before the Battle of Badr, the noble Messenger (pbuh) pleaded with Allah for help. He made an impassioned plea to His Lord for support.

The challenge facing the Muslims was immense. The handful of lightly-armed Muslims (313 in all), faced a formidable army of 1,000-strong heavily-armed Makkan mushriks. Following the Prophet’s prayer and the Muslims’ sincere commitment to Allah, they were granted victory.

The Muslims of Palestine today are faced with an even more ruthless and barbarous enemy. They make no distinction between combatants and civilians.

For the genocidal zionists, every Palestinian is an enemy, even a new-born infant. If left to live, he will grow up to become a fighter, goes their demonic logic. Hence, Palestinian infants must also be killed. The zionists are exercising the Amalek option!

The Palestinians’ homes, schools, universities, hospitals and bakeries have all been destroyed. There is little food, water, medicines or fuel left in Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned of imminent famine.

Palestinians are being killed with bombs and missiles from the air and strangled to death through starvation on the ground. The collective west is fully complicit in the zionist genocide. Western regimes are providing military hardware and political and diplomatic support.

Unfortunately, the response of the Muslim regimes is equally distressing. Far from helping the victims, barring a few countries and movements—Islamic Iran, Syria, Iraq, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Ansarallah of Yemen—the rest are complicit in Israeli crimes.

At the forefront are such regimes as those in the Bani Saud occupied Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey. The role of the Pakistani regime (essentially under the boot of the military) is equally despicable. While possessing nuclear weapons, Pakistan has become a sick joke.

We must, however, turn to the question of Hajj and what Allah commands us to do. Our guidance comes from the noble Qur’an and the Prophetic sunnah, not the rants of some ignorant paid Saudi court preacher.

In Surah At-Tawbah, Allah (swt) commands us to make an open declaration of disavowal from the mushrikeen on the day of the greater pilgrimage (Hajj). The ayat says: “And a proclamation from Allah and His Messenger [is herewith made] to all mankind on this day of the Greater Pilgrimage, ‘Allah disavows all who attribute divinity/authority to anyone/anything beside Him and [so does] His Messenger…’” (Surah at-Tawbah, verse 3).

There is no ambiguity in this ayah (there cannot be). It is not open to different interpretations; the divine command is direct. Allah commands us to declare our public disavowal from the mushrikeen on the day of Hajj.

What is the reality of Hajj today under Bani Saud control? They have reduced it to empty rituals where the pilgrims are forbidden to discuss any of the burning issues confronting the Ummah. Instead of Hajj being the annual assembly of the Ummah, it has become an enormously expensive undertaking without much purpose.

This is not what Allah and His Prophet (pbuh) had meant the Hajj to be. So, what is to be done? The first point that Muslims must internalize is that the Haramayn (Makkah and al-Madinah) are not the private property of any regime, clan or family. They are the common heritage of the Ummah.

The nearly 2-billion strong Muslim Ummah represented by the global Islamic Movement must take steps to liberate the Haramayn from the clutches of the Bani Saud clan. They must be banished to their desert dwellings in Dari‘yah.

The zionists’ genocidal onslaught on Gaza provides an opportunity to mobilize Muslim public opinion for this urgent task. If Muslims cannot raise their hands in prayer to seek Allah’s help in His House, who and where else can they turn to for help? The heart-breaking tragedy in Gaza can be turned into meaningful change by liberating both the Arabian Peninsula and the holy land of Palestine from alien occupiers.