[Originally published by
SUSRIS in January 2005]
EDITOR'S
NOTE:
The Hajj [in January
2006] drew over two million
pilgrims to Makkah, Saudi Arabia for a joyous
profession of their faith. Today we are
pleased to mark the Hajj with an
interview with Dr. David E. Long. For more
on the Hajj we suggest you read Dr. Long's essay
"The
Hajj and Its Impact on Saudi Arabia and the
Muslim World."
A
career foreign service officer before retiring
to become a consultant on Middle East affairs,
he is author of numerous books on the Middle
East and his Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia is among the definitive
texts on the subject. Dr. Long has recently
finished Culture
and Customs of Saudi Arabia.
Dr.
Long was interviewed by telephone from his home
in Northern Virginia on January 14, 2005.
["Standing
Day" will be observed on Friday, December
29, 2006. The four-day Eid al Adha will
start on Saturday, December 30, 2006]
The
Hajj in Perspective:
A Conversation with David Long
SUSRIS: Thank you, Dr. Long
for taking time today to talk with us about the Hajj. What is the Hajj and why
do people do it?
Dr.
Long: The Hajj is one of the five pillars or the foundation of Islam and
therefore it is the obligation of everyone who is physically and financially
able to do so to make the Hajj once in their lifetimes. Pilgrimages to Makkah
actually predate Islam, but the Hajj is considered by all Muslims to be
divinely inspired by God as set down in the Qur'an and the Sunna. It is one of
the Five Pillars of Islam, the others being: the profession of faith -
"there is no God but God and Mohammed is the messenger of God";
Zakat or charity; prayer five times a day, and fasting during Ramadan. The
rites are based on the instructions Muhammad gave in his Farewell Hajj just
before he died. They have remained virtually unchanged to this day.
SUSRIS: What role has Saudi
Arabia played in hosting the pilgrims?
Dr.
Long: That is a fascinating question. There was great fear when the Saudis
took Makkah and annexed the Hijaz that they would do things that were not in
line with the established practices. The fear first arose when the puritanical
Islamic revival movement of Muhammed Ibn Abu Wahhab spread from Najd
throughout Arabia, beginning in the 18th century.
Ibn Abu Wahhab preached that all
sorts of innovations had been introduced into Islam since the time of
Mohammed; his reform movement was basically a movement to get back to the
original Islam. The centerpiece of his reform movement was Tawhid, or
monotheism. The religious establishment who ran the Hajj feared that if the
people followed the reform movement, it would cost them both economically and
influence they held with the people. For example, one of the things that the
movement called for was banning the practice of seeking intercession with God
through Muslim saints by making pilgrimages to their tombs - very lucrative
for those who controlled the tombs. Mohammed Ibn Abu Wahhab considered
intercession heretical as it denigrated the sovereignty and omnipotence of
God.
But when the Al Sauds annexed the
Hijaz and took over the administration of the Hajj in 1925-1926, it soon
became apparent that the fears were unfounded. From that time to this, the
Saudi regime has gone all out to make sure it was available to all those who
were able to attend. As a token of this responsibility, King Fahd assumed the
title Khadim al-Haramain (Custodian of the Two Holy Places, i.e. Makkah and
al-Madinah).
The
job has not always been easy. Not only are the administrative tasks of
providing services to over two million pilgrims enormous, but there have been
all sorts or political divisions and problems that posed dilemmas for the
Saudis.
For example, during the period of
Nasserism and secular Arab nationalism there were many people who wanted to
use the Hajj as a platform for political protest and the Saudis absolutely
forbade that. They said it was not a time for politics; the Hajj was purely
religious and they wanted to keep it that way. They would not allow protest
over secular political issues -- even if they agreed with them -- that they
did not feel were legitimately in the context of religious celebration.
After the 1979 revolution, Iranian
provocateurs stirred up trouble at the Hajj. It was partly religious but it
was mostly political. It was an attempt to undermine the Islamic world's
acceptance of Saudi custodianship, to undermine their reputation for running
Hajj. But it backfired; it did not work, in fact, just the opposite. On the
whole, I think that the record of the Saudis has been fairly good in terms of
their striving to help people meet the obligation to come to the Hajj without
being subjected to political protest.
Now that's on the political side. The
administrative problems the Saudis have had to encounter have in many ways
been even more daunting. In the beginning, the Saudi Government was far less
advanced than the former Hijazi government and not capable of administering
such a huge task. What they came up with, I think, was pretty ingenious: a
public utility concept -- my term not theirs - similar to public utilities in
the United States. The Hajj is administered primarily by the private sector
but it is closely regulated by the government, which even collects the fees
from the Hajjis and remits it to the private Hajj service sector to insure
that the pilgrims are being fairly treated. Had the government tried to
nationalize Hajj administration, there would likely have been chaos. But
instead, they allowed private guilds (somewhat like guilds in medieval Europe)
that had been guiding pilgrims for centuries, to continue to administer the
Hajj but under strict supervision.
The
principal guild consists of mutawwiffin (sing. mutawwif). They are sort of
like family-run religious tour guide companies, if you will. Collectively, the
mutawwiffin are responsible for pilgrims from every country in the world. For
example, there is a mutawwif responsible for all the pilgrims coming from the
United States. Closely associated with the mutawwifin are the Wukala' (sing
Wakil), or Agents. Located in the port city of Jiddah, they are responsible
for meeting pilgrims arriving by air or sea, seeing them safely off to Makkah
and seeing them off on the return trip home. (With the creation of an
all-weather road system, an increasing number once again travel overland by
car or bus.)
There is another guild in Makkah, the
Zamazimah (sing. Zamzami). Historically, their task was to provide pilgrims
with the holy water of Zamzam, a well inside the Haram Mosque. That has become
a major undertaking with the great increase in numbers. Can you imagine when
you have two million people who want to drink Zamzam water that's a pretty big
task? They do that, but their skill has expanded and that is why they are
called Zamazimah. In fact they bottle Zamzam water -- the real Zamzam water --
send it all over the world. It is a non-profit foundation to raise money for
worthy causes.
Finally,
to meet, guide and see off the Hajjis that visit al-Madinah, the guild of
Adilla (sing. Dalil) are located in al-Madinah where they meet, guide and see
off the Hajjis that visit that city.
Compare the Hajj to a city of two
million people. Over two million people attend the Hajj each year. Think about
it - providing transportation, sanitation, health care, food, and drink. What
happens if somebody gets lost and speaks an uncommon language? There are some
pilgrims in their 60s and 70s who have saved up for a lifetime to make the
Hajj. The chances of a medical emergency among this group are high,
particularly in the summer months when the temperature can reach 135 degrees
Fahrenheit, and they are usually outside or living in a tent. Throughout the
area, the government has installed high overhead sprinklers to lower the
chances of heat stroke. These are not conditions on the magnitude of the South
Asia tsunami, but they must be dealt with on a yearly basis. It is truly a
mind-boggling task.
SUSRIS: Your analogy of a
population, an overnight collection, of two million people, equivalent to a US
metropolitan region is interesting. Can you give us a sense of the magnitude
of the event?
Dr. Long: I think that puts it
in the right perspective. When you have that many people, there are bound to
be glitches here and there. What is amazing is that there aren't more. For
example, let's talk about transportation. Let me walk you through the Hajj.
When pilgrims near Makkah, whether by
air, land or sea, they must enter a ritual state of purification called Ihram.
It includes wearing Hajj garments -- women do not wear veils - and refraining
from cutting hair or nails, or having sex. Those in Ihram are easily
recognizable by the garments they wear - two seamless pieces of white terry
cloth for men and a long white robe for women. Women do not wear veils.
Upon reaching Makkah, one goes to the
great Haram Mosque. The first rite is the Tawaf, the seven-fold
circumambulation of the Kaaba, the dark stone cubic building in the center of
the main mosque area. One then takes a drink of holy Zamzam water and then
makes seven one way trips between Safa and Marwah, which are two little hills
that are now incorporated into the mosque complex. That commemorates when
Hagar was frantically looking for water for her infant son, Isma'il. In
response, according to Islamic tradition, God struck open a rock and out came
the water of Zamzam.
The logistics of moving the pilgrims
through these rites are not particularly difficult. They are done ad seriatim
as people arrive, not all at the same time. Afterwards, all the pilgrims
travel east of Makkah to the Plain of Arafat. The choicest place to be is a
small hill called the Mount of Mercy, but as all two million arrive, a tent
city to accommodate them, replete with shops, first aid stations, fire
stations, sanitations facilities, communications and transportation, stretches
for miles across the plain.
It is at the Plain of Arafat that the
Hajj culminates at sunset on Standing Day, the ninth day of the Muslim lunar
month of Thul-Hijjah (which occurs eleven days earlier each year on the solar
calendar - this year on January 20). Everyone - all two million plus-- must
say prayers at Arafat at sunset on that day else the Hajj is forfeited.
Following
prayers, everyone must travel back toward Makkah to another location, Mina for
the beginning of the Eid al-Adha (The Great Feast of the Sacrifice), which is
celebrated throughout the Muslim world. The trek is called the Rush (Nafrah),
but it takes about 12 hours to get everyone there. Think about two million
people leaving from the same place at the same time, and going to the same
place. Think about the Super Bowl or a World Series game, and what kind of
traffic jam that causes. Multiply that by twenty, but instead of going north,
south, east and west think of them all going in the same direction and out of
piety many of them want to walk. We're talking about the biggest traffic jam
ever.
So transportation, the problems they
have to address are mind-boggling. They have everything from taxicabs to big
buses that come down from Turkey and Central Asia with the Hajis living in
them. Think of all the fender benders and that's just one thing.
SUSRIS: And they are from all
corners of the globe?
Dr. Long: Yes, from all
corners of the globe. And speaking over 100 languages or dialects and a large
number of them up in years. But the gargantuan logistical task does not end
there. During the Eid al Adha each family is supposed to sacrifice an animal.
Of course many insist on a sheep, nothing smaller. For years, hundreds of
thousands of sheep were slaughtered, and after families took what they could
use, the rest was simply buried because of the lack of processing facilities
for sheep sacrificed one day of the year. But the goal of the Eid is to give
up something valuable, not blood sacrifice, and so now it is possible to
purchase a sheep, have it slaughtered in the correct way and have the meat
distributed worldwide to the needy. It is both practical and a suitable act of
piety.
These
are just some of the logistical problems that confront the Saudis. It is a
Herculean job. One of the things that makes it all work is the attitude of the
people. The Hajj is an incredibly and deeply joyous time -- not the sort of
the manufactured happiness of New Year's Eve West where everyone goes out and
tries to pretend they are having a great time. People from all over the Muslim
world who attend are overflowing with good will.
One can feel it feel it even watching
on Saudi television where it is broadcast. Watching the broadcast, one can
hear a spontaneous chanting of the Talbiyyah, a ritual prayer repeated
throughout the Hajj. First will come one or two voices, then a dozen, and then
thousands are chanting it. Even for those not physically present, it is hard
not to have chills run up and down your back
SUSRIS: How does the role of
Saudi Arabia as the custodian of the two holy places and the role as host for
the pilgrimage effect the thinking of the people and government of Saudi
Arabia?
Dr. Long: The attitude toward
the Hajj in Saudi Arabia may be somewhat analogous to being a Catholic living
in Rome. You might take it for granted, but at the same time it permeates your
whole life. Proximity to the Muslim holy places can indeed be taken for
granted by Saudis, particularly those who live in Makkah and al-Madinah and
nearby towns and cities. But on the other hand, Islam in all its dimensions is
just a part of one's daily life in a way that is difficult to duplicate in
many other places throughout the Muslim world.
One of the issues now facing Saudis
and others from the Gulf is that physically there are only so many people who
can do this each year and they are about to max out. They have spent literally
millions of dollars expanding the capacity of the holy cities and the holy
mosques to accommodate these people. You remember when I said the two little
hills that were incorporated into the complex -- Safa and Marwah. You've seen
pictures of the Prophet's Mosque in Al-Madinah. These are huge places, and
they can accommodate over a million people at the same time -- that is just
mind-boggling.
But still, the government has had to
say to people who live in Saudi Arabia and neighboring states that they cannot
go to the Hajj more than once every five years. Because there are so many
people living in Saudi Arabia, there are three million people living in nearby
Jeddah -- what if they all showed up? It is a difficult dilemma for the
government to limit local attendance at the holy places during the Hajj, but
it must be done to make room for those attending for the first and perhaps
last time in their lives.
SUSRIS: A news report said
this year's visa quota for the Hajj was 1.2 million.
Dr. Long: Yes they do limit
visas. They have to. The people in the Arabian Peninsula don't need a Hajj
visa.
They
have to do this in order to accommodate people because it is a religious
obligation and they take it very seriously. Again that is another logistic
problem they have to address. Security is the same way. As people found out
back during the Arab nationalist era and as the Iranians discovered after the
Islamic revolution, there is a backlash against people who try to use the Hajj
for political purposes. This is a very holy celebration and anybody who tries
to stir up trouble is subject to a backlash, a feeling against them.
SUSRIS: Does Saudi Arabia
exercise any special place in the Islamic world since it is the home of the
holy sites?
Dr. Long: I think that it
would be precise to say that Saudi Arabia feels a special responsibility to
the rest of the Muslim world as the birthplace of Islam and the location of
its two holiest places. They do place great importance on their relations with
other Muslim states, and to increase good relations throughout the Muslim
world they created the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. It is
probably fair to say that they do exercise a special place in the Islamic
world, but it is not an 'imperial' thing. They feel that as the keepers of the
holy places and the birthplace of Islam they have to be concerned about the
hearts and minds of Muslims. But that doesn't translate into Saudi hegemony
over anything because it wouldn't be Saudi hegemony, it would be God's
hegemony over the world in an Islamic context.
SUSRIS: How does the Hajj fit
into the changing security posture in the Kingdom - given the Al Qaeda attacks
of recent years?
Dr. Long: People should always
be mindful of the security situation anywhere they go. But there are two other
considerations here: one, any terrorist group that seeks legitimacy from some
Muslim constituency would be foolish indeed to commit an act of violence at
such a holy celebration. Those who have tried in past years have found it
overwhelmingly counterproductive. One must assume that they seek to recruit
followers and it is not going to win hearts and influence people to kill your
own people during the holiest gathering of the year.
SUSRIS: Is there potential for
some activity to embarrass the Saudis as the hosts.
Dr. Long: There is always that
potential but as the Iranians found out the odds that it would be totally
counterproductive and backfiring are huge. The terrorists in Saudi Arabia have
found out that the people turned against them when they started killing
Muslims. One of the reasons they went for the Interior Ministry last month was
to isolate them in the minds of people as the enemy rather than as Muslims.
Al-Qaeda is expounding a cause, but
no matter how fanatical they might be, they cannot succeed by alienating the
very people you are supposedly trying to protect from the outside enemy. There
may be some organization with a kind of Jim Jones mentality that does
something really irrational, but Al-Qaeda does not appear to me to be that
irrational. They may be zealots but they think rationally. You can't rule it
out but I would find it incredible that they would be so stupid.
SUSRIS: So the security
challenges are just the physical accommodation of over two million people.
Dr. Long: Nothing of the
magnitude of the Hajj is that simple, and of course, the Saudis are going to
have to worry about political security. But Hajj administration is such a
gigantic undertaking that they will have plenty of other, more mundane forms
of security to worry about.
SUSRIS: What is it about the
Hajj that people should understand? How should people put it in the context of
world events?
Dr. Long: There are many ways
you can do that. The first that comes to mind is that the Hajj creates an
opportunity for non Muslims and people who don't know much about Islam --
particularly those people who have a totally negative view of Muslims as
terrorists and the other images that are prominently displayed in the media --
that this is a gathering of 2 million faithful people in a joyous time in the
21st century. With all the strife and all the suffering going on in the world
it is just absolutely amazing.
It shows as much as anything can, the
collective heart of the largest religious group in the world -- 1.2 billion
people, more of them than anyone else. That in itself is not the lesson, the
lesson is to get along in this world with anybody you need a sense of
perspective. This is a great way of gaining perspective by looking at how so
many people do an act of piety and religious obligation in an atmosphere of
joy every year regardless of what's going on in Iraq, or anywhere, and I think
that would be a lesson to contemplate.
SUSRIS: That's a great
observation. Thank you, Dr. Long for sharing your insight on the Hajj with us
today.
David
E. Long
is a consultant on Middle East and Gulf affairs
and international terrorism. He joined the U.S.
Foreign Service in 1962 and served in Washington
and abroad until 1993, with assignments in the
Sudan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. His
Washington assignments included Deputy Director
of the State Department's Office of Counter
Terrorism for Regional Policy, a member of the
Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff, and
Chief of the Near East Research Division in the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research Bureau. He
was also detailed to the Institute for National
Strategic Studies of the National Defense
University in Washington, 1991-92, and to the
United States Coast Guard Academy, 1989-91,
where he served as Visiting Professor of
International Relations and in 1990-91 as Acting
Head of the Humanities Department.
A
native of Florida, he received an AB in history
from Davidson College, an MA in political
science from the University of North Carolina,
an MA in international relations from the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a Ph.D.
in International Relations from the George
Washington University.
In 1974
-1975, Dr. Long was an International Affairs
Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and
concurrently a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown
University Center for Strategic and
International Studies. While on leave of absence
from the State Department, he was the first
Executive Director of the Georgetown University
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1974-1975.
In 1982-1983, he was a Senior Fellow of the
Middle East Research Institute and Adjunct
Professor of Political Science at the University
of Pennsylvania, and in 1987-1989, he was a
Diplomat in Residence and Research Professor of
International Affairs at Georgetown.
Dr.
Long has been an adjunct professor at several
Washington area universities, including
Georgetown, George Washington and American
Universities and the Johns Hopkins University's
School of Advanced International Studies. He has
also lectured extensively in the United States
and abroad on topics relating to the Islam, the
Middle East and terrorism.
His
publications include The Government and
Politics of the Middle East and North Africa
(co-editor with Bernard Reich, 4th ed. 2002), Gulf
Security in the Twenty-First Century
(co-editor with Christian Koch, 1998), The
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1997), The
Anatomy of Terrorism (1990), The United
States and Saudi Arabia: Ambivalent Allies
(1985), Saudi Arabian Modernization (with
John Shaw, 1982), The Hajj Today: A Survey of
the Contemporary Makkah Pilgrimage (1979), Saudi
Arabia (1976) and The Persian Gulf
(1976, revised 1978).
The
Hajj - SUSRIS NID - January 4, 2006
The
Hajj and Its Impact on Saudi Arabia and the Muslim World - By
David E. Long - SUSRIS IOI - Jan 19, 2005
Pilgrims
Bid Farewell to Makkah - SUSRIS IOI - Jan. 25, 2005
A Hajj Diary - By Faiza
Saleh Ambah - SUSRIS IOI:
