Hajj and Sabr

Photo by SULTAN ALHUTHLI on Unsplash

Many Muslims live their whole lives without ever getting the chance to lay their eyes on the Kaaba, so earlier this year when I found out that I would be embarking on Hajj, it was an honor and a privilege. Hajj is so special because if a person is granted an accepted Hajj, they are promised to be returned back home sinless, like the day their mother gave birth to them. What an amazing reward!

My experience taught me, however, that this reward isn’t free. Most people that haven’t been for Hajj don’t understand that it is meant to be a struggle. This once-in-a-lifetime journey teaches you deep lessons through testing you with one discomfort after another. Your job during Hajj is to take those challenging moments with ease, and have complete Sabr – patience and perseverance – each step of the way. I saw so many instances of Hujjaj in moments of difficulty and they demonstrated Sabr in real time.

One such instance was when one of my roommates in Makkah hadn’t returned to the hotel for a few days. I started to worry. She was an elderly lady with a few health conditions, so it was even more concerning. I would see her empty bed and untouched suitcase and pray she was safe and healthy wherever she was. When she finally stumbled into the room some days later, you could see her exhaustion and you knew she had been through something grueling. She was disheveled, probably sleep deprived and hungry, and of course her skin was completely flushed from the extreme heat. I gave her some food and water and had her lie down for a bit. She only spoke French and Arabic but I could understand that she had walked for ages. The other ladies in the room spoke French and she was explaining in a lot of distress that she had seen shrouded bodies on the way. Due to the deadly heat and haphazard lack of transportation, I had heard many firsthand accounts of people walking for hours in the sun and seeing shrouded bodies on the road. Of course it is traumatizing to see death up close like that. In this unbearable moment, one thing I understood clearly was when she said “Alhamdulillah”, Praise is to Allah.

It was so shockingly beautiful to me that she was able to say a word of thanks to Allah. From the outside looking in, another person may look at her and say she had every right to complain. On the contrary, what I saw in this statement of Alhamdulillah, was an eagerness to endure the difficulty for the pleasure of Allah. We never know if this Hajj of ours will be accepted or if we’ll be invited back in our lifetime, so we have to make sure it counts. Same with life. We don’t know when we will be taken back to our Creator, so we should live each day with the same attitude of Sabr in all circumstances. 

I have to remind myself to practice this kind of next-level gratitude. Alhamdulillah for my post-Hajj cough. Alhamdulilah for loved ones that get on my nerves. Alhamdulillah for the big and the little things. Alhamdulillah for the good and what I perceive as bad. Alhamadulillah for everything. 

I wanted to end by sharing a video from Gaza, Palestine that I cannot stop thinking about. This man lost his home after an Israeli attack, but in the clip you can see him smiling and genuinely saying Alhamdulillah in the midst of the rubble. If that’s not the perfection of Alhamdulillah, then I don’t know what is.

I pray Allah makes us all patient people that continuously embody Alhamdulillah in our lives.