The Village Square

Islam 101: The pilgrimage to Mecca

July 1st, 2009

One of the five pillars of the Islamic faith is that each Muslim, sometime in their life, is to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Westerners are familiar with the stock footage we see year after year of white-clad Muslims moving around a strange-looking black object in a way that seems foreign to us. If you didn’t know already, here’s the backstory:

The black object is called the “Kaaba” which is literally “the cube.” It is said to have been built by Abraham, the father of all three monotheistic faiths, and his son Ismail, the father of the Islamic people. Abraham found Ismail and his mother Hagar alive and living near Mecca after miraculously traversing the desert following their exile by Abraham’s wife Sarah. Father and son then rebuilt the Kaaba, originally thought to be built by Adam as a monument to one God. It contains a meteorite thought to be a covenant between Ismail and God, and by extension to the whole Muslim people.

When they come to Mecca, Muslims move 7 times around the Kaaba in prayer. They drink water from a well where Muslims believe God saved Hagar and Ismail by making water bubble miraculously from the desert floor. They symbolically reject the devil by throwing stones at three pillars that stand at the site where Satan tempted Abraham to disobey God when asked to sacrifice his son. (Muslim teachings diverge from Christian teachings here this point as they understand the son slated for sacrifice to be Ismail, not Isaac.)

Come learn more at our July 14th dinner “A Rabbi, A Priest, A Pastor & An Imam.”

Entry Filed under: Beyond our borders, Religion and politics