Hajj season ..my incoherence!

I have always romanticized my Islam, my Arab maybe Bedouin background even. The pilgrimage to Mecca as one of the necessary ritual of Islam has always been a romantic ceremony in my head. Being impressed with the masse of people in millions all gathered in one place saying labbayka Allahumma labbayk, in a call for submission to God. I never understood why we would need to make all those rounds, but also like romanticizing Islam from a Sufi perspective. It made sense. Reaching up to the mountain and pushing to throw the devil has something that was also impossible for my romantic mind. How do we stone the devil? How does he look like? Does he live in that wadi (valley)? This scene of people rushing to stone the poor devil, with all those stones that befall on him he will be buried. They should make a ritual of throwing sand and earth on him, not rocks. Because rocks will always give him a chance to breathe, so he cannot die.

It could be a ritual as sentimental and romantic as that of lighting a candle in a church. However, then there are robust procedures that my romantic mind fails to comprehend.

All those sacrifices that are wasted. I know they are not. But the millions of slaughtered sheep and animals for the occasion can feed all the hunger of the universe. As we go to reach God, we end up following rituals, and no one would even dare to think of criticizing or not doing. You cannot be a hajj if you don’t stone the devil. You have to slaughter an animal now, not whenever you decide fit maybe in your own country where people may be starving all year long. You don’t question why men rush half naked, and we are forced to see ugly meat through the nakedness and men pose with pride. Why do men have to be naked and women have to be covered. Why should I as a woman be shy of my creator?

So many unromantic, messed up questions are popping in my new head at the moment …

I don’t want to end up as the stoned devil with a name …

Happy Eid and Hajj Mabrour