The Turning of Arrival

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As we boarded vans, a block-long hulk of yellow helicopter appeared above the cliffs over the road. It hovered long enough to drop a basket on a cable, then pluck a prostrate pilgrim from the crowds. It reeled him up and vanished over the hillside. The Saudi army had seven of these flying hospitals, with landing pads all over the valley.

makkah 

Back in California, when I was planning my trip, I viewed the hajj as a journey to a physical destination. But, in fact, it was protean, all process. It surprised me now to see how far off I'd been. In the West, the notion of pilgrimage centered on going, reaching, arriving. Nailing this moribund image to the hajj was a mistake, like claiming that going home to dinner begins with getting off work and ends with reaching the porch-omitting any mention of the meal.

The goal of the hajj is to perform it well. The rites are hard, sometimes unfathomable-like living. Yet they provide a counterweight to the usual view of life. Elsewhere, every person looks out for himself. During the hajj, people look out for each other. The hajj is a shared rite of passage.

I saw it through the eyes of others as much as through my own. In that way, it was like an act of love.

I admired the way sweat and symbols flowed together. By an act of imagination and exertion, a spiritual rite fulfilled a private quest. For all its public aspect, the experience was intensely personal. By giving the pilgrim a chance to choose his moment, it provided a service missing in the West since the days of the medieval palmers: It offered a climax to religious life.

From One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Writing About the Pilgrimage to Mecca edited by Michael Wolfe (Grove, 1997).

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