Hajj
\r\nHajj is a unique religious, political, cultural and human event. It is spectacular, indeed the greatest of spectacles ever put on by human beings. No religion and no civilization ever witnessed or sustained a similar event.
\r\nThe effect of hajj on the participant is always radical. It shatters his personality by convincing him of its futility or vanity; and it reconstructs that personality and orients it towards Allah and His cause. It destroys every vestige of individualism, egotism, every trace of subjectivism and isolationism, every tendency to particularism and nationalism and finally, every touch of inferiority or superiority complex. It restores and instils in the participant's mental health, emotional equilibrium, concern for humans across every boundary or race or colour, of culture, language and social classification. It makes or reinforces his consciousness of himself as an ummatic being endowed with a universal mission. With all this, hajj lifts the participant above the flow of space and time, and confirms him as the guide and leader of that flow.
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n Islam: The Way of Revival, \"Inner Dimensions of Worship\" - Ismail al-Faruqi, p. 178