{"id":132,"date":"2008-12-04T01:23:17","date_gmt":"2008-12-04T01:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html"},"modified":"2008-12-04T01:23:17","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T01:23:17","slug":"the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html","title":{"rendered":"The imminent Hajj: journey to Arafat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Hajj begins today. Millions of pilgrims gathered in Mecca are donning <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ihram\">ehram<\/a><\/em> and leaving for the journey to the Plain of Arafat today. Tomorrow, the pilgrims gathered upon Arafat will pray all day, while standing and facing towards Kaaba. Actually, given how many millions of pilgrims are en route, and that the final stretch of 2 miles must be on foot, the bulk of the pilgrims won&#8217;t even arrive until late tomorrow afternoon.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The journey to Arafat is in many ways the most literal part of the pilgrimage that is Hajj. Pilgrimages are possibly the most sacred form of piety, right up there with fasting, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pilgrimage\">common to all religions and faiths<\/a>. Muslims do the Hajj, Jews go to the Wailing Wall, Hindus to the Ganges, Christians to the Church of the Holy\u00a0Sepulcher, even the Baha&#8217;i and Buddhists have mandatory pilgrimages of faith. All share the common theme of purification and cleansing and forgiveness, of transcending the human condition and attempting to join with the divine.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As the pilgrims on Hajj make their way to Arafat today, it&#8217;s incumbent on all of us who are left behind to seek to make that journey in our own heart and try to attain as much of that cleansing and resolve for piety as we can.\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hajj begins today. Millions of pilgrims gathered in Mecca are donning ehram and leaving for the journey to the Plain of Arafat today. Tomorrow, the pilgrims gathered upon Arafat will pray all day, while standing and facing towards Kaaba. Actually, given how many millions of pilgrims are en route, and that the final stretch&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[148,105,40,147,24,110,149],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-gates-of-ijtihad","tag-buddhism","tag-christianity","tag-hajj","tag-hinduism","tag-islam","tag-judaism","tag-pilgrimage"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The imminent Hajj: journey to Arafat - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The imminent Hajj: journey to Arafat - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Hajj begins today. Millions of pilgrims gathered in Mecca are donning ehram and leaving for the journey to the Plain of Arafat today. Tomorrow, the pilgrims gathered upon Arafat will pray all day, while standing and facing towards Kaaba. Actually, given how many millions of pilgrims are en route, and that the final stretch&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-04T01:23:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The imminent Hajj: journey to Arafat - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The imminent Hajj: journey to Arafat - City of Brass","og_description":"The Hajj begins today. Millions of pilgrims gathered in Mecca are donning ehram and leaving for the journey to the Plain of Arafat today. Tomorrow, the pilgrims gathered upon Arafat will pray all day, while standing and facing towards Kaaba. Actually, given how many millions of pilgrims are en route, and that the final stretch&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2008-12-04T01:23:17+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html","name":"The imminent Hajj: journey to Arafat - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-04T01:23:17+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-04T01:23:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-imminent-hajj-journey-to-a.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The imminent Hajj: journey to Arafat"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}