David turned his back on the bus and walked with his fellow pilgrims. Once they cleared the chaos of the parking lot, they joined a human line of cloth and prayer that stretched for two miles to the outer walls of the mosque. David glanced around. Already there was no trace of the men he’d traveled with. They, and he, were one, blended into the white pilgrim trail.
As he walked, he began to recite the prayers that had filled his mind since he woke. Imam Ali had said: “A haji speaks his prayers to Allah not in a quiet murmur, but as he would to a friend who takes tea with him.”
“Bism Allah, Allahu Akba (In the name of God, God is Great)… Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar (God is Great, God is Great)… wa lil Lahi Alhamd (and praise be to God).”
Like spokes of a great wheel, his line and dozens more crept toward the principal mass of pilgrims, tens of thousands, who were performing their Tawaf — walking seven times, counterclockwise around the Ka’ba.
After passing through a gate in the outer wall of the huge open mosque, David shuffled another two-hundred feet, and finally joined the circling crowd.
He moved with the crowd until, as though someone yanked an invisible string attached to the center of his brow, his head turned toward the Ka’ba, three-hundred feet away across a sea of bodies. Forty feet wide, fifty long, and fifty high, the looming black building appeared far larger to him.
A clump of pilgrims gathered at the east corner of the Ka’ba. For a fraction of a second, a space cleared between their heads, and sunlight glinted from the polished setting of the Black Stone.
The Black Stone, a dark, reflective pupil the size of a man’s head, set in a four-foot-high vertical silver eye.
The Black Stone, sent from heaven to fall at Adam’s feet.
The Black Stone, which reminded every Muslim there was but one God and none before him.
David marked his location relative to the Stone. He pulled his Ihram off his head and slid the right half of the garment down, baring his shoulder. The first of seven circuits of the Ka’ba began from that point. Shuffling through the rotations, David would edge toward the center, never pushing, moving with patience and respect. With Allah’s blessing and help, he would kiss the Black Stone before his Tawaf was complete.
After each circuit, when he returned to the position where he had begun his Tawaf, he raised his right hand, pointed to the Stone and chanted his prayer to Allah’s greatness.
As he edged nearer to his goal, the rectangular building towered over him. Black curtains draped the walls; embroidered on them in spun gold were the words of the Shahada: There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.The purity and truth of the words burned hot in his mind.
When he pointed to the stone for a sixth time and began his final circuit, still sixty feet from the Ka’ba, the crowds were dense, but it seemed to David that a way was made for him. Spaces opened, and as he rounded the south face, his fingers touched the wall of the sacred building.
Ahead, a crush of bodies surrounded the eastern corner. He slowed his pace, taking space as allowed by other pilgrims as they completed their Tawaf and moved to their next rite. His prayers were loud. They filled his mind with the power of their meaning, their strength reinforced by prayer echoes from those around him. Finally, he placed his hand on the warm silver of the Black Stone’s setting, the undulating rhythm of prayers vibrated through the metal.
Then the grasping crowds faded, and he glided, untouched, toward the Stone. Leaning forward, he laid his lips where millions of Muslims had before him. Like Muhammad himself, he kissed the Black Stone. Immediately, he was swept away, his place taken by scores of pilgrims, straining and pushing to touch its smooth surface.
It had not been so for David.
Allah had cleared a way for him.
Of this, he was sure.
He drifted in a trance, allowing the crowd to squeeze him outward, toward the less populated areas. After two more circuits, he broke from the throng, found a space, and faced Muqaam Ibrahim — The Place of Abraham — the direction indicated by high green beacons mounted on towers. He opened his prayer mat, prostrated himself before Allah, and thanked him for the precious gift he had bestowed. The prayer chant was on his lips. It was in his mind. It resonated though his body. It consumed him.
His prayers complete, David entered the long air-conditioned tunnel connecting the hills of Safa and Marwah. In a transcendent daze, head high, prayers spilling from his heart, he moved alongside thousands of Muslim brothers and sisters who shared his journey.
At the well of Zamzam, he quenched his thirst with the same water Abraham’s wife, Hagar, had used to save the life of her son, Ismael. He drank five cups, each downed in three gulps. Sated, he filled a water bottle from the coolers provided — a gift for his father.
He walked seven times between the two hills to complete his Sa’i. When he left the tunnel, night had fallen, and he followed a tide of pilgrims to the permanent tent city at Mina. In a crowded marquee, he found a space on the ground, and made his last prayer before lying, exhausted, on the bare earth, to sleep.
David dreamed of the Black Stone. The silver eye appeared before him. He faced the stone with arms outstretched, and a dazzling golden light ushered forth. Its rays bathed his body and warmed him like the sun. The light beam held him fast. It began to lift, and he rose with it until he floated high above the East corner of the Ka’ba. He looked down on the moving mass of white-clad pilgrims circling the holy building. David observed their Tawafs from above, as Allah must see them.
The next morning, he rose early, took food and water, then began his prayers. All day he chanted aloud the hypnotic verses from his Koran. The familiar words carried more meaning spoken in this holy place. That night, he again dreamed of the Black Stone. Its golden light elevated him so that he floated over the pilgrims as they flowed like cream around the Ka’ba.
When he woke on the morning of the third day, it was still dark. After sunrise, he joined a snaking line of pilgrims on the fifteen-mile trek across the plain of Arafat to Wuquf: the hill of forgiveness, the keystone of the Hajj.
By late afternoon, David reached Mount Arafat. For the final few miles of the journey, his eyes had locked on the white marble obelisk that crowned the hill. An inner voice told him to climb and pray at its base.
A crowd, thirty deep, clustered around the stone pillar. He stood as close as possible and read from his Koran. The day waned, and worshippers moved and changed positions. When it was polite to do so, he edged closer until, as the sun’s light was setting, he changed places one final time.
David faced the white pillar. The stone marked the place where the Prophet Muhammad had given his last sermon. David lowered his hands and spread them slightly from his sides, palms facing the obelisk, mimicking the stance from his dreams of the Black Stone. He braced his legs and swayed in time to his prayers. Forward and back, his arc of movement increased until his brow touched the smooth, warm marble.
His motion stopped.
The stone held his head as a magnet holds metal.
Passages from the holy book, passages he had never before spoken, ushered from his lips. He opened his eyes, inches from the stone, and a golden light, the light from his dreams, dazzled him to sightlessness.
The stone released him. He straightened and turned. The golden beam warmed his back. When he regained his vision, David saw the land as it had been in the time of Abraham — bare rock, sand, and boulders. The hill of Wufur and the plain beyond were barren and empty of people.