The Nomadic Alternative – Page 115

who already misbelieve." Exact timing is the prerequisite of all religious observance.

Pilgrims who die on the road to Mecca ascend automatically to Heaven as martyrs, and greater merit accrues to the man who braves the waterless gorges of the desert on foot. But the hadj is a worthless excursion unless the pilgrim realises his goal to be spiritual, not terrestrial. "He who travels to the Kaaba on foot", wrote Saadi, "makes a circuit of the Kaaba, but he who makes the pilgrimage to the Kaaba in his heart is encircled by the Kaaba."

The journey conveys on the pilgrim a temporary state of sanctity - the inram. A man may not wear a hat, for hats are a badge of rank. Besides, the rays of the sun falling on a bare head facilitate illumination. He may not wear any sewn or knotted garment, for knots and seams indicate a knotted and seamed personality. Two simple pieces of folded white cloth symbolize the equality of all men before God. Beggar and sheikh perform their ceremonial on equal terms. The pilgrim must also remain chaste and not hunt for food.

A sacred territory, known as "The Pasture" is a refuge for man and animal alike. Here one may kill only the "five noxious" - the crow, the kite, the rat, the scorpion and the rabid dog. Even the trees of the Pasture are sacred.

The ceremonies at Mecca reenact the occurrences of an actual migration. The pilgrim performs the tawaf or circumambulation of the shrines in an anti-clockwise, that is to say, a sinister direction. To dissolve his own sins he makes seven of these circuits round the