Heeding the call to come to Kaabah

FOR Muslims, making the pilgrimage to Mecca is the pinnacle of faith, it being one of the five pillars of Islam. Usually, one embarks on this journey after reaching the stage in one’s life where the subject of mortality dawns. You see friends who grew up with you as kids, become colleagues in school before going out their separate ways. A few amongst mates would go on to make big waves on the world pool only to one day turn up in the obituary columns. There but for the grace of Allah, go I. You then start contemplating and thinking about what’s over yonder thinking; “Am I ready for the world thereafter, the great newsroom in the sky?” Only your most steadfast atheist acquaintance thinks life ends with a terminal fullstop – that’s it, na mas, finito, kaput, goodbye. So when the mother of all assignments landed on my lap, I simply could not think of turning it down. For sports reporters, it would have to be the World Cup, or the Olympics. For political observers – Malaysian ones at least – it was tailing Dr Mahathir round the world as the faithful chronicler of Che’ det ’s every move or utterances. For those on the legal beat, perhaps it was being made to attend court daily in small town Mentakab in some rickety hotel to cover the Mona Fendy trial. Today? Perhaps to see how yet another grand plan is being launched with the supposed intention to make our school kids achieve some semblance of ability to acquire the 3Rs – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Never mind that some have been so deprived by an education system sometimes excelling in a morass of world class mediocrity that some see only ONE ‘R’ in the triple coda of “readin’, ritin’ and ‘rithmetic”. (Excuse my foul disposition but I do have a plan to ditch pithy sarcasm whence I complete this transformational sojourn of mine). THE ASSIGNMENT OF A LIFETIME For me, at this stage of my working career, going to Mecca to cover the haj pilgrimage as part of the media contingent IS it. And why so, you might ask? Of the world’s seven billion population, Muslims number more than 1.26 billion. The Saudis take their responsibility to manage and host the millions of pilgrims who head to Mecca and Medina seriously. They have torn down existing buildings, hotels and other structures within the vicinity of the Kaabah in order to raise a more orderly development and create more hotel space for even more pilgrims to converge to Mecca every year. So while all the cranes hover and building works still carry on in full swing, visitor numbers have to be curtailed for the time being. This has raised the spectre of the quota where every nation in the world that sends its Muslim population to the Haj each year faces a 20 per cent reduction in the contingent size. This means a country like Malaysia whose pilgrim numbers, set at around 10 per cent of the population, faced a reduction in just around five thousand pilgrims. Limited supply over unlimited demand therefore means that anyone registering to perform the haj this year, will only get the nod to perform the haj in 49 years time! In one of my daily live phone interviews with 12 Noon Buletin Anchor Hans Yusof from Madinah which is the transitionary stage prior to the pilgrimage proper in Mecca, I raised the spectre of the long wait with the young man, who only in the recent past celebrated his 21st birthday. Hans, even if he registered tomorrow, would be almost 70 years old before he gets the chance the make the pilgrimage. So Hans, whatever you do, just go register yourself at the nearest Tabung Haji office to signal your intention and have your name registered in the queue. IN QUEUE FOR HAJ CUE In the quest to perform the haj, one has to take one’s turn waiting in line in what is no ordinary queue. There are those whose inertia is down to; “belum sampai seru” (yet to see the light). This of course refers to the stage in a person’s life when they have yet to decide that they have fully BEEN THERE, DONE THAT! It is said that if a person does not mend his ways after 40, then he’d seriously have to get his head checked and heart examined – not medically but more serious than that – emotionally. Muslims take their cue from the Prophet Mohamad (Peace Be Upon Him) who was only conferred Prophethood upon reaching the age of 40. So the moral here is that for anyone to have acquired enough nous, knowledge and ability to govern, rule out any 30-year-old snot-nosed kid with the impatient impudence to want to swing his mojo in claiming he is ready to rule...Malaysia! In performing the haj, one needs to overcome plenty of financial, domestic and logistical hurdles. Time was when one needed only to amass RM5,000 or thereabouts to embark on the journey. It now costs almost double – higher actually as Tabung Haji which is the organisation that has become the Global standard bearer in managing, preparing, handling, coaching and executing this massive undertaking for the past 52 years actually subsides each pilgrim to the tune of more than RM5,000 more. For this reason, it is both an entity that is widely respected whose ideals and practices are being looked upon for emulation by other nations. But at the end of the day, one may have all the money and all the resources but not the emotional wherewithal to make the journey. For those among my friends, I will always include you in my prayers, here at the Rawdah in Masjid Nabawi, that special place so dear to Prophet Mohamad (Peace Be Upon Him). RAZAK Chik admires the fortitude of the previous generation of pilgrims who used to undertake this arduous journey by boat from Port Swettenham back up to the early 1970s. The journey to and fro then took almost all of three months compared to the present day minimum of one week