What is the function of Hajj? The purpose of Hajj that I alluded to briefly is in fact that a person has to get a new life.
That they are starting a fresh. That they've accumulated the dirt of sins and sadness and grievance in their life
and now Allah has given them an opportunity to face him like they will on Judgment Day but ahead of it
to prepare themselves from Judgment Day. A new life all over again. So when we go for Hajj,
the idea that I no longer carry any of the recognition that I had before I left. Nothing.
Like Allah describes on judgement day {وَكُلُّهُمْ آتِيهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ فَرْدًا} [19:95]
everyone will come before Allah on that day as an individual. Hajj is one of the biggest if not the biggest gathering you'll ever be a part of
and you'll never feel more alone than at Hajj. You feel like you are the only one there.
It's just you and Allah and just people pushing you around. And the fact that people are pushing you around
and you're not getting your personal space and you're not being treated like a VIP that you're normally used to being treated
and all of that is actually a training that you are meaningless now. You're worthless. You're before Allah you have no pride left
{فَلَا رَفَثَ وَلَا فُسُوقَ وَلَا جِدَالَ فِي الْحَجِّ} [2:197] there's a reason for that. There's no arguing in Hajj,
there is no "Hey, you can't do that to me." There's none of that. Because you have no self respect left.
You've completely given yourself for Allah being tossed and thrown around. That's literally what you go there for.
You don't go there to be treated well. You go there in that barren place for a reason. Notice the place Allah chose for Hajj.
Notice this land. How barren and hot and uncomfortable it is. How unworldly it is. There is no reason to go there that can be worldly.
It's just entirely a spiritual place to be. Actually in the worldly sense it's a very uncomfortable place.
Had it not been for the ‏كعبة I can guarantee you Mecca was not a hot like vacation destination.
It's not going to compete with California or Hawaii or Malaysia or something else.
It's not going to. There's no reason somebody's going to go into burnt rock. They're not going to go there.
But we go there before Allah and literally it's almost describe the barren nature of what Judgment Day is going to look like.
Because Allah will describe that he's going to make everything into flat. There's not going to be any life left
and it's going to be this barren nature to judgement day. That's what we're preparing ourselves for.
Now these ten nights of training and these days that go by and that night that quickly passes by.
Allah says to those people who carry this remarkable tradition, the custodians of this remarkable tradition, He says to them
{هَلْ فِي ذَٰلِكَ قَسَمٌ لِذِي حِجْرٍ} in that is there enough of a remarkable oath in all of that for those that possess the great solid minds.
حِجِر actually originally comes from حَجَر which is yet another literary reason I'm compelled to think this is referring to the Hajj
because ‏حجر shares their origin in Arabic with the word حَجَر and حَجَر goes back to ‏الحجر الأسود also.
But anyway ‏حجر in Arabic is one of the words for the intellect. Barrier actually means
‏حجرة الأرض واحتجرتها إذا ضربت عليها منار تمنعها به من غيرك it actually means to create a barrier keeping people from passing through.
Like somebody puts a gate or a tower or something and you can't get through. This is one of the Arabic words used for the intellect.
And you'll notice the intellect in the Arabic language many of its words have to do with restraint or stopping.
So you have people {إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِأُولِي النُّهَىٰ} [20:54] people of prevention. Prevention literally means to stop
and that's the word for intellect. ‏ عقلmeans to tie something up عقال to tie something up.
Again, prevention, restraint. ‏حجر is a barrier. Why is the intellect called a ‏حجر?
‏It's called a حجر because your emotions and your temper and your greed and your lust and your desire has no limits.
It just wants to do what it wants to do. And your brain, your mind, if you possess ‏حجر will stop it and control it.
And you're going to restrain yourself. That is the exercise of Hajj. We all have greed, we have lust, we have temptation,
we have these things inside of us that are animal desires. That are uncontrolled, unchecked, wild stallions
that are out of control inside of us. We go to Hajj to put all of those in check. To to put a restraint on all of them.