| Women at the Hajj The Prophet Muhammad believed that the sight of a single woman’s hair would get men thinking about the woman’s pubic hair and one thing would lead to another. That strand of hair is all part of what Allah refers to as a woman's "finery" and it must be concealed at all cost less it induces men to want to have sex with the owner of all that finery without first marrying it. 24:31 And tell the believing women to cast down their eyes and guard their private parts and not show their finery, except for the outward part of it. And let them drape their bosoms with their veils and not show their finery, except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, the sons of their husbands, their brothers, the sons of their brothers, the sons of their sisters, their women, their maid-servants, the men-followers who have no sexual desires, or infants who have no knowledge of women’s sexual parts yet. Let them, also, not stamp their feet, so that what they have concealed of their finery might be known. Repent to Allah, all of you, O believers, that perchance you may prosper. A young man growing up in a traditional closed Muslim community like the ones we find on the Arabian peninsula and the Taliban controlled regions of Pakistan may not get to gaze upon, or touch a fully-develop young woman's body until he marries one. This does not mean he is not curious about what is under that tent-like garment walking a few steps behind her male guardian, and that he will not try to satisfy his curiosity. This does not present a problem for females in traditional Islamic societies where the sexes are segregated and the females closely watched by their fathers, brothers and close male relatives until their wedding night when their husbands' responsibility. What happens when the separation of the sexes can not be maintained, and women are left with no other protection than the clothes on their backs with curious men all around? The largest religious gathering in the world is the one week pilgrimage to Mecca that every adult Muslim, men and women, must undertake at least once in their lifetime if they are physically and financially capable. This is the Hajj, the greater pilgrimage; the other pilgrimage being the Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, which can be done at any time during the year. The Umrah does not replace the once-in-a-lifetime Hajj obligation. During the Hajj, more than two million people will circle seven times a large cube structure about the size of a small three story building called the Ka’bah while bobbing up and down. The Ka’bah is Islam's Holy of Holies. Inside the Ka’bah is a basketball-size meteorite which one Islamic tradition maintains is the stone that Adam grabbed just before he and Eve were literally flung out of Paradise (the Koran places the lowest of the seven levels of Paradise somewhere just above the clouds). Adam landed on Adam's Peak in present day Sri Lanka and Eve close to Mecca. He would make his way to Mecca with the rock from Paradise. The steady increase in the number of converts making the greater pilgrimage has presented some serious problems for the Saudis. Problems that can not easily be solved, as no solution can interfere with the meticulous rituals of the Hajj as demonstrated by the Prophet Muhammad shortly before he died, and the pilgrimage must be performed in the Islamic month of Dhul Hijjah, the Month of Pilgrimage, the 12th month of the Islamic calendar. The Saudi’s have made progress in avoiding pilgrims being trampled to death during the Hajj, as was the case in 2006 when 589 pilgrims died. A problem that the Saudis have not been able to solve, with only an estimated billion and a half believers (this problem is bound to get worse with Islam the world’s fastest growing religion) is the groping that women and girls must endure as the closely pressed mass of males and females circle the Ka’bah while rhythmically bowing to their god. It is next to impossible to segregate the sexes during the Hajj, therefore, women and girls must silently submit, less they be accused of arousing the males behind them, to the probing hands of men and boys whose religion does not allow them to get as close to the opposite sex as during the Hajj until they are married, and who seek to understand with their hands what their religion has denied their eyes until their wedding night. A young woman I spent a few moments with at a coffee shop years ago described her experience of the Hajj this way: "I spent the entire time with a least one man’s hand on my ass.” She half got up from her chair, leaned forward mimicking the bowing motion, lowered her head and raised her hands. "As my hands went up," she said, "two hands would go down to grab my butt, but of course, you don't dare complain." I would not fully understand what she meant by her statement "you don't dare complain", until years later when I read an article by Syed Shahabuddin writing in the Milli Gazette, Indian Muslim’s leading English newspaper, in which he objected to the stoning of women for adultery (emphasis mine). “Apart from the brutality of the 'Rajm' (stoning), repugnant to conscience, here is an element of gender injustice in the operation of the traditional law which allows the male partner to get off scot-free, even if he has coerced and raped the female. If the woman lodges a complaint, her complaint is taken as a testimony against herself and, therefore, amounts to admission and requires no further evidence while it is necessary to get 4 witnesses against the man.” In an effort to protect women who do the pilgrimage, women are now exempt from performing the ritual if their husband or a male relative can not accompany them. In the case of the young woman mentioned here, she was accompanied by her father. He was not aware of what happened to his daughter until after, even thought he was close to her at all times, trapped like her in a swirling mass of humanity grinding its way around the shrouded cube that is the Ka’bah. Boreal, January 16, 2007, Revised March 7,2009
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