I stood before God in the holy mosque, wearing nothing other than two pieces of cloth covering my body, representing complete detachment from the materialistic world and a connection to a high level of spirituality. This practice reminds us that at the beginning of creation we owned nothing, and that we will return to meet God wearing simple and humble material.
After completing my prayers, I began walking towards the glorious Kaba, feeling the gravity of the black cube drawing me towards it. I found myself gravitating towards and rotating around the house of God with four million other pilgrims. I felt breathless, gasping for air as I got closer to the Kaba. It was such an intense feeling. It became seriously hard to move and/or breathe as I reached the location of the “Black Rock,” a rock believed by Muslims to have descended from paradise.
We were taught that it’s a great honor to reach the Black Rock, which was mounted onto the Kaba by Prophet Mohammad. I was eager to touch the rock, and I knew I was going to achieve this. I looked at the bottom edge of the Kaba and noticed the base had a two-inch edge formed from thick marble tiles. Being younger and only weighing about fifty kilograms, I believed it would be a good idea to walk across the edge of the base of the Kaba and reach the Black Rock to avoid the wave of people. As I stepped on the edge, I was dragged down by an Indonesian female pilgrim who tried to climb up on the edge with me. I quickly got back onto the edge and moved towards the Black Rock. Finally, I was right above it. Being less than a meter from the ground, I threw myself onto the crowd made up of millions of pilgrims, all wanting to touch the Black Rock. The wave of people pushed me towards the Black Rock. I landed with my back towards the rock, sealing it completely. AllI had to do now was turn around and fulfil my wish of touching it. The one mistake I shall never forgive myself for was wearing a robe on that day. My robe became stuck between the people around me, preventing me from turning around to face the rock. I managed to touch the rock eventually, and the problem was now to get out of this wave of humanity. I felt myself beginning to suffocate. Luckily, I was dragged out of the crowd by a large African man whom I thanked profusely.
As I was completing my prayers, I noticed an elderly man from Pakistan who had lost the group he had come to Mecca with. I could not understand what he was saying but he showed me his hotel card, so I knew where he was residing – he was in the city. I did not know the route to the hotel, and he had difficulty walking. We walked all the way back to his hotel after some assistance from members of the public. When we reached the hotel, I entered to make sure it was the one he was residing in with his friends. He came in behind me to confirm that it indeed was the very hotel he was looking for. He had a smile on his face and insisted that I joined him for dinner. I excused myself as my mother was awaiting my return, but as I turned around he placed his hand on my shoulder, and I turned around to find him raising his hands towards the sky and praying for me. I felt very humbled by this gesture of his and sometimes I tell myself that this good deed might have been the reason behind the good I have been blessed with in later years.
We slept a night in Muzdalifah, one of the locations all pilgrims must visit. Upon waking up to offer my dawn prayers, I heard clapping followed by loud and happy cheering voices. Suddenly, Saudi Arabian authorities flooded the scene to arrest those who were celebrating. Moments later we learnt that Saddam Hussain had just been executed, and those celebrating were victims of the oppressive Ba’athist regime. They were Shia Muslims, and their happiness angered the Sunni and Saudi authorities who cherished their relationship with the Iraqi dictatorship.
An incident that I shall never forget occurred during this trip to Mecca. I was returning to the hotel after having lunch in a nearby restaurant and ran into the disgraced Grand Mufti of Australia, Taj El-Din al Hilaly. I discovered that he was residing in the same hotel as our group from Australia. We waited for the lift to come down, and as we both entered the lift, he asked what floor I was in. I responded saying level 5. He then pressed number 5 and number 14, which was the top floor. He then smiled at me and said, “I’m sleeping on the fourteenth floor, much closer to God.” This is when I realized that we as a Muslim community in Australia had serious problems. In my heart I told myself, there are taller buildings in Israel. I wonder if he thinks Jews are closer to God when residing on the 30th floor. If you haven’t heard of Hilaly, he was Australia’s first Grand Mufti, and the one who compared “uncovered” Australian women to cat meat.
We had also travelled to Medina before Mecca, where I first gazed on the dome of the mosque and mausoleum of Prophet Mohammad. This time I was standing in front of the Prophet Mohammad. I noticed a fence surrounding the grave with a Sharia Law police officer roaming the inside with his shoes on; I had never seen such disrespect, as we were taught to take our shoes off in revered and holy locations. I managed to pass through the crowd and get close to the grille of the holy grave. As I reached out to touch the window of the grave, the Sharia police officer struck my hand with a baton and yelled “Shirk!” which means “Paganism!” According to Wahhabism, seeking aid from the dead is paganism, even though the spirit of the dead will always remain alive. I exited the Mosque of Prophet Mohammad to walk to Al-Baqi Cemetery, where Mohammad’s family and household are buried. I saw the site that was demolished by fundamentalists, who believe that building domes over graves is a pagan ritual; but it somehow seemed perfectly acceptable for the Prophet Mohammad to have a grave and a dome only a few steps away. I realized that hatred towards the offspring of their own ProphetMohammad was deeply entrenched in their Wahhabi ideology, leading to the complete demolition of one of Islam’s most important shrines.
In Al-Baqi Cemetery, I saw my mother walking towards a group of females who had joined a tour group from Australia. I noticed that the group was completely segregated, with men separated from the women. Furthermore, I noticed that the clergyman of the group had disappeared. So, I asked one of the organizers why the group was segregated. He answered that Saudi Arabian authorities accuse Shia Muslim clergymen of engaging in sexual activities with females within the group. So, they separate the two genders to prevent such accusations and to avoid giving extremists an excuse to tarnish their reputation. It was after this incident that I realized that the hatred towards us as a Shia Muslim minority was very real.
I returned to Australia a more religious and astute Mohammad Tawhidi, who knew much more than he did before travelling to Medina and Mecca. I spent many hours enlightening my friends and family about this inspiring and awakening pilgrimage to Mecca. I have not been to Saudi Arabia since, nor do I plan to go.
My Second Pilgrimage: Iran
Australia was always home, and my social life in Australia was very healthy. The mixing of males and females is highly frowned upon within Muslim culture, which meant most of my friends were male. Alongside all my social engagements as a developing teenager in Western Australia, I was deeply influenced by one of our Shia Muslim community clerics. I have chosen to keep his name private throughout this chapter considering the change of career he underwent, and shall refer to him as “the Sayed.”*I saw him as my second father. I loved him deeply and still regard him as a dear person. It was he who paved the way for me to pursue religious studies. Every weekend, I would spend time at his house located within our suburb, Ballajura, in Western Australia. He was one of my father’s closest friends. I along with my childhood friends, a group of approximately 12 to 15 boys, would gather at the Sayed’s house to learn about Islam. It was a very friendly atmosphere, highly educational and very rewarding. The Sayed encouraged me to begin delivering short sermons and eulogies during community events and gatherings and, although I knew it was not going to be my career, it made both me and my parents happy.
Although the Sayed was a Shia Muslim cleric, I also had frequent engagements with my coordinator from high school, who in recent years has taken on the role of an imam. He was and still is a fundamentalist, and an extremist Muslim. I was taught the basics of Islam in his lessons. Once I left the Islamic college to