Ok, Heaven in your backyard.

The pilgrimage to Mecca – the Hajj – is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. It is mandatory for every Muslim who is capable financially and physically.

The hajj is the most physically demanding of the five pillars of Islam and for Allah’s mercy, it does not rank above the easier ones - Sallat (five times daily prayer), fasting in the month of Ramadhan and The annual obligatory charity taken from the rich and given to the poor.

The relative importance of each of these pillars is realized by the number of times it is mentioned in the Quran. Prayer is mentioned over eighty times and almost often linked Zakat ( the compulsory charity). Fasting is given a complete page and rarely is it mentioned again. Pilgrimage is given is also given a page is rarely mentioned again.

Sallat (Prayer) is right up there when it comes to importance. It is so important and pivotal to faith of a Believer that Allah gives so many concessions to help a Believer perform it. It can be performed anywhere and not necessarily in a mosque. For the sick who cannot stand up and pray, he can perform it on sitting. Is he too weak to sick, he can perform it lying. Once you are conscious prayer is mandatory for you. As Allah says Pray “standing, sitting or on your side, i.e.lying (quran). If there is no water to perform the ritual purification, you may use tayammum – the use of small quantity of dust to wipe on the face and hands, and that’s just enough as a purification before prayer. If you are travelling, you have an opportunity to not only combine prayers, but reduce the number of rakats (prostrations) of the prayer, but prayer should not be compromised. The holy Prophet says "What differentiates us from them (Non-Muslims) is Sallat, and one who abandons it has gone out of the fold of Islam" (Hadith) or words to that effect.

Zakat (Obligatory charity) is only required of you if you have the threshold amount of money or threshold amount of property. Otherwise you do not perform Zakat. Zakat is the most difficult even though the requirement for money is only 2.5% of one whole year unspent financial worth. So if one started his financial year with USD1200, and at the end of his financial year he has only one hundred dollars left, he is required to pay just 2.5 dollars!. Small, as it seems, money is the most difficult to part with; even sometimes more difficult than life itself. It is believed that if everybody in the world with this threshold amount paid Zakat i.e give out only 2.5% of your one whole year unspent financial worth, poverty will be totally eradicated!.

If a Muslim sticks to all the above and is not capable of performing the hajj, there is nothing against him. Hajj is the most physically demanding of the pillars and is limited by financial and physical capability. Hajj once started must be completed, one cannot abandon hajj midway unless, Allah forbid, he dies while performing the Hajj. Sallat can be stopped while in the process if there is an urgent need for it.

Fasting is a big blessing and very easy. More so because it does not involve money. All will agree that when parting money is involved in anything, even Bill Gates will think twice. In fasting you save money in the form of one meal a day. That is the minimum amount of money one can save if he is fasting. The mid day meal is skipped. So under normal circumstances, you should come out of Ramadhan, the cost of 30 meals richer than you entered Ramadhan. Allah has given many concessions to the fasting person just as in Sallat. If travelling, you can postpone your fast, if sick, you can postpone until you get well, if you are very old and can’t fast or if your illness is chronic, you can feed the poor for every single day you did not fast. And let us assume that you are chronically ill and at the same time, you cannot afford to feed the poor; then, “Allah is most forgiven and most merciful” – you do not have to do anything. Like Sallat, fasting can be broken during the process if the fasting person's life is in danger if he continues the fast.

Hajj is difficult because it involves parting of money, travel and exhaustion, strange country, strange food, strange company and strange room mates and worst of all crowding.

Crowding poses a big challenge to the Saudi Authorities, who strive to make every hajj as comfortable as possible. Every year while the Hajj is going on, thousands of cameras in a CCTV network are working 24/7 to help identify problem areas for improvement before the next hajj. Once the Hajj is completed, the study starts and recommendations are implemented to make the next hajj better and accident free. Most of the study focuses on crowd control – I guess. And here is my point. Do we have to give this much headache to the authorities?. Is Hajj the ultimate righteous good deed?. Is it all who go for hajj who are accepted?. Remember the saying, many are called but few are chosen. Allah is The most Merciful, yet he has conditions for accepting our deeds. It is our deeds that directs his mercy on us and it is our deeds that reflects his mercy away from us and sometimes even invite his wrath –May Allah forbid.

A significant percentage of the number of three million hajjis (pilgrims) are repeating Hajjis. They go two times, three times, four times and some even go more than 10 times all with the hope of receiving salvation. May they receive be granted it. The point to consider however, is that, if costs an average of USD 3000 for every hajj, and we have three million hajjis, assuming that a third of them have performed the hajj before, and if this one third around 900 thousand pool together this 3000 dollars which would have been spent for a second hajj, we end up with hooping USD 2,700,000,000. I do not know how to call it, I can only write it. Supposing this amount were sent to Chad, Somalia, Ethiopia or any of the world trouble spots is there no chance that hunger could be eradicated through meaningful projects, by harnessing this potential one would not have to wait for Aid linked to conditions from donor countries, right?

Now coming back to our own backyard. Though at a smaller scale, if all Ghanaian pilgrims who have performed the hajj once refrained from a second one and gave the cash to a poor neighbor who probably cannot afford school fees for his children or get them a descent meal, I dare say he will please Allah far more than the second Hajj and he’ll probably get a one way ticket to paradise. Compare this to the strict rules for the acceptance of the hajj (refer to the Quranan sunnah for details about hajj). What we fail to realize is that after the obligatory rituals, any other voluntary performance of a ritual – Prayer, Hajj, fasting, comes way behind putting a smile on the face of another man. Once one performs the obligatory part of the four pillars, Islam gives more importance to human welfare than bowing and prostrating all day long or performing hajj every year or fasting every day and praying all night. The fruits of Faith is not perpetual prayer, but it’s effect on you, on how you regard your fellow man, on how much you benefit humanity. The beginning of the love of God is love for prayer, but the acceptance of the prayers and the sign of Allah loving you back is the love and benefit you give to his creatures. The Holy Prophet says "Creatures are children of Allah, and the most beloved to Allah are those who benefit his children" or words to that effect. The first Hajj is obligatory you have no excuse for not performing it if you can afford it physically and financially. The second Hajj is voluntary, it benefits you only in the form of reward from Allah. It does not even benefit your beloved wife and children in the form of reward. The reward is exclusively for you. However, a welfare project benefits you, the ummah and the country at large.

The holy Prophet says ' I and the one who takes care of the orphan are like this (he pulls together his middle and index finger and separates them) in heaven" (hadith) or word to that effects. This implies that you and the holy Prophet are companions in Heaven if you take care of the orphan. And I am saying do we not have orphans in Ghana?, and if a third of the those wanting to go to Mecca are repeating pilgrims, and if they pooled together the USD3000 each they have reserved for the hajj, I ask, can't we build an orphanage with USD 3,000,000. I ask, can't we build a school (call it Islamic School if you want) of a very high standard for our children? And I say why do you not look for heaven in your back yard but rather in Saudi Arabia?. An orphanage, a school, a mosque, a library and any project which benefits people is called a running charity in Islam, and after ones death, the reward still flows to you until the day of judgment. Prayer, Hajj, Fasting, do not come into this category of running charity. The reward of these deeds come as you perform them. After death you do not have any opportunity to pray or fast or go for hajj. The rewards end there. I ask which is better? The running charities or the repeated hajj? Your guess is as good as mine.

I urge all those who have intentions of repeating the hajj, to give a serious thought to it. Will you repeat a hajj when there is somebody you know who cannot pay school fees for his children?. Will you repeat a hajj when you have a neighbor who can hardly cloth his family?. When there is a sick person – Muslim or non Muslim, who needs the money for medicine? Can't you pay for someone else's insurance and save a life? Allah says "one who kills another human being – Muslim or non-Muslim (except as a punishment for killing prescribed by competent men of Islamic law) it is as if he has killed all humanity and one who saves a life – Muslim or non Muslim, it is as if he has saved the whole humanity ( Quran). A pooling of the individual amounts could build a hospital and for three years similar donations could make it the best hospital in the country If not the region!.

Wealth is a trust from Allah to who ever has it and your method of disposing of it will have to be defended before the court of Allah. And for those who sponsor their old parents for hajj, who end up being burdens on others, either come with them and support them financially and physically or donate the money to genuine charities. Their being old and incapable exempts them from Hajj and Allah will not ask them why they did not perform hajj when they had a rich relative who could sponsor their Hajj. By donating this amount to a welfare project, you’ll end up harvesting rewards more than sponsoring a hajj who becomes a burden on others. If it is reward you want, why not get it the easy way? Your old and frail relative being a burden on others might end up putting you on the spot on the judgment day.

For those who must perform the Hajj, My prayers are that Allah accepts your hajj. If the conditions for the acceptance of a Hajj are met, The Hajj will leave an impression on you. But if it is not accepted, may Allah forbid, you’ll come back maybe more burdened with sins than you left. Let us remember that performing a ritual does not necessarily mean acceptance from Allah. In every situation, one is confronted with a choice; be you rich, be you poor, be you inside a mosque, be you in your normal daily chores, you are confronted with selecting to go to nearer heaven or nearer to hell. There is no automatic acceptance. For if you deliberately performed a prayer or fast or hajj contrary to the way prescribed by the Holy Prophet, it is rejected and you have chosen a way to hell even though you performed an act of warship. At the same time a A A business man may be in his business, then go home at the end of the day to his wife, and still has chosen the path to Heaven because he never forgot the rights of God and the rights of man. So as we prepare for the hajj let us remember again, if it is a voluntary hajj, the saying of the Prophet "Creatures are children of God, and the most beloved to Allah are those who benefit his children more" or words to that effect. We could be doing more for ourselves and our community by donating the money to welfare.

Idris Al-Hassan, can be contacted by email idris_alhassan@yahoo.com