Pilgrimage

Each year, Muslims celebrate an occasion when they remember how the family of Islam spreads throughout the family of humankind

with all their variety around the world.

Each year Muslims come from all around the world to gather in Makkah and the land that surrounds it.

In English, we call a journey that is made for religious reasons, or to a holy place, a pilgrimage.

So the journey Muslims make is also sometimes called the Pilgrimage,

but in the Arabic language, the language of the Qur'an, it is called the Hajj.

The journey they make may be long or short, but their pilgrimage really begins when they arrive.

It begins at the Ka'abah in Makkah,

and over the next few days travels out to the plains of Arafah,

and finally returns to Makkah again.

Each year, in the month of Dhul Hijja, millions of Muslims make that journey.

In fact, all Muslims must try to make that journey some time in their lives.

Of course, now that we can fly in jumbo jets it is not as hard a task as it used to be in years gone by.

But whatever the hardship of making the journey, it must be a part of every Muslims intention.

At least one time in their lives, Muslims must make that effort

to come together in one place,

to remind themselves and all the others from all their different backgrounds

of their shared Way of Life that is Islam.

In that place, all are equal.

God prefers no one colour of human being.

All of us are children of the family of Adam and Eve.

At the end of Hajj, those Muslims who have completed the journey celebrate their success on the day called Eid-ul-Adha

Eid-ul-Adha, the Day of Sacrifice.

Then all around the world, those Muslims who could not make the journey to Arafah celebrate along with them in their homes and mosques,

and pray that God will protect them on their journeys home again to their loved ones and families.