Boreal
Remembering Uzza
If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub
The Hajj: So Many Pilgrims, Not Enough Time
Gerry:
Getting back to the Hajj, if you have the means and the wherewithal you have to
perform the Hajj at least once in your lifetime?
Uzza: Yes.
Gerry: If you don't, Allah will not let you into His Paradise. You will have to spend eternity in Hell.
Uzza: Probably.
Gerry: Two million is about the maximum number of Hajj pilgrims Mecca can accommodate because of the limitations of a finite space and the set-in-cement example of the Prophet.
Uzza: That is the why the Saudis impose quotas by country.
Gerry: That mean the Saudis decide who’s going to Hell.
Uzza: I think I know what you are getting at.
Gerry: 1.5 billion divided by 2 million is 750. If every Muslim alive today wanted to do the Hajj, it would take more than 750 years to accommodate them all. How could Allah have mandated a ritual that you must perform or spend an eternity on fire in His Hell that the vast majority of believers cannot fulfill even if they wanted to?
Archie: Makes you wonder about the big guy's ability to see the future, doesn't it?
Uzza: Muhammad insinuated that the end of the world would occur during his lifetime, which Allah may have led him to believe[207], or shortly thereafter[208] when there was plenty of room for everyone at the Hajj. This may have had something to do with it. I do not know.
Gerry: Could Allah have been setting up the believers for a fall or perhaps lied, not only about knowing what would happen next, but being able to do anything about it?
Uzza: His angels did accuse Allah of wanting to spread mischief[209] when he sent Adam to Earth, but I do not think it was His intention to put so many believers in the impossible situation you described. It is a situation that is bound to get worse if no solution is found, with people joining Islam in record numbers, if only to be on the winning side.
Archie: And to get in on the plundering while the getting is good. Maybe the Chinese will be able to turn the tide and solve the Hajj accommodation problem.
Gerry: By doing to the believers what the believers are doing to the unbelievers. That would mean they are no better than them.
Archie: They kill on the promise of manufactured broads who will allow them to screw them every which way non-stop for an eternity. To kill in self-defence and to protect your family from sex maniacs is not the same, not the same at all.
Bob: I agree with Gerry. I don’t like the idea of all this killing.
Archie: They started it.
Bob: The Chinese could expand their re-education camps. We don’t kill sex addicts and the delusional, we try to cure them. That is the humane thing to do.
Uzza: It is also not the same to kill someone simply because you cannot bring yourself to say a simple phrase.
Archie: It’s more than that, and you know it.
Gerry: Surely scholars have given some thought to how to save what has to be billions of people from going to Hell because the Hajj can’t fit them in.
Archie: Sorry, never crossed my mind.
Uzza: We could rebuild the Ka’ba along the lines considered by Muhammad after Gabriel showed him the Ka'ba in the sky, and do away with the circling and all the other rituals. In one door and out the other, and your obligation is fulfilled.
Gerry, Bob, Archie: THERE’S A KA’BA IN THE SKY?
Uzza: What did you think Allah meant when He said to build the Ka’ba down here beneath the most sacred place in Paradise?
Archie: His throne, where He parks His sacred ass, where else?
Uzza: Well, He meant the Bait-ul-Ma'mur which is directly above in Paradise. The angels enter by one door and leave by another[210]. Much more efficient.
Gerry, Bob, Archie: THE ANGELS HAVE THEIR OWN HAJJ?
Uzza: Yes, as weird as that sounds.
Bob: What about aliens?
Uzza, Archie, Gerry: [taken aback] WHAT?
Bob: What if there is intelligent life out there and they too chose to submit to the Will of Allah. If the Hajj cannot accommodate the people of Earth, how will it accommodate aliens?
Archie: Haven't you been listening? There is no there, there. It is all an illusion, aliens not included. The only there, there, according to the Koran, is Paradise a few miles up, and like on Earth it is filled with mindless automatons who spend much of their existence in awe of the great illusionist. Not only is there no intelligent life out there, there is not that much here either, when you think about it.
Footnotes
15:98 So (Muhammad), celebrate the praise of your Lord and be one of those who prostrate themselves.
15:99 And worship your Lord, till the certain [Hour] overtakes you!
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21:1 Mankind’s reckoning is drawing near, but they are turning away heedlessly.
33:63 People will ask you about the Hour. Say: “The knowledge thereof is with Allah.” And what do you know? The hour may be close at hand.
47:18 Do they, then, only expect that the Hour should come upon them suddenly? In fact, its signs have already come. How then, when it comes, will they regain their recollection?
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53:57 The Last Day is imminent;
53:58 It has, apart from Allah, no disclosure.
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70:1 A questioner asked about an imminent punishment,
70:2 Of the unbelievers, that none can avert;
70:3 From Allah, Lord of the Ways of Ascent.
70:4 Unto Him the angels and the spirit (Gabriel) ascend on a Day the duration thereof is fifty thousand years.
70:5 Bear up patiently then (Muhammad).
70:6 They think it is distant;
70:7 But We think it is close.
[208] Narrated Sahl bin Sad As-Sa'idi:
Allah's Apostle, holding out his middle and index fingers, said, "My advent and the Hour are like this (or like these)," namely, the period between his era and the Hour is like the distance between those two fingers, i.e., very short.
Bukhari 63.221
Narrated Anas:
A bedouin came to the Prophet and said, "O Allah's Apostle! When will The Hour be established?"
The Prophet said, "Wailaka (Woe to you), What have you prepared for it?"
The bedouin said, "I have not prepared anything for it, except that I love Allah and His Apostle."
The Prophet said, "You will be with those whom you love."
We (the companions of the Prophet) said, "And will we too be so?
The Prophet said, "Yes."
So we became very glad on that day. In the meantime, a slave of Al-Mughira passed by, and he was of the same age as I was.
The Prophet said. "If this (slave) should live long, he will not reach the geriatric old age, but the Hour will be established."
Bukhari 73.188
2:30 When your Lord said to the angels: "I am placing a deputy on earth", they said: "Will you place one who will make mischief in it and shed blood, while we sing Your praise and glorify Your sanctity?" He said: "I know what you do not know."
[210] Except for an entrance and an exit door, Bait-ul-Ma'mur is almost an exact replica of the Ka’ba in Mecca and is situated directly above it, somewhere above the clouds. Like Muslims on Earth, angels are required to make a pilgrimage to this Ka’ba in the sky at least once in their lifetime as immortals, and seventy thousand angels do so every day according to Muhammad, who was shown the Bait-ul-Ma'mur by the angel Gabriel. .
Anas b. Malik reported on the authority of Malik b. Sa sa', perhaps a person of his tribe, that the Prophet of Allah (may peace be upon him) saidI was near the House (i. e. Ka'bah) in a state between sleep and wakefulness...
Then the bait-ul-Ma'mur was raised up to me.
I said: O Gabriel! what is this?
He replied: It is the bait-ul-Ma'mur. Seventy thousand angels enter into it daily and, after they come out, they never return again.
Sahih Muslim 1.0314
Unlike Earth-bound pilgrims, angels do not circle the Ka'ba but enter by one door and exit by another. Much more efficient, which may explain why Muhammad once considered remodeling the Earth Ka'ba on the Ka'ba in the sky.
Narrated Aswad:
Ibn Az-Zubair said to me, "Aisha used to tell you secretly a number of things. What did she tell you about the Ka'ba?"
I replied, "She told me that once the Prophet said, 'O Aisha! Had not your people been still close to the pre-Islamic period of ignorance! I would have dismantled the Ka'ba and would have made two doors in it; one for entrance and the other for exit."
Bukhari 3:128