Pilgrimages of faith and reason

BACK in September, I wrote about the controversy revolving around a proposed musallah or Muslim prayer room in the Greenhills Shopping Center, with some Greenhills residents protesting the construction of the prayer room, which they initially claimed was going to be a mosque. Scenarios were painted of Greenhills' property values plummeting as a Muslim "mosque" would draw in crooks and terrorists.

The campaign against the musallah, I felt, was a blatant case of religious bigotry. The shopping center has an estimated 400 Muslim traders, most of whom don't actually live in the area but who, in fulfillment of Muslim religious obligations, need to be able to pray five times a day. For years now, even before the construction of the musallah, the traders had been using a dark alleyway within the shopping center as a makeshift prayer area.

It was good to read that Ortigas and Company, which runs the shopping center, held its ground and pushed through with the construction. It was also appropriate that the new musallah opened on Eid Adha, marking the end of the Haj or annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The symbolism is striking, of pilgrimages revolving around faith and reason.

A triumph of reason

Let's go back to the musallah controversy. It was unfortunate that print and broadcast media seemed to have given more coverage to the opposition. Less visible were the Greenhills residents (I count myself as one of them since I'm frequently at my parents' place, which is in the area) and San Juan officials, including Mayor Joseph Victor Ejercito, who decried the religious intolerance and pushed for the musallah to be built.

The construction and opening of the musallah marks the triumph of reason over ignorance. We've suffered enough from bigoted Christians who propagate negative stereotypes of Islam and Muslims. If the musallah had been denied, that would have been used by the more extreme Islamist groups to recruit new members by pointing to this instance of Christian intolerance as a reason for jihad or holy war.

To their credit, Catholic and Protestant leaders spoke out against the prejudice surrounding the Greenhills controversy. Even Masses at the Catholic chapel in the Greenhills Shopping Center were temporarily suspended at the height of the controversy, as a way of expressing solidarity with the Muslims.

All these developments show that the Christian-Muslim "problem" is surmountable. Reason can prevail here, recognizing that the two religions are very different, and yet can coexist through shared values, especially that of mutual respect.

I always felt uncomfortable seeing the alleyway where the Muslims used to pray -- it was dark and dank and dingy, not a pretty sight for Christian passersby. The musallah gives decent space to Muslims and, who knows, might even become a way for Muslims to explain their faith to Christians.

Haj

The new musallah's inauguration coincided with the end of the Haj. That pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, a profession of faith required of every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. Ideally, a Muslim should be able to make the pilgrimage at least once in a lifetime.

The Haj is shrouded by all kinds of symbolism and meaning. In the first part of the pilgrimage, the umrah or lesser haj, all pilgrims must wear sandals and the ihram, a white unhemmed cloth draped over the body, representing equality of all pilgrims.

Pilgrims have fixed itineraries, moving from one place to another, each with its own meaning-laden rituals. The most publicized is the stoning of the devil in the city of Mina, just outside Mecca. Three pillars, representing Satan, are "stoned" (with pebbles actually). In this year's Haj, there was a modification as pilgrims stoned US President George Bush, seen, presumably, as the devil incarnate.

The Haj is an amazing religious event, in many ways defining the life of a Muslim. The trip, for example, is done only after a Muslim has settled his or her worldly affairs. This means the Haj is not only a pilgrimage toward a place, but itself becomes a goal: stabilizing one's life is a process oriented toward being able to do the Haj eventually. After the stoning of the devil, pilgrims shave their head (women cut off a lock of their hair) as a symbol of rebirth.

Pilgrimages take added significance from the difficulties and sacrifices associated with the journey. Besides the long trip, the stay in Mecca is itself surrounded by risks. In past years, hundreds of people died during the Haj because of fires and stampedes in the pilgrimage sites. There can be no interruptions to a Haj -- once started, it must be completed.

This year's Haj took more poignant significance because the deadly tsunami that struck in December 2004 happened just as the Haj started. Many of the pilgrims were from areas in Indonesia and Thailand that were affected by the tsunami; yet, the pilgrims pushed on with their trip to Mecca. It's not surprising that Mecca has become a universal metaphor, used even by Christians, to refer to a difficult but extremely desirable goal or destination.

Two pilgrimages

The parallels between the Greenhills musallah and the Haj are striking. The Greenhills controversy was similar to the hardship one faced in going to Mecca. The Haj is a pilgrimage of faith, while the Greenhills imbroglio was a pilgrimage of a different sort, a search for -- and a triumph of -- reason.

Pilgrimages always involve groups brought together by common aspirations. The Haj has always been an occasion for a display of a most dramatic form of community, that of the ummah, the idea that all Muslims are part of a global community. The struggle to build a musallah in Greenhills showed another side to the notion of community -- here of diverse groups seeking each other out, each with their own space but standing side by side.

We should learn from the Greenhills musallah. For example, other shopping centers with large numbers of Muslim merchants should think of providing similar space. I hope, of course, that there will be more interfaith discussions, rather than just prayer spaces and that with time, as Christians and Muslims practice their faith, side by side, we might all find convergence.