40 Days with God – Liberation through Forgiveness

What if Religion was thought as Ancient History? Would it then be more acceptable?

History has its share of conflicts but they are less vicious and dogmatic than religious ones. And you tend to believe in history more than religion because they are observable facts. During the pilgrimage the tour operator took us on a visit to all the historical places around Makkah and Medina – the place where Prophet Mohammed and few other known leaders were born, the cave in which Koranic verses were revealed, the mountain top where the prophet hid during his migration to Medina, the battlefields where some famous battles happened etc.

You had read or heard many tales of the Prophet but seeing all those places in reality makes religion seem like history and helps you visualize the world at that time with its cultural and political dimensions.

There is an interesting aspect of the government in Saudi. They have not preserved most of the historical structures (e.g. the birthplace of the Prophet, houses of other leaders) in their original form but converted them either into a mosque or a library. The objective we were told is to prevent people from worshipping these places but rather praying and seeking only from a single God.

The library on the roof top of Masjid-e-Nabwi, the central mosque in Medina is a veritable delight for readers and historians. There are books in all major national languages across the globe covering various facets of Islamic and Arabic civilization – the arts, sciences, culture, politics and history besides the religious doctrines. What I found romantic were the early photos of Makkah and Medina before modernization giving a glimpse of how our grandfathers would have seen it when they did their Haj. The one hour that I spent in the library every afternoon was valuable education in the history of Islam and the character of Prophet Mohammed.

We were returning from a guided tour of Medina and our guide was a Pakistani scholar from the North-West who spoke in a monotonous but endearing accent – isn’t it always charming to hear someone speak a language in their local dialect. His pain at being distanced from his homeland and of a rapidly commercializing culture that was distancing itself from old values was palpable in his commentary. On the last leg of the tour he reminded us of the sanctity of Masjid-e-Nabwi where the prophet lived, prayed and died and the great opportunity life had given us to pray at the same place, to touch with our forehead the same ground which the prophet must have touched one day in prostration.

Affected by that emotional speech I was determined that afternoon to offer namaaz in the original mosque that housed the prophet’s pulpit – the place from where he preached. Since this place is smaller than the huge, modern prayer hall created as an extension, you need to be early to get a place to pray inside. I skipped my afternoon nap that day to secure a place inside the mosque.

The Prophet’s pulpit was in front of me and on my left was Bibi Ayesha’s (the Prophet’s wife) house where the prophet died and lies buried. The fact that I was sharing the same space where 1400 years ago the prophet would have stood and addressed people sitting where I was sitting made me tremble with reverence and fear. Was I worth the place? Did my character come anywhere close to that of the prophet’s companions and the people of those times, about whom I had read in the library books? And I bowed my head and cried for forgiveness because that was the only thing I could do.

God reserves the right to forgive you for your wrongdoings of His edicts – and He is most merciful. However Islam insists that if you have hurt your fellow citizens, you need to be first forgiven by them before Allah forgives you for such transgressions. That probably is one reason why it is customary to seek explicit forgiveness from all your relatives and friends before one leaves for Haj.

I had by now complete faith in the mercy of the Lord, but what about people I may have deliberately or inadvertently hurt. I needed them to forgive me. But what could I do sitting from there but only pray that God put the thought of forgiveness in their hearts.

And then I realized that if I am expecting others to forgive me, shouldn’t I be forgiving others for any wrongdoing or hurt they had caused me? The Universe, I had learned in a training program earlier in the year, gives you back what you sow. So the only way those I have hurt may forgive me is if I forgive those who have hurt me – and it didn’t matter if the hurting and the ones causing hurt were not the same, for the Universe will take care of that; haven’t we heard about the Laws of Conservation in physics.

I tried to recall the incidents and people who had pained me and as I went back in memory to remember such moments I realized that they were rarely from casual acquaintances or one-off incidents; most memories that I had of pain and hurt were caused by close relationships and friends and that revelation suddenly stunned me.

Do we hurt our loved ones the most? And if we hurt them then that hurt has to come back to us in some form or other, as per the Universal Law of reap as you sow. So then, are our loved ones the reason for all the hurt that we get from the world and vice-versa?

A very close relative, who works near my house, had refused to help or even inquire when I was struggling with all the preparations before leaving for Haj. As I would sleep exhausted well after midnight and then wake up before dawn each day to wind-up remaining tasks I would feel pained by his indifference. And I had carried that pain with me to the pilgrimage.

I called him up from the mosque, knowing well that it was not courteous to make a phone call from that holy precinct. But it was important for me to forgive him then and there. He inquired cheerfully about my pilgrimage, told me how he had been praying in every namaaz five times a day about my well-being and safety. I felt cheerful and happy talking to him and all the hurt seemed to go away.

Did he feel he was doing his duty by praying to God for helping me out and taking care of me? Was his intent thus to help me, only his manner was different from what I was expecting? And thus was he wrong or only I was assuming he was wrong?

Only God knows the true intents of a person so does anyone other than God have a right to judge another person?

As I walked out of the mosque later that evening I felt strangely liberated, completely at peace with myself. What great freedom it is to have the burden of judgment taken away, to know that you can never truly judge anyone else and thus everyone may be right in their own way. And that makes forgiving others so easy.

How light and peaceful it feels on having truly forgiven everyone. I tried to recall again all those incidents of pain and hurt which had been stored inside me for years. They came back now only as incidents with no feeling of pain or hurt. Is this the test of true forgiveness?

I realized how simple it is to live a hurt-free life. All we need to develop is an ability to genuinely forgive the other for their seeming mistakes.

[Next week we will travel back to Makkah for the actual Haj rituals – the prime purpose of taking this pilgrimage.]