At Hajj we gather pebbles, but the devils remain standing

QIBLA, in this Eid-ul-Adha message, calls on the Ummah to reclaim Hajj as a journey of justice, courage and resistance against oppression, inequality and genocide.

There has been a sustained campaign to imprison Hajj inside the walls of private ritual – to reduce it to a visit to the Ka‘bah, of photographs, perfumes, souvenirs, and the language of ‘my spiritual journey’, while the world burns outside the Haram.

But Hajj was never meant to produce silent witnesses to genocide and to end at the airport. And it was never meant to return millions of purified souls back into systems of corruption and cruelty unchanged.

What kind of Tawaf circles the Ka‘bah but never circles the wounded? What kind of Sa‘y remembers Hajar searching for water in desert heat, but ignores children dying of thirst beneath bombs? What kind of Hajj leaves Gaza burning?

What kind of Ramy throws pebbles at symbolic pillars while remaining terrified of the real devils of our age?

The devils are no longer carved from stone. And our pebbles are no longer sufficient.

The devils now hide behind missiles, banks, borders, algorithms, prisons, corporations, weapons contracts, racial capitalism, occupation, greed and empire.

And every year the hujjaj still gather pebbles.

But the devils remain standing.

The world does not need more tourists of the sacred.

The world is crying out for witnesses.

For believers who understand that Ihram was never simply a change of clothing – it was the burial shroud of the ego.

That Tawaf was never merely movement – it was the destruction of the lonely ‘I’ into the suffering and struggling ‘We’.

That Arafah was never simply standing on a mountain – it was to know.

To know who profits from war.

To know who manufactures hunger.

To know who turns children into statistics and entire peoples into rubble.

To know who Pharaoh is in every age.

And once you know, how can you remain neutral?

The hujjaj return home carrying Zamzam in bottles.

But the real Zamzam is courage.

The real Zamzam is consciousness.

The real Zamzam is the refusal to live comfortably while humanity drowns.

The late Imam Ebrahim ‘Sepp’ Davids of Al-Jamia Masjid in Stegman Road, Claremont would ask: ‘Who is your Ismail?’

And perhaps that is the question haunting this Ummah today.

What are we unwilling to sacrifice?

Our comfort?

Our careers?

Our silence?

Our proximity to power?

Our fear of speaking?

Our addiction to respectability?

Because every age has its idols.

And every believer must decide whether they will protect the idol or break it.

The footsteps of Hajar still echo across the earth.

Listen carefully.

You can hear them in refugee camps.

In mothers searching hospital ruins.

In fathers carrying the bodies of children.

In the poor standing in breadlines.

In the homeless beneath bridges.

In the exhausted who still refuse despair.

Hajar is still running.

Ibrahim is still surrendering.

Ismail is still waiting.

And Muhammad ﷺ is still asking this Ummah to stand for justice even against itself. (Sura An-Nisa, 4:135)

The Ka‘bah is not merely a cube of stone.

It is a covenant.

A promise that humanity does not belong to tyrants.

A declaration that no empire is eternal.

A reminder that Allah alone is greater.

Allahu Akbar.

Greater than Zionism.

Greater than imperialism.

Greater than capitalism.

Greater than every army.

Greater than every border.

Greater than every tyrant who believes he can decide who lives and who dies.

The Hajj begins with a call.

Labbayk Allahumma Labbayk.

Here I am, O Allah.

But if we are truly answering that call, then we cannot return unchanged.

We cannot return merely forgiven.

We must return dangerous to oppression.

Dangerous to injustice.

Dangerous to every system that feeds on human suffering.

The ‘I’ that entered the Miqat must not return home.

It must die there.

And in its place must rise the ‘We’.

A conscious, organised, compassionate, courageous Ummah.

An Ummah that feeds the hungry.

Shelters the displaced.

Protects the vulnerable.

Confronts tyrants.

Breaks idols.

Builds movements.

Repairs the earth.

An Ummah that understands that Hajj is not escape from the world – but preparation to return and transform it.

So let the hujjaj return.

Let them return to Hanover Park, Mitchells Plain, Bonteheuwel, Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Rondebosch East.

Let them return to Cairo, Jakarta, Lagos, Gaza, Istanbul, Karachi and Chicago.

Let them return carrying not only Zamzam and dates – but a new covenant with humanity.

Let them gather the broken-hearted.

Let them organise the forgotten.

Let them comfort the grieving.

Let them stand beside the oppressed.

Let them become a movement.

Because the devils are already preparing new masks.

And the world is waiting for a new generation of believers who remember what Hajj was always meant to do:

To turn strangers into an Ummah.

To turn ritual into resistance.

To turn remembrance into struggle.

To turn tears into action.

Issued by: Qibla. Contacts: Aziz Kader +(27) 82 453 2716; Yusuf Patel +(27) 60 190 7439; Khalid Khan +(27) 84 900 6655; Reederwaan Craayenstein +(44) 073 809 034 64