The Hajj: Connections from service and Class

While at a service banquet I attended for my service at Nur-Allah, I met a family that consisted of the parents and four grown daughters. The parents of the family were given an award for pioneers of the year, and within their award acceptance, they spoke about the Hajj. They were introducing their daughters, and they said that two of their daughters and their partners did the Hajj in 2019. She then talked about how she and her husband had done the Hajj twice together, and her husband did the Hajj one other time. After they stated that they had done the Hajj along with two of their daughters, the entire crowd gave a huge round of applause. The extent of the applause for the family doing the Hajj reminded me of the video and the class discussion we had about the Hajj. I did not know how big of a deal the Hajj was in the Islamic faith. I knew that it exsisted, and was a pillar of Islam, but I did not know how important it was. When they were speaking about their Hajj experience, they talked about how life-changing it was to make the trip to Mecca and everything that they did during the Hajj and how close it brought them to God. Seeing the topics that we talk about during class and do readings on in real life is such a cool experience. I think that hearing real stories, first-hand, has the deepest impact on learning, and hearing how influential the Hajj was to this family really showed how big of a deal the Hajj is in the Islamic faith.