Omar Suleiman

At any time of the day, any time of the year, you will find people that will be performing the pilgrimage, an iteration of the pilgrimage in Mecca.

And it's an incredible practice.

It really is a place where

you feel like you're no longer in this world.

I mean, it's incredible.

So we all go there donning what's known as the ihram garb.

So the men will wear just these white garments, which are resembling, or they resemble the garments that we will be buried in.

And whether you're a king or a prince or a peasant in classical terms, whoever you are, whatever distinction you have, you're all the same.

And the women will wear a simple garment as well.

So you go there, you relinquish all of the pretensions and concerns and superficial barriers and distinctions.

that exist in this life.

And we do what's called tawaf, circle around the Kaaba, symbolically putting God at the center of our lives.

We do seven rounds between Safa and Marwa, the two mountains, where Hagar

When she once ran between those two mountains with her baby Ishmael, looking for water, trusting God, was provided for.

We too go between the two mountains of Safa and Marwa to express that trust in God and to follow in that way.

These are ultimately, these are the rituals that Abraham himself engaged in, in our tradition and the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, engaged in.

And so we engage in the exact same rituals and there are divine wisdoms to them that we may not even be able to unpack and reflect upon.

But it really is in that place where you find the most beautiful global expression of Islam.

You see people from all over the world, people that don't speak the same languages, people from all sorts of backgrounds, and they're all doing the exact same thing.

And in a matter of seconds, when the call of prayer comes,