About our Pilgrimage Journey to Mecca - Introduction of the Book
Published in December 6, 2019
Translated by: Ahmed Fathy
About this book:
With the Grace of the Dominant Lord God, our dearest wish has been fulfilled towards the end of our life; we have performed Hajj rituals in Mecca. This took place within the last week of the lunar month Rabei Awwal in 1414 A.H. Rabei Awwal is the fourth and last one among the four sacred months of Hajj, imposed by the Lord God, in the lunar calendar (Zu Al-Hijja, Muharram, Saffar, and Rabei Awwal). This is in contrast to the dominant notion of confining Hajj to the opening season (i.e., the first week of Zu Al-Hijja). This is our very first experience of Hajj; we have written the articles of this book directly upon our return home. May the Lord God always come to our aid.
Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour
9th of Rabei Al-Akhar 1414 A.H.
6th of Dec. 2019 A.D., VA, the USA
Introduction of the book:
1- In Cairo, Egypt, in the mid-1990s, we have published a lengthy article titled "The Hajj Is During Specific Months" in the Nasserist newspaper (Al-Araby). We have proved in this article, using the Quran, that any person can perform Hajj within any days during the four sacred months of the lunar calendar (Zu Al-Hijja, Muharram, Saffar, and Rabei Awwal); we have proven through history books that the first week of Zu Al-Hijja was, and is, merely the Hajj opening season; we have written about the historical circumstances which drove Arabs to confine Hajj to the first week of Zu Al-Hijja; the main reason for this grave sin was the fact that the caravans of pilgrims were raided by highwaymen among the desert-Arabs and the Bedouins; this made people forget about the four sacred months of Hajj, their sanctity, and the peace imposed during them; the Quran prohibits (as an act of disbelief) the manipulation and change of the days if the lunar months to interfere in the duration of the sacred four months. At the time, our article caused much debate and controversy. This article was published later on, in Arabic, on our Quranism website (www.ahl-alquran.com) launched in 2006. A small part of this mid-1990s article is found, in English, on the following link: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=653
2- Within our book titled "The Unspoken-of History of the Pre-Umayyad 'Righteous' Caliphs", found in English on this link: (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=83), we prove that the very first sinful caliph, Abou Bakr, is the first ruler to violate the four sacred months of Hajj when he sent military troops within the Arab conquests during the lunar month of Muharram to commit aggression in order to invade and conquer nations which never committed any sort of aggressions against Arabs of Arabia. The Arab conquests continued and so did the Arab civil wars and internecine strife even during the four sacred months of Hajj without showing any respect to their sanctity and the peace which must be adhered to during them. Sadly, even now in our modern era, the Muhammadans continue to wage wars of aggression during the four sacred months of Hajj. In some of our other books, we show how the Kaaba itself was desecrated and destroyed within the strife during the Umayyad and the Abbasid eras. Within the centuries of the Middle-Ages, raiders and marauders attacked and raided the caravans of pilgrims; this drove Arabs to commit the grave sin of confining Hajj to the first week of Zu Al-Hijja. For more details, we refer readers to our subtitled-into-English YouTube episodes about pilgrimage within our show titled (Quranic Moments) (https://www.youtube.com/user/ahlalquran1/featured) and to our book titled "Pilgrimage between Islam and the Muhammadans", found in English on this link: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=90
3- Of course, our abovementioned writings were theoretical since we have not performed Hajj; we ardently wish we would perform Hajj before we die. We imitated the theoretical fiqh authors who put down rules and preach reform. We imitated historians who commented on the acts and deeds common in their eras and preach reform from their own points of view; e.g., Al-Ghazaly, Ibn Al-Jawzy, and Al-Abdary, especially in our book titled "Researching within Sources of Religious History: A Practical Study", in which we write that such authors of fiqh unwittingly provided historical facts about their eras as they registered events, deeds, and acts of people in their eras and commented on them. For years, we wished for years to perform Hajj in order to write about this experience and comment on deeds and acts of people of our modern era while writing comments about what should be (or should have been) done. We sincerely hope that all our books would be part of preaching and warning in this era and the other future eras and be historical references about our era for the people who are yet to be born in later eras.
4- Because our pilgrimage journey is a new, unique experience for our person and we write about it for the first time, the objective elements are mixed with subjective ones; we mean to say that we write in this book about contemporary history as well as our Quranist vision as a Quranist thinker. We include in this book details about our state of health in order to make our experience beneficial to readers who are as old as our person and are liable to suffer from fatigue and/or any ailments. We include also details about how we have performed the Islamic Hajj rituals away from the Sunnite distortions; we refute the laughter-inducing garments of Ihram impose by Sunnites and prove how they misunderstand the meaning of the state of Ihram. We also refute the Sunnite myth of throwing pebbles at a pillar of stone representing Satan; this is never part of the Hajj rituals at all. We mention in this book how the polytheistic Muhammadans waste and lose the rewards of their Hajj by their insisting on performing pilgrimage to the abomination/tomb (ascribed falsely to Muhammad) found in the Yathreb mosque. We comment on the grave sins of confining Hajj to the first week of Zu Al-Hijja and confining Hajj and Umrah to the Muhammadans though pilgrimage is for all peaceful human beings regardless of their denominations and sects (they are Muslims as per their peaceful demeanor) within the universality of pilgrimage as per the Holy Quran. Some lessons to be drawn and some pieces of advice addressed to the Saudi kingdom conclude this book. May the Dominant Lord God always come to our aid.