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Oregon Man Answers Call to Pilgrimage

By Spencer Heinz/AP

A Beaverton, Ore. engineer knew it was time for him to go to Mecca. He broke the daily rhythm of doing laundry and helping with homework and laboring as a computer engineer to make a special request.

“Once in a lifetime,” he said quietly to his boss, “I have to make a trip to Mecca. And this is the time.”

Packing for Mecca required care. Everything had to fit into a small bag for carry-on at Portland International Airport. His wife found him rubber-soled beach sandals at Target. He also packed an umbrella and the required white cotton garments.

Mohammed Azimul Haque, 41, a senior system engineer at Intel in Hillsboro, was about to enter a marathon of repentance and rededication. “Payback time,” he said.

The Islamic faith requires each Muslim who has the means to make this hajj, or pilgrimage, to the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, the holiest city in the Muslim world, at least once. For years, Haque had given it thought. And when his parents from Bangladesh announced they were ready to make their trip, he decided to meet them there. Haque started out alone from Portland.

Pilgrims wait curbside for transportation to the city of Mina, where they will spend the night before going to Arafat, on the first day of hajj. At least two million pilgrims from all over the world took part in this year’s hajj pilgrimage. AP Photo.

He would soon have company: Each year, more than 2 million Muslims converge on Mecca to pray for forgiveness from Allah by retracing the seventh-century final journey of Islam's prophet Mohammed. Not everything would be new. In keeping with his faith, Haque already followed the Muslim practice of kneeling and praying toward Mecca five times a day. At work, for instance, he might quietly excuse himself from a meeting, find an empty room and kneel for five minutes of recitations toward the holy city, 7,700 miles to the east.

Demographers say there are 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions; within 25 years, one in four people will be Muslim.

More than 10,000 Muslims live in the greater Portland area. At least 1,000 practice their faith in the area’s half-dozen mosques. About 50 of those traveled to Mecca for this year’s hajj, including Haque, whose purpose was fortified by his personal experience.

Born in 1960 in East Pakistan, which became independent Bangladesh in the bloody conflicts of 1971, Haque says he saw fighter planes, bombs, bodies in the river and starvation in one of the world’s poorest nations. He saw the chasm between rich and poor. He decided that mankind alone could not always achieve justice, but that prayer might.

“Maybe God,” he says, “is big enough to fix things.”

His pilgrimage began before Mecca. It began as he phoned and wrote to friends. He asked forgiveness for any harm he had ever done. He packed in his suitcase the names of dozens who asked for his daily prayers. As for himself, he said he prayed that his journey would help him be a better father, husband, employee and person.

On the February morning of his departure, his wife, Tahmina, fixed his favorite breakfast of orange juice, croissants and one egg sunny side up. While he was saying goodbye to her, and to their son, Abrar, 4, and to their daughter, Aniqa, 9, Aniqa said, “I wish the hajj was in America so you didn’t have to go to Mecca.”

In the Portland airport, he met a city plumbing inspector also leaving for Mecca. When they landed briefly in San Francisco, they met two Somalian refugees, also pilgrims. Others doing the same converged at their next stop in Germany. Men dressed in two pieces of unsewn white cloth to signify entry into ihram, a state of self-control that forbids harming living creatures or raising the voice in anger. “God, I am here,” they chanted as the plane dropped into Mecca.

Haque met his mother, brother and father from Bangladesh, then separated on orders that placed him elsewhere in a tent city of the world’s pilgrims in white. His 20-person tent held people from France, Algeria and Portugal.

The crowds and the heat tested patience: If a temper blows, a hajj is lost. Pilgrims frequently reminded each other, “Please be patient.”

During five days of ritual, they commemorated events in the lives of Abraham, Abraham’s wife, Hagar, and their son, Ishmael. Haque walked with crowds around the Kaaba, a stone building that Muslims say was built first by Abraham and Ishmael.

They rushed between nearby hills to commemorate Hagar’s frantic search for water for Ishmael. They prayed under the sky until dusk on the plain of Arafat. They traveled to nearby Mina for the stoning of pillars as a rejection of Satan’s temptations.

In the passion of the crowds, Haque says he wanted to keep his vow to stay at peace with everyone. “Patience,” he reminded himself. “If I push, my hajj is gone.” Thinking such thoughts, he says he waited until after the morning rush of people to escort three older and fragile pilgrims who had arrived from Portugal. They threw their stones in safety.

By then, the word was confirmed: 35 fellow pilgrims had died in the morning crush. He says his brother fell, but someone yanked him up in time. Haque returned to the Portland airport on a Friday in March. His wife and children welcomed him back to their Beaverton home. Tahmina fixed one of their favorite meals of fish and rice, and the family looked him over.

The 4-year-old stared at his father’s shaved head and said he hoped the hair could grow back. Otherwise, they said, he looked the same.

These days, he continues steps aside and kneels to pray. He says he prays for the people of the nearby Bilal Mosque, the people at work, the people of the city, the people of Bangladesh, the people of the world and for his lifelong aim of trying to build upon his pilgrimage by becoming a better person.

Mohammed Haque resumes his everyday rhythm with the honor and burden of the prophet’s name.

He says he lives with the hope that Allah will accept his pilgrimage, and with the fear that he will not.

“If I have certainty,” he says, “then I take away from the immensity of God.”