Hajj suit raises host of questions

WASHINGTON (RNS) In 2008, Safoorah Khan, a math teacher in Illinois,
asked for 15 days of unpaid leave (19 days including weekends) to make a
pilgrimage to Mecca, an obligation for all Muslims.


The local school board refused, but the Justice Department stepped
in last December and sued on behalf of Khan, saying she was denied
"reasonable accommodation" to perform a duty of her faith.


Since then, a number of questions have arisen about the hajj and
whether the Justice Department should have backed the teacher.


"Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm not," Rush Limbaugh said on his
radio show last Friday (March 25). "Teachers have summers off. ...
Muslims are urged to travel to Mecca at least once in their lives. Not
during a specific time frame, like the end of the school marking
period."


On Tuesday, at a Senate hearing on the civil rights of American
Muslims, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., accused the Justice Department of
taking "the wrong case."


"Can she go on the hajj during the summer?" the senator asked Thomas
Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who testified at the
hearing. "Is there a requirement that she go for the three weeks that
she chose during the middle of the school year?"


According to Islamic scholars, making the hajj during summer
vacation would have required Khan, 29, to postpone her trip for nearly a
decade.


"If she waits, and she gets sick and dies, how will she be able to
explain why she did not do it?" said Sayyid Syeed, who directs
interfaith and community affairs for the Islamic Society of North
America. "There is a compelling passion to go as soon as possible."


The hajj commemorates the trials of the biblical patriarch Abraham,
who Muslims consider a prophet, and takes place over five days during
the 12th month of the Islamic year.


The date of the annual pilgrimage shifts because Islam is guided by
a lunar calendar; last year, 2.8 million Muslims from around the world
traveled to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, Nov. 14-18. About 20,000 Americans
complete the hajj yearly, according to Syeed.


Muslims can travel to Mecca throughout the year, but these trips are
not considered a fulfillment of the hajj obligation. Asking a Muslim to
move the pilgrimage to summer is like asking a Christian to celebrate
Christmas in July, said Syeed.


Along with believing in monotheism and Muhammad's prophecy, praying
five times daily, giving alms, and fasting during the holy month of
Ramadan, every Muslim is required to make the pilgrimage at least once.


According to the hadith, a collection of teachings by Prophet
Muhammad and his companions, Muslims who do not make the hajj should not
be considered Muslim.


Muhammad also said that those who have the health and "means" to
undertake the journey but fail to do so "die on the branches of
ignorance," said Shaykh Abdool Rahman Khan (no relation to Safoorah
Khan), the resident scholar at the Islamic Foundation in Villa Park,
Ill.


Before airplanes and boats, Muslims would set out by foot or camel
on a trip that might take years and prove perilous. In many parts of the
world, Muslims save for a lifetime before they have enough money to make
the trip.


Their relative affluence puts pressure on young American Muslims to
perform the hajj as soon as possible, even with lives crowded by family
and work obligations.


"In American society, perhaps, people are confused about whether
they should give up everything because (Islamic tradition) says so, or
whether they can apply their own wisdom," Khan said.


Muhammad was referring to more than finances when he said all
Muslims who have the "means" must perform the hajj as soon as possible,
he said.


"You have to look at a variety of factors: Do you have enough
security in what you are doing with your job and your family?" Khan
said. "Practicing religion is not ignoring everything else. You have to
balance it all."