I had no idea if five years was long enough for it to "blow over" when I applied for visa to make hajj this year. I also had no idea if the people who work in the embassy connect every detail of your life with your passport and visa requests. I know when I come into the United States from travel abroad, no matter where I have been, as "allied" as Europe or as "non-allied" as Muslim majority countries, I am stopped at the US border. Every time. And this has been for two or three years. It's like there is some kind of mark next to my name, in the system. I never know what that mark is and the extent of my detainment varies but I am always searched.
Whenever I would enter in Indonesia, having done so at least 15 times in the year and half I lived there, I could see the computers as the passport is swiped and it reads "No known alerts." I still hover over the counter as they swipe, wondering if the "alert" from the US side or the "fatwas" from various parties, will one day appear there and I will be stopped from entry. Once I came into Indonesia when my previous passport had only five months remaining before renewal. I don't know how many countries have this stipulation—Saudi Arabia did—but there must be at least six months remaining. It doesn't matter if you plan to stay two days—you need six months left on the passport before expiry.
I was stopped then and taken into a room, offered something to drink, while they flipped through and through my passport. I was so nervous I could hardly sit still, but then they said: well, you need to renew this. And the next day, I went to the US embassy and applied for a new one, the one I have now. Here's a tip, the fastest way to get a passport is to get one outside the US. Imagine that. But I digress...
A friend of mine who lives in Madinah now once wrote a reminder on Facebook, that no one makes hajj except by invitation from Allah. When I saw that I put in my requisition, I must admit. But I also admit, I'm a bit skeptical of considering this literally. Mainly because there are three million people who make it (and two million back when I was denied in 1981). I can't say any of the factors would have just disappeared, had I thought to ask Allah first. But this year as I posted comments about waiting I did get a few reminders about this in the more optimistic form. Whom Allah invites, no one can keep away. And my Zappos shoes person recounted almost missing a plane, landing without her bags, but how she and her husband still managed to get there, because "once Allah invites you, then no one and nothing will keep you away."
So I tried to be optimistic. It didn't help that my daughter accused me of the contrary. Or rather, she asked: aren't you ever optimistic? I told her about waiting for the visa and how NOT being optimistic was driving me crazy. She said, "Trust in God and don't worry." She said, "You can't have both: either it's the trust or it's the worry." So I let go, for just a minute.
Yesterday was magnanimous! It had been two weeks since the tour company received my passport by express mail when they told me I had to choose, apply for the visa or go to Berlin. They said then, the embassy says it will take 10-12 business days. I figured: if they got my visa into the embassy on the same day it arrived, at least ten days were up. Anyway I was too nervous NOT to make contact before the weekend, because, well, I was just nervous, okay? So when I finally got up the nerve to call the tour agency about my visa process, the woman said, "you got the visa, but since your passport was submitted late, we don't have it back yet, but you got the visa."
!!!!
I know she said more, something about the package. But I just wanted to get off the phone, so I could say out loud a soft, "yes!", make a silent prayer of gratitude, and then just cry a little.
I dressed in white to attend Friday prayer (not as the imam, mind you). Then later in the day, the mailman delivered my unscented cosmetics, from the Labayk Company; and my shoes came by parcel post, from Zappos. I put them on and started walking with them. Altogether, it was a magnanimous day.
I'm so happy I got my visa. Now, I have eight days, before departure.
October 31, 2010—Making Amends
Today is Sunday, I have one week and the serious countdown begins. The clock is ticking. In addition to general packing and logistical preparations, I must begin to make amends. Actually my list is not that long, once I contact my immediate family.
This harks back to two things, in "making the will before hajj" one is also making plans for some kind of finality. If not physically then at least metaphorically. That is probably why so many people actually wish to die at hajj. This is the place and time where one's life should come before one's eyes and then washed as if a tsunami of purification and expiation ran over it. To stand on Arafat on the 10th day of the last month of the Islamic lunar calendar is to bare one's soul and then to hope and pray for a new one-one that is purified and whole. Out with the old and useless, in with the new and renewed.
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