The word Hajj means, literally, repairing to a place for the sake of visit al-qasd li-ziyarah , and in the terminology of the Islamic Shari'ah, it implies the repairing to Bait-Allah the house of Allah to observe the necessary devotion iqamat-an-li-nusuk Bait-Allah is one of the names by which the Ka'ba is called.
Hajj is not a new institution which Islam has introduced in its Shari'ah. This institution is as old as the Ka'ba itself which is called in the Holy Qur'an to be "the first House of Divine Worship appointed for men" iii. This verse of the Holy Qur'an corroborates the hadith which tells us that the Ka'ba was first built by Adam, the first man upon the earth. It was later on rebuilt by Hadrat Ibrahim and his illustrious son Hadrat Isma'il peace be upon both of them.
And when Ibrahim and Isma'al raised the foundations of the house, they said: "Our Lord! I have settled a part of my offspring in a valley unproductive of fruit near Thy sacred House" xiv. The whole ceremony of Hajj is commemorative of Hadrat Ibrahim and his family's acts of devotion to God Almighty. This shows that the Holy Prophet may peace be upon him did not innovate this institution but purged it of all evil practices and made it an obligatory act of piety by which one can develop God-consciousness.
It is rightly said that it is the perfection of faith since it combines in itself all the distinctive qualities of other obligatory acts. It represents the quality of salat since a pilgrim offers prayers in the Ka'ba, the House of the Lord. It encourages the spending of material wealth for the sake of the Lord, the chief characteristic of Zakat. When a pilgrim sets out for Hajj, he dissociates himself from his hearth and home, from his dear and near ones to please the Lord.
He suffers privation and undertakes the hardship of journey-the lessons we learn from fasting and i'tikaf. In Hajj one is trained to be completely forgetful of the material comforts and show of worldly thing.
