The Tawaf

Make frequent circuits of The House (Ka'bah) for this will be among the glories of your records on the Day of Resurrection, and the most fortunate action credited to you.
[Prophet Muhammad, s.a.w.]

Here's something I borrowed from another site...

The one who performs Tawaf, however, has a central focus, and the focus is Allah SWT. Throughout all the valleys and peaks of life, we are choosing to keep our faces, and our hearts, directed towards Allah. There is no dizziness, no disorientation. The world is defeated and we are amongst the successful as long as we keep on facing Allah SWT.

The pilgrim has turned to face Allah as an affirmation of Tawheed and commenced the circumambulation of Allah’s House to practice this belief. What does he or she find?

When one is in tawaf, individuality is taken away. Like a drop of water falling into the currents of a river. Suddenly the pilgrim is immersed in a perpetual state of motion around the Kaaba in the company of thousands of other pilgrims. It is a glorification of Allah where the individual merges with the collective. All of creation is one, serving Allah alone.

Indeed this is the natural state of our nafs. Allah says many times in the Qur’an “All that is in the heavens and earths glorifies Allah”. The atoms and molecules that make up our bodies are glorifying Allah constantly, regardless of whether our nafs is. When we stand apart from the tawaf, our nafs remains separated from the natural state of creation. When we choose to enter the stream of people, our nafs becomes integrated into the natural state of our bodies and the space-time continuum that was only created to glorify Allah.

“And I created not jinn and mankind not except that they should worship Me” (Surah Adh-Dhariyat)

To remain in this state of glorification, this state of fulfillment, the pilgrim must continue to face the Kaaba (belief) and continue to walk around it (action). If the pilgrim fails to do either, he will find himself suddenly out of phase with the crowd, out of phase with nature itself. What helps to keep the pilgrim in phase? This leads us to the culmination of Surah Al-Asr:

“and recommend to one another to the truth and recommend one another to patience”

The planets are held in their orbits around the sun by the interaction of gravitational forces and other physical phenomena. When we drive in a circle, for instance as we take an exit off the highway, while centripetal forces pull the car in towards the center, an angle, the banking of the road, is introduced, to help offset the centrifugal forces that pull the car out of the curve. If the road banking is removed, the car veers tangentially off the curve and into disaster.

In the tawaf, the banking of the road is the stream of pilgrims that surrounds us, that keeps us in phase. This is what keeps us from veering tangentially away. Fellow pilgrims are behind us, beside us and in front of us. Humanity joins together on the basis of Tawheed and helps one another for the sake of glorifying Allah SWT. It is through the assistance of our fellow brothers and sisters in humanity that we remain in the natural state of worshipping our Creator. Joining in worship of Allah becomes a force of social change, enjoining what is just and forbidding what is evil in this world.

We could speak on and on about the lessons of tawaf. They are infinite and we should continue to reflect on them. The affirmation of Tawheed that permeates every aspect of it is crucial since the first question asked of us in our journey after death is by the angels in the grave, who will first ask “Who is our Lord”.

The lessons of tawaf are not only for the pilgrim performing it in Masjid-al-Haram, but for all of us. As we leave the Jummah today we must ask ourselves, how are we affirming Tawheed? How are we making tawaf in our daily life?

Are we turning towards Allah, keeping our hearts fixed on Him during the affairs of lives, our jobs and our families?

Are we performing the corresponding actions that come with turning towards Allah?

Are we joining together as a community to help one another in turning towards Allah?

Belief and deeds, both individual and collective. This is the message of Surah Al-Asr and the message of Tawaf. If we do not take heed of this message, we remain in the state of loss and we shall be held accountable on the Day of Reckoning.

May Allah forgive us, guide us towards Him and perfect our deen so that all us are in a state of perpetual tawaf in our daily lives.