There is a woman behind every great man: Hajar's story

Prophet Ibraheem's (Abraham) life was full of trials and tribulations that tested his faith and submission. He lived a long life and had no children until his good wife Sarah, was was sterile, offered Abraham her maid, Hajar, as a second wife to beget him a son. Hajar begot Ismail, and later, Sarah, at the age of ninety, begot Isaac, according to the Muslim sources from the Quran and the Prophetic traditions. The biggest test of Abraham's faith has yet to come.

While Hajar was still nursing Ismail, Abraham received a command from God to take his wife and son to a far away land, called Makkah. The family traveled beyond a valley and through desert until they reached a barren and remote land. Abraham left his wife a few dates and some water, and then departed under the scorching sun of the Arabian desert. Hajar jogged after her husband calling him to come back. She hollered: "O Ibrahim! Where are you going and leaving us in this valley that does not have any inhabitants or anything else?" He did not look back, so she repeated her question a few more times. She then asked him, "did Allah command you to do this?" Ibraheem replied: "Yes." She said, "then certainly, He will not abandon us."

Enventually, the water ran out, Hajar's milk dried, and baby Ismail started to starve. The merciful mother could not take her son's cries, so she climbed the biggest hill nearby, mount Safa. She looked down at the valley beneath her and found no signs of life. She went down and walked till the next hill, Marwa mount, and did the same. She repeated this several times until she suddenly heard a voice. She looked down, and a stream of water miraculously burst through the sand.

Muslim tradition explains that the archangel Gabriel had hit the land with his wing and thereby caused the holy stream to appear. The stream, known as Zamzam, has not dried to this day. When Abraham later received the command to build the house of God, Ka'ba, he and Ismail built it next to Zamzam stream. Hundreds of years later, when prophet Mohammad (an Arab and a descendant of Abraham) received God's revelations in 610, his followers, the Muslims, soon received the command to perform Hajj at least once in their lifetime.

Hajj, the annual pilgrimage that two to three million Muslims perform every year in Makkah in that same place where Abraham and his family were tested, commemorates the story of a great man and his wife who submitted to the will of God despite all odds. Among other rituals, Muslims walk up and down the two hills, Safa and Marwa, seven times to remember the persistence of Hajar and glorify the mercy of God.

Makkah has been the lighthouse of billions of Muslims throughout 1430 years across every corner of the earth. Seeking a journey of soul purification, pilgrims beg God for salvation and forgiveness in a lively land that once was arid and remote but lived up to one man's and one woman's submission to their creator.