The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. Every healthy Muslim who has financial resources to visit Makkah is required to perform it at least once in his or her lifetime. About 2 million Muslim pilgrims from nearly 100 countries gather in the holy city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia to begin the Hajj rituals.

Is Hajj just a series of ritual or is more than that? Of course, Hajj is not just a series of various Islamic rituals which Muslims perform and then leave home without learning any spiritual lessons from it. One of the lessons from the Hajj is “Tolerance is the way of life”. More than two million Muslim men and women gather for Hajj and only way to absorb the experience is to have tolerance for the vast and varying ways the people around you perform the Hajj.

People may have different interpretations of what is allowed in Hajj and what is not allowed and it can be different from you own interpretations. It is the tolerance to others that will keep you going during the Hajj. Performing Hajj with more than two million other Muslims walking with you shoulder to shoulder from different culture and speaking different languages but still performing the same rites. Some people may not treat you the way you would like to be treated but you have to be tolerant of others as that is the only way for you not to indulge in something which is not allowed during the Hajj and focus on your rituals.

If you can not tolerate the people who have a different variation of your own faith, then it is impossible to tolerate people from the other believes. If you can tolerate other over two million people during the Hajj, then you have learned a very important lesson from Hajj that is “Tolerance is the Way of Life”.

It is not only tolerance, Hajj is in fact a journey of a lifetime.