National Geographic follows three pilgrims from Malaysia, South Africa, and the United States as the travel to Mecca for the hajj.National Geographic follows three pilgrims from Malaysia, South Africa, and the United States as the travel to Mecca for the hajj.National Geographic follows three pilgrims from Malaysia, South Africa, and the United States as the travel to Mecca for the hajj.
Photos
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Featured review
Movie Revie by Bexultan Akimkhan
The movie narrates why Mecca is the holiest city for more than one billion people all around the world who consider themselves as Muslims. Every year around two million people take a visit to Mecca in order to accomplish their spiritual duty before Allah, who indicated this trip to the Mecca as one of the five pillars of Islam. Generally, in Mecca people asks remission for their sins and try to renovate their moral principles according to religion. Interestingly, this journey once a life considers as compulsory for every Muslim who financially and physically afford it. Indeed, the massiveness of believers in annual pilgrimage astonishes world community, yet, for followers of other religions the doors of the Mecca is closed, despite the fact that historically it inhabited by different followers of pagans, Judaism and Christianity. Therefore, the movie by National Geographic, shows to us what in common have three different people who substantially differs from one another by their socio-economic status and background. All of them are about to fulfill a responsible moment of their life, it's a pilgrimage to sacred place in Islamic world known as the hajj.
National Geographic team follows after the three Muslims on their way to and in pilgrimage to Mecca. Most interestingly, the film producers are not just following the three Muslims in their trip rather they try to show us the spiritual and deep moral stages of experiencing mixed feelings and internal excitements during the trip to sacred place. For each person presented in documentary making hajj is began from fastidious preparations at home and continued with some challenges on their way to pilgrimage. For Fidelma O'Leary, professor assistant at neuropsychology faculty at University of Austin, Texas, making hajj is considered as life changing experience since she is innate born Irish with Catholic backgrounds. She converted to Islam during when she was student, as states it was her rational choice. One of the obstacles during the trip was that many fellow pilgrims expressed some hesitation to accept her as their sister friend. From my perspective, this fact is closely linked with the fact of stereotypic viewpoint of people that for western people converting to Islam is to some extent nonsense for them. The case of Ismail Mahbub, Malaysian businessman, narrates to us how it's difficult to leave your family and your comfort zone which you are accustomed in return for spiritual renewal. While, the case Khalil Mandhlazi, South African radio representative, narrates to us how it's difficult to face with same problem which you face at your home country. In the Khalil's case, it was racism which shown by his fellow pilgrims during his hajj. Despite this racial discrimination Khalil represented the case where he showed that goal of making hajj is to be one step closer with Allah, not letting themselves to be angry and irritant for certain problem.
In parallel the current documentary movie introduces us with story of formation of Mecca as holy city for Muslims. As it had been shown in the movie, behind the scenes there are enormous effort that need to be accomplished by both pilgrims and hosting authorities. For examples, Saudi Arabian government are responsible for all administrative work, and responsible for peace and safe location of pilgrims by managing their accommodation, nutrition, etc. While, pilgrims initially need to overcome administrative barriers and then during hajj they need overcome exhausting conditions like crowding, hot temperature, etc.
Truly, the culmination of every hajj is visit by pilgrim the mosque called the al-Masjid al-Haram in which at the centre locates Kaaba, where black stone tethered. According to Islamic tradition this back stone was delivered from heaven, but, as the consequence of touching the stone by millions of people stone turned black due to the people's sins. Another, Muslim tradition states that Allah commanded Prophet Abraham to build a special construction which will be place of worship, which as we call it today Kaaba. Many centuries ago, Kaaba was center of pagan worship, but Prophet Muhamad, founder of Islam, eradicated the activities of polytheists in Mecca and enlightened people to worship only to single God, which form Arabic means Allah. Today as we witness these rituals and rites of pilgrimages were evolved from Abraham to Muhammad, and today, all Muslims are following after their rites which they established the principles of pilgrimage thousands year ago. Basically, hajj consists from travel to valley of Mina, going to plain of Arafat, returning to Jumrah where pilgrims perform stoning of the devil and finally circling the Kaaba by walk for seven times.
Another interesting characteristic of Mecca is that non-Muslims are not allowed to make pilgrimage. One conflicting moment in the movie is that filmmakers delivered to us little bit wrong information by claiming that non-Muslims are prohibited to enter the city, in real sense they are just restricted to make hajj.
To conclude, Mecca is the holy city for all Muslims, obliged to be accomplished once in a lifetime, since it decreed by Allah. Three characters on the image showed us stages of hajj, and their motive in embarking to hajj.
helpful•00
- bexultanakimkhan
- Nov 3, 2018
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $1,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime56 minutes
- Color
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content