After the salah was completed, I remained sitting where I was, just behind the railing on the second floor, overlooking the Kaaba and the inner courtyard. As often is the case after salah in the Haram on the second floor and the roof, many people go over to lean over on the railing and look upon the Kaaba. I decided to restrain my own impulse to go over to the railing and continued to sit and begin the supplications of the morning.
As I was doing so, I looked not at that Kaaba but at all those in front and on the side of me standing over the railing looking upon the Kaaba and the thousands of people making Tawaf around it. At Hajj the last time I had visited I remembered standing at the railing with everyone else in awe watching the river of people circumambulating the Kaaba. Someone behind me said at that time that all one has to do to recognize the existence of Allah is to stand where we are standing and to see what was before our very eyes.
As I watched the other people watching the Kaaba, I looked at the pattern of their eye movements. And one thing that was readily apparent was that one does not gaze at the Kaaba itself for an extended period of time. Most often people would initially glance at the Kaaba and fixate on it for several seconds, and then move on in their gaze to that which surrounds it, namely the thousands of people making the Tawaf. It is as if the majesty of the Kaaba is deemed so great by the eye and heart, that one is humbled in the presence of such majesty and redirects the prolonged gaze elsewhere. And it is in this prolonged gaze of the creation of Allah which glorifies Allah by circling His House in the Tawaf, where one begins to appreciate the majesty. For the majesty of Allah and the majesty of His House, cannot be comprehended by our senses or our intellect. Yet when we look at our fellow human beings, our fellow creation, making the Tawaf, we can get a sense of this majesty. For we see and reflect that within every single one of these thousands of hearts circumambulating the Kaaba, spiritual journeys are being made in each heart. And in each their hoped destination is something which dwarfs the entire universe as we know it in our own finite understanding.
Beyond the pattern of eye movements of those whom I watched, among all of them one could see the longing in their eyes. There is an Arabic proverb that states that lovers carry a mark between their eyes that no one can miss. One sees that love for the Kaaba and for Allah in their eyes. One sees that spiritual yearning and longing to be in the Aakhirah. Seeing them leaning over the railing and gazing at the Kaaba and those around it, it was like seeing a new parent with their face as close as possible to the glass of the nursery separating them from their child. They look upon their child in sheer awe and with the purest love. And yet the glass prevents them from fulfilling their longing to get close to their child and take them into their arms and embrace them, just as the glass of this world and this life prevents us from fulfilling our longing for the Aakhirah and the Divine presence. And yet how infinitely greater is the love Allah has for us!
Soon enough, though I had not finished the supplications of the morning, I could not resist going to the railing myself and continue the supplications while watching the people making the Tawaf. One thing that is realized when one sees the Tawaf is how truly insignificant one is. We tend to exalt ourselves and feel proud of our actions that we think makes us closer to Allah. Yet in the Tawaf, or on the plain of Arafah, one sees millions of people doing these same actions, and we are filled with this feeling of how insignificant we are and how everyone around us seems better than us. How could we ever compare with those other human beings around us making the Tawaf? It is a truly humbling experience.
One of the supplications made by the Prophet in the morning states, �O Allah, I have entered a new morning and call upon You and upon the bearers of Your Throne, upon Your angels, and all creation to bear witness that surely You are Allah, there is none worthy of worship but You alone.�. In reciting this while watching this never-ending wave of people circling Allah�s House and glorifying Him, it was is as if this supplication was being partially manifest before our very eyes, seeing all of creation worshiping the Creator, as they were created to do so.