The annual pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam undertaken by growing millions of Muslims worldwide, is celebrated today with the feast of Eid al Adha. God tested Ibrahim by asking the life of his only son. The son, Isma’il, agreed solemnly to die. But God stayed the blade in mid-air. A lamb was slaughtered in his stead. All over the globe, Muslims remember and reenact this test, this sacrifice.
We walk the camels down a wadi of yellow sands. Of red cliffs. Of distances that arrest the heart—the blue hills of the Hejaz pale away like translucent shards of sky. A small girl nudges her flock across the wadi. The sheep move like schooled fish across the simmering land. They flow like water.
