Gathering, the day when people are raised up to their Lord and stand before His heavenly court, with nothing to shield them but their souls and the good they have sent before them.

As for the standing on Arafat, it is the recompense and the reward. Yes, O righteous Muslim: you have run and you have prayed; you have been smelted—a giant before Satan, lowly before the Merciful; you have been purified of your defilement, and so the reward is rightfully yours; it is rightfully yours to reach the summit, the summit attained only by the repentant and the sincere—so blessings upon you.

And in the pilgrimage, in the spot that brought forth Muhammad—peace be upon him—on the earth where he walked with guidance, his lance never bending, Muslims come to know one another and to love one another. Acquaintance here means the exchange of knowledge, and mutual love means understanding. Who can count the benefits mankind used to reap from this annual world congress, before congresses existed, before com-munications became easy, before inventions multiplied? Who can count the books the pilgrims carried back to their countries, and the information, and the customs?

People may well disfigure many of the rites of religions, till they become theatrical gestures and hollow appearances; they may—if there is no one among them to open their eyes and sharpen their feeling—forget what lies behind the symbol, through the working of repetition. Prayer may become a habit, and fasting an endurance. But however locked people's hearts and however narrow their horizons, however ingenious they grow in disfiguring the rites of religions, they will never be able to touch with harm the merits of acquaintance and understanding in the pilgrimage; they will not stand in the way of the blessings of contact between human beings, and the drawing-together that contact works. Indeed, it is within people's power to make this world congress, convened in the shelter of God and under the banner of a spiritual ideology, more successful and deeper in effect, by preparing

for it a wholesome bodily atmosphere—an atmosphere of the utmost cleanliness, order, and arrangement. It is in their power to profit from civilization, which is part of God's guidance, and to call upon its best means to secure health, comfort, and beauty around the Ancient House, laden with the majesty of antiquity and the lights of heaven.

Yes, the pilgrimage is spiritual peace and a social message with a comprehensive human aim, and we must restore to it all its meanings in the light of the development of modern societies, so that in this

season there convene scientific, economic, and political circles. And all Muslims must share in building up the places of pilgrim-age, and in making them the finest spot in the Islamic world, so that the pilgrim, from wherever he comes, feels that Islam—which says, work for your world as though you would live forever, and work for your hereafter as though you would die tomorrow—has reached the summit in its own home, and that this home is a wing of Paradise.

Gibbs — Better for the Teeth

Better for the teeth—and a softer complexion!

Gibbs Stobel

GIBBS