"Labbayka! Labbayka!" and "Allah Akbar!" Mecca is surrounded by the crudest-looking mountains
I have ever seen; they seem to be made of the slag from a blast furnace. No vegetation is on
them at all. Arriving about noon, we prayed and chanted from noon until sunset, and theasr
(afternoon) and Maghrib (sunset) special prayers were performed.
Finally, we lifted our hands in prayer and thanksgiving, repeating Allah's words: "There is no God
but Allah. He has no partner. His are authority and praise. Good emanates from Him, and He has
power over all things."
Standing on Mount Arafat had concluded the essential rites of being a pilgrim to Mecca. No one
who missed it could consider himself a pilgrim.
The Ihram had ended. We cast the traditional seven stones at the devil. Some had their hair
and beards cut. I decided that I was going to let my beard remain. I wondered what my wife Betty,
and our little daughters, were going to say when they saw me with a beard, when I got back to
New York. New York seemed a million miles away. I hadn't seen a newspaper that I could read
since I left New York. I had no idea what was happening there. A Negro rifle club that had been in
existence for over twelve years in Harlem had been "discovered" by the police; it was being
trumpeted that I was "behind it." Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam had a lawsuit going against
me, to force me and my family to vacate the house in which we lived on Long Island.
The major press, radio, and television media in America had representatives in Cairo hunting all
over, trying to locate me, to interview me about the furor in New York that I had allegedly causedwhen
I knew nothing about any of it.
I only knew what I had left in America, and how it contrasted with what I had found in the Muslim
world. About twenty of us Muslims who had finished the Hajj were sitting in a huge tent on Mount
Arafat. As a Muslim from America, I was the center of attention. They asked me what about the
Hajj had impressed me the most. One of the several who spoke English asked; they translated
my answers for the others. My answer to that question was not the one they expected, but it
drove home my point.
I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, colors, from all over the world coming
together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God."
It may have been out of taste, but that gave me an opportunity, and I used it, to preach them a
quick little sermon on America's racism, and its evils.
I could tell the impact of this upon them. They had been aware that the plight of the black man in
America was "bad," but they had not been aware that it was inhuman, that it was a psychological
castration. These people from elsewhere around the world were shocked. As Muslims, they had a
very tender heart for all unfortunates, and very sensitive feelings for truth and justice. And in
everything I said to them, as long as we talked, they were aware of the yardstick that I was using
to measure everything-that to me the earth's most explosive and pernicious evil is racism, the
inability of God's creatures to live as One, especially in the Western world.
I have reflected since that the letter I finally sat down to compose had been subconsciously
shaping itself in my mind.
The color-blindness of the Muslim world's religious society and the color-blindness of the
Muslim world's human society: these two influences had each day been making a greater impact,
and an increasing persuasion against my previous way of thinking.
The first letter was, of course, to my wife, Betty. I never had a moment's question that Betty, after
initial amazement, would change her thinking to join mine. I had known a thousand reassurances
that Betty's faith in me was total. Iknew that she would see what I had seen-that in the land of
Muhammad and the land of Abraham, I had been blessed by Allah with a new insight into the true
religion of Islam, and a better understanding of America's entire racial dilemma.
After the letter to my wife, I wrote next essentially the same letter to my sister Ella. And I knew
where Ella would stand. She had been saving to make the pilgrimage to Mecca herself.
I wrote to Dr. Shawarbi, whose belief in my sincerity had enabled me to get a passport to Mecca.
All through the night, I copied similar long letters for others who were very close to me. Among
them was Elijah Muhammad's son Wallace Muhammad, who had expressed to me his conviction