The Los Angeles Times runs this story about the experience of several Californian Muslims on their experience of the Haj…

Personal trek, with millions
Recently a group of Southland Muslims undertook the hajj — Islam’s ritual pilgrimage to Mecca. With moments of peace and chaos, the trip was an experience they won’t forget.
Ashraf Khalil

If this were Lebanon, Raef Hajjali would have returned from Saudi Arabia to a mini-parade of family and friends, a nice long rest and new social standing in the community.

Relatives and neighbors would have slaughtered a sheep in celebration and decorated his home with palm fronds. “The whole town would have been waiting,” he said.

Instead, he and his wife, Ellen Hajjali, returned home to Altadena a few weeks ago to minimal fanfare, and he was back at work the next day. He didn’t last long.

A construction engineer helping remodel the neonatal wing of a hospital in Torrance, he was coughing so much that his co-workers sent him home. How to explain that he was still fending off the severe chest cold known as the hajj flu?

But how to explain what it’s like when 2.3 million people gather, as Ellen put it, at the House of Allah?
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