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A Journey of the Heart
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Memorization was not the problem for Chaudhary M. Shafi when he did the hajj in the late 1990s with a New York-based travel agency. Information-gathering was the bigger hurdle.
After completing the pilgrimage, Shafi came back wondering: What did I miss?
His group's religious leader had far more to say in Arabic than English, flummoxing non-Arabic speakers like him.
"Every lecture was about an hour in Arabic and five minutes in English," said Shafi, a retired businessman in Glenwood. "I personally felt that in Arabic they explained everything better and gave more historical perspective."
He signed up to go this year with Khan, a longtime family friend whom he could "question at will."
"One of my weaknesses is that I did not learn Arabic," said Shafi, who is of Pakistani descent. "If I did, I wouldn't have to go to anybody for translation. Knowing the Koran in the language of the Prophet leaves no room for error."
As a teenager, Khan could relate to that dilemma. He, too, is of Pakistani descent and grew up speaking English and his parents' Urdu, which left him feeling disconnected from the holy book.
As an adult, he embarked on a life-altering journey to resolve the issue for himself.
That journey, he said, began soon after a drunk driver slammed into Khan as he waited at a bus stop near his family's Silver Spring home.
It was Dec. 17, 1975. Khan was 17 and a University of Maryland freshman. He said that doctors predicted his injuries would kill or cripple him. But Khan threw himself into a strenuous rehabilitation program, and started walking without aid about 16 months later. Today, he limps ever so slightly.
"It was after that accident that I began to reflect, that I realized I could've been gone in a second and that death is real," said Khan, 48.
