Experiential Research on the Individual Outcomes of Hajj Worship

Abstract

Worship can be understood as the set of behaviors regulating the relationship between the believer and the believed and draws attention as a common basic religious practice all religions apply. Worship involves formal elements such as time, quantity, order, place, and symbolic meaning, the main purpose of which is to fill the worshipper’s religious consciousness with that which is being believed; these features constitute the objective dimension of worship. The Hajj is one of the most prominent forms of Islamic worship in terms of formal elements. In addition to being performed at a blessed time and place, the pilgrimage also contains many formal elements that positively affect the psychology of worship. Among the first distinguishing features of the pilgrimage are the relatively long time required for its performance, the relatively long preparation period required compared to other prayers, and its performance with a higher motivation and an extremely large crowd. The fact that almost all other forms of worships are performed together with the pilgrimage provides the Hajj with set of forms of worship that unite Islamic worship. All these increase the potential impact the Hajj can have on the individual.Those who perform the pilgrimage gain the new title of haji, which has a distinctive feature in increasing the long-term effect of the pilgrimage, especially after it finishes. This study discusses the potential multidimensional effects the Hajj has as a form of worship in light of empirical data and, as expected, has concluded the Hajj to produce high levels of longterm positive effects on the individuals who’ve performed it.

Keywords

• religion
• worship
• psychology of worship
• psychology of hajj