Batu hitam yang khusus diturunkan Allah SWT dari surga dinamakan Hajar Aswad. Batu itu terletak di sudut Kabah, tepatnya di pinggir pintu Kabah. Menyentuh Hajar Aswad, menciumnya, dan melambaikan tangan kepadanya adalah lambang kesetiaan dan kepatuhan mutlak kepada Allah SWT. Itulah yang dilakukan jamaah haji saat tawaf di pelataran Kabah.
Zaman dahulu, di suku-suku Arab selalu mengikat perjanjian satu sama lain dengan diakhiri berjabat tangan atau bersalaman. Perjanjian atau kesepakatan itu biasanya untuk mendapatkan jaminan keselamatan selama mereka menempuh perjalanan di padang pasir yang luas, baik keselamatan dirinya sendiri maupun keselamatan barang dagangannya.
Jabat tangan itu merupakan kesepakatan dan kesetiaan. Sebagaimana bersalaman dalam perjanjian suku-suku Arab tersebut, lambaian tangan kepada Hajar Aswad sebenarnya merupakan cara lain untuk mengungkapkan kesetiaan manusia kepada Allah SWT.
Kesetiaan tersebut perlu ditunjukkan agar mereka mendapatkan jaminan keselamatan selama menempuh perjalanan dalam kehidupan di dunia ini. Dengan ‘bersalaman’ dengan Hajar Aswad berarti menusia telah sepenuhnya menggantungkan hidup dan keselamatannya kepada Allah SWT.
Nepal’s Young Men, Lost to Migration, Then a Quake
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Many bodies prepared for cremation last week in Kathmandu were of young men from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas.Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
KATHMANDU, Nepal — When the dense pillar of smoke from cremations by the Bagmati River was thinning late last week, the bodies were all coming from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas, and they were all of young men.
Hindu custom dictates that funeral pyres should be lighted by the oldest son of the deceased, but these men were too young to have sons, so they were burned by their brothers or fathers. Sukla Lal, a maize farmer, made a 14-hour journey by bus to retrieve the body of his 19-year-old son, who had been on his way to the Persian Gulf to work as a laborer.
“He wanted to live in the countryside, but he was compelled to leave by poverty,” Mr. Lal said, gazing ahead steadily as his son’s remains smoldered. “He told me, ‘You can live on your land, and I will come up with money, and we will have a happy family.’ ”
Weeks will pass before the authorities can give a complete accounting of who died in the April 25 earthquake, but it is already clear that Nepal cannot afford the losses. The countryside was largely stripped of its healthy young men even before the quake, as they migrated in great waves — 1,500 a day by some estimates — to work as laborers in India, Malaysia or one of the gulf nations, leaving many small communities populated only by elderly parents, women and children. Economists say that at some times of the year, one-quarter of Nepal’s population is working outside the country.
