Tawaf: A Lesson in Centripetal Acceleration?
The repentance (tawbah) accepted by Allah is only for those who do wrong in ignorance [or carelessness] and then repent soon after. It is those to whom Allah will turn in forgiveness, and Allah is ever Knowing and Wise. (Surah An-Nisa [4]:17 Quran)
With the passing of the 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah, the holiest 10 days of the Islamic calendar, few images flood the lands of social media as those of the Hajj, which is performed annually during those 10 days. Of those images, none are more staggering than the swarms of humanity that gather to circle the Kabah in the ritual known as the tawaf.
Each rite of the hajj is pregnant with rich spirtual symbolism. That of the tawaf is perhaps the most easibly deducible: to revel with God we must revolve around Him; we must circumscribe our actions around His Remembrance and Decree.
From the perspective of geometry, it is worth considering the “circle” in the circling we do. In many traditonal religions, circles have represented the Divine and infinity. Sikhs, to give a quick example, wear the kara, a circular steel bangle around their wrists. The circle is perfectly conitnuous and smooth, bearing no distinct edges or protrusions. At all angles, it appears the same and symmetrical; it appears to be one. Unsurprisingly, Islamic architecture is built upon cicular patterns and geometry (pun intended).*
Having recently taken physics 101, I could not help but recall our unit on ciruclar motion. “We” learned a lot of things (I don’t dare say ‘I’), but what immediately comes to mind is “centripetal accelration” (or centrifugal, for all you Brits/Desis). According to this principle, in order for a physcial body to travel in a perfect circular path, it must constantly change its direction at every single instant with respect to the center. It must be constantly turning…
Perhaps not coincidentally the word for repentance in the Islamic voabulary is tawbah, which literally means “to turn.” When we sin, we turn away from Allah. To be bestowed His Mercy, we must turn back to Him. Moreover, the heedful slaves of God are those who are “always turning” (munib-Surah Qaf). Indeed, Allah also describes His Prophets as those who are “always turning” (awaab) — just like a physical body does as it travels a perfect circular path.
And so, the tawaf is a physcial enactment of this inward “turning” of the heart around the Divine Center. (Hence why we make tawbah counter-clockwise: our left-side, the side of our heart, is tilted to the center). Tawbah, the act of turning to Him, must be done continuously — not simply time to time — if we truly wish to be in His Presence. It is not just a turning away from the occasional sin, but a turning away from heedlessness to remembrance of Him (dhikr) in every moment. The longer we go without it, the more we drift from our center and the farther our distance from the Divine.
As our Prophet (SAW) said: “Always keep your tongue moist with the remembrance of Allah, the Mighty and Sublime.” (Ibn Majah)
*The square, in contrast, represents earthly spatiality; the four corners represent the four cardinal directions.
