Word: ka
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...spirit was as precise as hallucination, but triply or quadruply removed, adrift, isolated: a German-speaking Jew living in Prague in the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, emotionally overpowered by his father. Interesting, if futile, critical combats have been waged over the question of whether Kaf ka was merely a talented neurotic or a visionary genius. Edmund Wilson wrote in 1950: "Kafka is being wildly overdone . . . The trouble with Kafka was that he could never let go of the world-of his family, of his job, of his yearning for bourgeois happiness-in the interest of divine rev elation...
...rather small town embedded in a range of harsh volcanic mountains. Modern tall buildings dwarf older houses, and the markets wind along narrow streets and alleys. In the heart of the city lies the huge star-shaped Haram Mosque, and in the middle of its courtyard stands the Ka'ba, the holiest shrine of Islam. Given the honorific title of "House of God" by God Himself in the Koran, the Ka'ba has thus been venerated by Moslems. It is a simple four-walled structure of black, cemented stone, empty from the inside. Believed by Muslims to have been built...
...first of these traditions is the circumambulation of the Ka'ba. Starting at a certain corner, the worshipper completes seven rounds while reciting prayers, calling for mercy and forgiveness and professing total submission to God. Hundreds of thousands of people flow in circles around the Ka'ba each day and night during the whole year, for this practice is not limited to the period of the pilgrimage. During the night the crowds thin out and the worshipper can pray in close vicinity to the Ka'ba. Moslems sit under the endless arches of the mosque reading the Koran, but starting...
Yesterday, on the ninth of Dhu'l-Hijja, the Ka'ba was virtually deserted. It was the principal day of the pilgrimage, when all pilgrims assemble in the Valley of Arafat, 14 miles east of Mecca, between noon and sunset. The road to Arafat is inevitably blocked by heavy traffic and many pilgrims prefer to go on foot. The Saudi Arabian government enlists extra help to manage the traffic for this hectic day, and each year the road is widened in an attempt to ease the jamming...
Whenever the time for prayer occurs, the haaj and haaja stand facing the direction of Mecca and feel transported beyond time and space to those days when they stood in the Haram Mosque close to the Ka'ba, part of a multitude of worshippers bowing in acquiesence to the call...