( CNN ) -- The selfie pandemic -- the cultural Ebola of our networked age -- is going global . It 's bad enough that we 've had the selfie as the word-of-year , the selfie as a `` brilliant and terrible '' TV show , the smiling selfie at Auschwitz , the selfie with a suicide as its backdrop and the selfie proudly blocking Rembrandt 's most masterful self-portrait . But that 's just the beginning of this digital disease . Now the selfie has turned its narcissistic gaze upon Islam . The selfie has gone on the Hajj and has turned up at the Kaaba , the cube-shaped black stone building in Mecca that is the holiest place in the Muslim faith . Hajj 2014 is `` the Year of the Selfie '' -- and Instagram , Twitter , Tumblr and Facebook are all abuzz with digital self-portraits of pilgrims who , to fulfill one of the five pillars of faith in the Islamic tradition , have gone to Mecca . `` Epic # selfie # hajj # Mecca , '' wrote @ dan_a_lowe on Twitter as he posed , Ellen DeGeneres-Oscar-style , in front of a group of smiling fellow Hajjis . But , of course , not all Muslims are selfie enthusiasts -- even if camera phones are no longer strictly banned at the Kaaba . Although one pilgrim described the selfie craze as an `` endemic not easy to stop , '' some clerics are doing their best to remind Muslims that digital self-portraits in front of the Kaaba are an insult to the Prophet . `` Say no to Haj selfie ! '' thus implores the Arab News . `` O Allah , I ask of you a pilgrimage that contains no boasting or showing off , '' adds Jeddah-based scholar Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem . `` Taking such selfies and videos defy the wish of our Prophet . '' `` The hajj is all about overcoming your `` self '' ! `` reminds @ yshirin on Twitter . `` # hajjselfie wont bring anyone anyhere ( sic ) . '' So is anything sacred anymore ? Yes . In our networked the age , the sacred -- like everything else -- is being reinvented . What Hajj 2014 , `` the Year of the Selfie , '' represents is the democratization of the sacred . In traditional religion , unique places like the black stone Kaaba or the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represented the sacred . But in our age of digital narcissism , it 's the familiar which is made most sacred and we imagine ourselves as the center of the universe . Therein explains the selfie pandemic of placing ourselves in the middle of every photograph . Everything -- or at least everything about us -- is now sacred . The sacred has been turned on its head in a world where tech has allowed narcissism to run riot . In our selfie-culture , we now thinks of the world as revolving around us . So all the hundreds of billions of images we snap -- from Auschwitz to the Kaaba -- comes with a personalized signature . The sacred has been de-mythologized . It now exists in several billion different colors and flavors . So should we expect similar selfie pandemics in the world 's other major monotheistic creeds ? Unfortunately , that 's already happening . Back in August last year , Pope Francis authored the first papal selfie . `` Make the future with beauty , with goodness and truth , '' Pope Francis told some of the kids who posed with him . `` Have courage . Go forward . Make noise . '' And `` make noise '' is exactly what we are all doing in our technology-fuelled age of digital narcissism . From Mecca to Rome , we are all making as much noise about ourselves on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook as we can . Traditional monotheistic creeds were all about overcoming ourselves . But our selfie-centric culture is the reverse ; today , Muslim pilgrims are turning the Hajj into an epic selfie . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author .
The Hajj , one of the five pillars of Islam , is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia . Islam requires every Muslim who is physically and financially able to make the journey once . It's a huge undertaking that involves many people from all over the world, including women and children as well as men and boys.