Haj: Religious Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and other Holy Places in Saudi Arabia

Performed by mohammed anas m.a 2013 (11th june 

Background

Haj is one of the five fundamental religious obligations of Islam for those Muslims who are able and can afford the cost of undertaking the journey. I have been considering undertaking this journey for some time. I was waiting for a year when the Haj would coincide with my University vacation, preferably during a period when it would not be too hot for me climatically. In fact, I had planned to go on the Haj during the Easter vacation of 1997. However, it turned out that the vacation period did not exactly coincide with the Haj period. Eventually, I arranged to set out on the journey the following Spring. I joined a local Pakistani group based at Nottingham. In fact the size of the group rose to about 80 people (or slightly more than 80), the pilgrims joining it from Manchester, Birmingham and London as well as Nottingham.

The Journey

Our journey from Nottingham by coach started on Tuesday 11th june 2013

at about 4.45am. The coach called at the Central Birmingham Mosque to collect more pilgrims. After performing ablution, again at the Birmingham Mosque, we resumed our journey for Heathrow Airport. On the coach, we began to recite Talbiya [Labbaika Allahumma labbaik. Labbaika la Sharika laka labbaik. Innal-hamda wan-ni’ mata laka wal mulk. Lasharika laka. Translated into English it reads: I respond to Thy call O’ Allah. I respond to Thy call and I am obedient to Thy orders. Thou hast no partners. I respond to Thy call. All praises and blessings are for Thee. All the sovereignty is for Thee. Thou hast no partners with Thee.]
At Heathrow Airport, we performed ablution and put on Ihram (two pieces of long white cloth and a pair of sandals). The pilgrims are required to wear Ihram before entering a radius around the Holy City of Mecca. This area is called Miquat. Since the plane carrying the pilgrims which lands at Jeddah Airport have to fly over parts of that area, the pilgrims are in fact asked to wear Ihram well before the planes approach Jeddah Airport (in fact for the planes coming from the west well before they approach the Red Sea). We travelled by a plane of Saudi Arabian Airline. The plane flew southward from Heathrow, across the English channel and France and then turned eastward over the Mediterranean till we reached the Egyptian airspace to the west of the Nile. The plane flew first southward along the west side of the Nile and then turned in the direction of the south east over the Aswan. As it proceeded over the airspace, a computer-simulated picture of the topography of the landscape below appeared on the screen together with the weather information and temperature both on the ground and in the airspace around the plane. The recorded temperature over southern Egypt (between Luxor and Aswan) was approximately 41 degrees centigrade while that at the height of the plane in the atmosphere was nearly –51 degrees centigrade. My mind reflected on the contrast and glorified Allah for ordering things in such a way that a small fraction of the sunlight that falls on the Earth is transformed into energy that sustains life on this planet. Before the plane reached the Red Sea after Luxor, we were warned that we were approaching the Miquat so that we should wear the Ihram. In fact, we were already in Ihram from Heathrow Airport.

Arrival at Jeddah

We arrived at Jeddah just after the sunset. It took about two and a half hours to pass through the immigration control and customs. Still I thought that we were lucky enough to do that. In fact, I thought that being the early pilgrims, we were well received. However, we were told that we had to have our passports stamped additionally. That required filling in forms by one of the officials. As he had to process literally hundreds of forms, we were in fact delayed in the Airport till about 4.00am. This was really very tiring in view of the fact that we had almost passed a sleepless night the day before. Two sleepless nights in succession can be very tiring. As we boarded the coach for the Holy City of Mecca I sat near the front of the coach because I tend to suffer from car sickness. Two persons, one adult and a boy of about twelve of the Far Eastern origin (it appeared that they were from Thailand) joined our coach and sat at the back of the vehicle.

From Jeddah to Mecca

The coach set out on the journey just before 4am. I felt sleepy on the coach. At the dawn break the coach arrived at a large pilgrim centre. We were asked by the leader of our group to get off the coach, perform ablution etc., do our morning prayer and then return to the coach to resume the journey to Mecca. Accordingly I left the coach, performed the prayer and returned to the vehicle. At the bus stop there were many water taps with Zam Zam water which we were free to take and drink. I took some water and drank. I had seen similar water taps at Jeddah Airport but didn’t realise that we were free to take and drink this water. As we boarded the coach, the two men from Thailand who were sitting at the back complained that they had left their wallet with 4000 Ryals on their seat and that that had gone missing. The Saudi religious officials came and searched the vehicle but nothing was found. Eventually we were all ordered out of the vehicle into an air-conditioned waiting room. Although outside it grew quite hot, inside the air-conditioned room I found it rather cold in Ihram costume. After a while we were each given a bottle of Zam Zam water. Normally a bottle of Zam Zam water would delight me. However, I took it as a bad sign on this occasion to indicate that we were indefinitely detained till this matter was sorted out.