It was a Sunday when we reached Makkah and completed our Umrah. It was not a weekend, as in Saudi Arabia, Friday is the weekly holiday. And among Hajis, nobody seemed to care what day it was anyway. You just get a new set of priorities when you reach the Holy Land, and remembering the day, is obviously not among those. For us, the first timers, spending most of the time in Harram was the top most priority, but then we were also advised that we should be taking rest at regular intervals, and keeping up with our meals. As you dont want to get ill or anything, and miss this precious oppurtunity, or God forbid, mess with your Hajj days. So, you should do Ibadah, but you should keep yourself fit as well, as a mild headache is enough to distract you, and keep you from concentrating on your aim there.
I read in Mumtaz Mufti‘s Labaik and I can testify; Be warned, there are going to be many distractions, planted by the devil to get you carried away with it, and forget the purpose you came all the way, for. You will see shopkeepers misbehaving, just ignore. You may see your organizer mishandling things, just ignore. It may take your 8 hours to complete a 1-2 hours journey, just ignore. Dont fight over your place in the qeue if somebody gets in front of you, just ignore. You may be pushed in the crowd, in the Harram or outside, just ignore. But mind it, dont push anybody. This place is sacred, and dangerous at the same time. Dangerous; because here, prayers are accepted more than any other place in the world. If you pushed somebody, and he prayed bad for you, and that prayer is accepted, you are in big trouble, for the rest of your life may be. Just stay low, with your head down, and focus on just one thing; Allah. He is the reason you came all the way from your home, leaving everything behind, right? so just focus on Him. Leave everything else alone. Nothing else is important. Nothing at all. And this is not easy. You just can’t ignore everything. But then you will only be questioned for trying, and not the outcome. So try, at the least.
Khair, I was saying that keep yourself fit. We used to say that Hajj is about 3 things; praying, eating and sleeping 🙂 When we would recieve calls from Pakistan, people would ask, what were you doing? And we, literally, had only these 3 answers, sleeping being the most frequent one 🙂 As you have to travel long at odd hours, and catch oppurtunities of less crowd in Harram and in Masjad-e-Nabwi at late hours and everything, so you need sleeping intervals. People from home, though, expect something else as an answer 🙂 They expect us to be doing Ibadah and praying all the time, but, unfortunately, thats not the case.
We had 2 more days at Makkah, before leaving for Madinah. We also went for zyaraat around Makkah, including Jabl-e-Saur and Ghaar-e-Hirra. We also went to Arafat, Jabl-e-Rehmat and visited Mina & Muzdalfa, the places we were to come back during Hajj days.
We also socialized a bit with our group mates. They were all nice people including at least 4 software people, who are nice by default, you know 😀
Khair, lets talk about our journey to Madinah in my next post. Till then … bye.
Gardish (as-sani) 