The reason this really comes to mind is that Allah really loves and out of His love He sent this guidance, this noble Book, this blessed Book, and any time throughout our lives we can open up this guidance and these words of love to help us and direct us. Every word that Allah sends in His Book is meant to reawaken our hearts, to remind us, to admonish us, to warn us, to give us hope, and who would do this…except the one who Loves us!

Bismillah,

Alhamdulillah, all praise is due to Allah who has given us strength in every facet of our lives!

Alhamdulillah, we’ve recently just hit lesson 12 of AlBaqarah in my AlHuda tafsir class. My heart rejoices in staying on top of this class along with all the stuff in my schedule. I’m grateful to Allah for all the mercy He has shown all of us.

We recently covered verse 63 of Surah Baqarah, and the word Quwa really stood out to me. This word means strength. In context it was revealed in verse 63 (Bi-quwatin) – with full strength, ability, force. Root words: Qaaf waaw yaa. I absolutely love the definitions given and the connection made in our faith regarding it. My heart rejoiced in hearing it and it struck a cord within me to seek to be given this Quwa for all time (and I believe all of us whether we recognize it or not are given this Quwa in one shape or another).

There are 2 types of Quwa:

1.) Tangible strength- physical

2.) Intangible strength-spiritual strength, determined people, people who when they set out to do something for Allah and for themselves in the deen they are firm, they are not shaken, they decide on something and they stick to it, firm resolution, they are people who even if they are tired they wake up for their prayers, they continue forth regardless of all they have to do, and they stick it out. All of this is possible because Allah gave them firmness of heart. Their hearts are not shaken and they do not give up.

This Quwa is truly something we should ask Allah for. I feel like I can remember having this in Ramadan the most, that this blessed time comes, and subhana’Allah you can feel the blessings of it in your ability to accomplish so much. Your mind is not tied down to ‘what if’s’ and ‘I don’t have time for’ and Allah places such strength in our hearts during the month and even afterwards that we may refer to it as some ’super human thing’, but subhana’Allah this is truly from the mercy of Allah.

This firmness though is something that we should first pray for, and then we should also seek to adapt it into our habits. It can come with really reminding ourselves of all the good deeds we started out to do for Allah and for ourselves (as truly it is for ourselves that we are working for), and then from there. We should make the conscious decision to see it through. Whether this is one’s relationship with the Quran, with one’s decision to stick to a specific schedule that enables one to remember Allah more, or in general life decisions. A lot of times (specifically with the deen) we fall short in so many ways, as in we start out to do good deeds, but along the way we let go of them, and this truly makes me sad. If we think about all the other deadlines we’ve met (projects, school, midterms, work) because our professor, boss, teacher, friend asked of us, but then we fall short in what Allah asked us of (salaah, quran, other obligations) then it is really a reminder to wake up and really prioritize our life. It is when we put Allah first that we are given ‘izza (honor) and we are given the best in this life and in the hereafter. In the context of verse 63 in Surah Baqarah, Allah tells the Bani Isra’il;

1.) Take what we give you (The Torah) with strength

2.) Adhere to book with firmness, carry out the commands with determination

3.) Take proper implementation of book, to have determination in abiding by the book.

All of these points (all three) really are relevant to us as Muslims today. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala is calling out to you, me, and all of us in staying firm in His Book, using His Book as ‘the how to in our lives’, and He is telling us over and over in His Book to stick firm to this Book, hold on to it with firmness!

In contrast, the opposite is weakness. When someone has weakness in a situation or has that attitude towards something 1.) they will do it sometimes and not other times one does 2.) they will do once and forget about it, a challenge comes up and they give up.

Alhamdulillah! May Allah grant us the ability to stay firm, and be given this amazing mercy from Allah of a firm heart. A heart that is pure, a heart that is healthy and strong in the real sense, a heart conscious of the One who is most deserving of being worshipped!

Till next time, may Allah grant us to take heed of the reminders that come to us everyday! Oh Allah grant us to have a heart that is firm in your remembrance! A body that is not brought down by fatigue and a mind that is not brought down by the waswas of shaytaan! (Ameen)

The truth is, our itinerary is incomplete. We do have a destination we are waiting to get to. Right now we’re just sitting in an airport terminal. Waiting.

The waiting game of Hajj is like the waiting game of life. It’s what we do with that seemingly infinite amount of time that determines the outcome. And the ultimate outcome is the Hereafter. Which plane we board at that time depends solely on the actions we perform (or maybe fail to perform) today. One plane will take us up, the other down.

I didn’t want to face that reality. I wanted to remain in some sort of limbo. After my parents picked us up from the Intercontinental Airport of Houston and took us to their house I had no focus. I remember walking in there and helping my dad and Abdullah bring in our luggage. I remember walking to our bathroom and standing in the doorway with Abdullah. The bright whiteness of it hurt my eyes. I didn’t know a bathroom could be this white. We just stood there and commented on how we’ve never truly appreciated how clean this house is.

In this new light I looked at myself in the mirror and saw I had physically transformed. I was going to need to spend the next several weeks getting my strength and evaporated pounds back. But for now I was in relaxation mode.

I spent the next few days going to bed after isha prayer, sleeping like a baby, and then waking up early in the morning only to spend the day lounging about.

On the fourth day I finally went home. Everything was still sitting there just like I had left it. Some bags were here and there, some left over luggage I had chosen at the last second not to pack. Some laundry still needed to be folded or ironed. It was like I hadn’t gone anywhere. It was like I had walked through a wormhole in space and I was right back where I started.

I spent a few days clicking through the pictures I had taken in Makkah and Madinah. I was really there. I had performed Hajj. My forehead had touched the cool white tiled floor of the two Harams. I could check the fifth pillar of Islam off of my to do list. The question was where to go from here.

I didn’t know. So instead of doing something I became lazy. I found excuses to do nothing. The truth was that I was too scared to plunge back into life. What if something went wrong? What would happen about the sins I was going to commit now? What if things don’t work out? As I mentioned when this series started, I made Hajj into the point of no return. There was no other choice other than for me to make everything work – to take the cards I had been dealt and play them to the best outcome. It was time to move forward.

I almost regretted that I did because immediately the tests began. We came back from Hajj with enough money saved up to last us three months. We ended up having to tap into those savings quite early due to a couple of emergencies. One of us had to make a few trips to the doctor and get a very minor procedure done. Sometimes it was a multitude of small things but so many of them were coming down on us one after the other that it felt like a huge snowball about to run us over.

It was disheartening and then I realized Allah was just seeing. He was just testing us. He was having us pushed around to see how we would react. Would we lose our patience now that we were back from Hajj? Would we have changed the way we deal with people and situations? Would we be the man and woman we prayed to Allah to help us become?

I realized we were in the limelight. Allah was keeping a close watch on us and we were being tested. We continued to be tested week after week, month after month. Life resumed and life is hard. In the middle of the snowball I was trying to get my thoughts together. How could I become that woman I wanted to be when I got back from Hajj? How could I do all the things I prayed to do? How could I show Allah that I meant every intention I made sitting in the deserts of Arabia thousands of miles away from my life and obligations?

Some of Houston's interstates crossing over and under, merging and dividing. Just like so many of life's choices. The possibilities are endless.

All of these questions and the paths that they would lead to were like the Houston interstates, criss-crossing one another, weaving in and out, exiting off into hundreds of roads. Where would I go from here?

One day Abdullah asked me what I was going to do now. I thought back to the journal I had written in the entire time I was at Hajj. I thought back to an intention I had long ago before I left for Hajj.

“I don’t know,” I said to him. “Maybe I’ll write about Hajj.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” he said.

One of the best ways I stayed focus in the weeks and months to come was by keeping my Hajj trip close in my heart. I didn’t want it to be like a bride’s wedding day – it happens and it’s great, there are tons of pictures, but slowly you forget what you ate and who was there and what all happened. Those memories get buried underneath all the things the new memories and especially stresses that come after. I wanted to keep my Hajj trip alive. I didn’t want to forget the lessons I learned so I wanted to preserve them where that couldn’t happen so easily. Where I wouldn’t just watch my intentions to change wither away and get swept up by the torrents of life. I wanted to hold myself responsible for everything I felt during those five days of my life and the weeks surrounding them.

I felt there was really just one way I could chronicle the experience to keep myself focused on the change I promised myself and asked Allah so much to give me the strength to accomplish. So I wrote about it.

You know how the rest goes.



Author’s note:

Dear readers,

Thank you for taking the second round of this journey with me. I hope that you enjoyed reading and benefited from this series. If you know someone who is going to Hajj this year or someone who is interested in learning more about Hajj, please forward them the link to our website so they may learn not just the details of how Hajj is performed but all of the parts of Hajj that aren’t talked about so often and how to deal with day-to-day happenings in Makkah and Madinah. If you are going to Hajj this year please keep my family and I in your du’aas. May Allah invite you and all those you love to perform Hajj, ameen. May He forgive all of your sins and admit you into Jannat ul-Firdows, ameen.

Disclaimer: Details accounted in this Hajj series are mostly by memory. If a mistake has been made, especially in explaining something incorrectly about Islam, please contact us so we may correct it. If you have any questions, please post or email them. We will do our best to answer them here or in future chapters. Also, all names used in this series are aliases and not the real names of the actual people.

Not too far away in Alaska, a scaled red salmon slithered and writhed upstream. The fish danced its way across rocks and its gleaming body charged up and up and up.  What a strange sight it seemed. The salmon that tried and succeeded to swim against the currents.

The Alaskan salmon is a fascinating creature that can offer us points of wisdom through its life. The salmon hatches into fresh water at the spawning ground from where it swims downstream to live and grow. The fish adapts to survive in salt water, schools with other salmon, and swims to the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. Here, the salmon grows until it reaches adulthood and knows when it is time to spawn and return back to where it was born.

Now comes the time in the journey when the salmon must exert most effort to swim back upstream and reach the spawning ground. The salmon’s body once again adjusts to return back to fresh water. The journey involves pushing against strong currents and even leaping over waterfalls. The salmon that succeeds in reaching the spawning grounds gives birth to her eggs. Within the next two weeks, the salmon dies from the wearying journey that guided her to her place of birth.

There are two main lessons that we can learn from the Alaskan salmon’s life:

Don’t be afraid to swim against the current and remember your goal

The beauty of Islam is that we can worship Allah through everything we do. Allah (SWT) created the role for the salmon to swim upstream and lay its egg. This is the salmon’s job and it fulfills this goal till the end of its life. What about our goals and aspirations? We should remember that we have a goal on this earth too and it is the worship of Allah (SWT). The transient quality of this life is a factor one always needs to keep in  their mind, which makes it easier to challenge the status quo.

The young girl’s hands tremble as she struggles with a blue hijab pin. “What will my friends say…what if people start treating me differently?” The girl thinks as she dons the hijab in front of the mirror and the image of her friends surfaces into her mind. She sits down on her bed and glances at the Qur’an that graces her night stand. Her fingers lightly skirt the edges of the cover. A feeling of contentment washes over her as she thinks, “you’re doing the right thing and you will always have Allah.” The girl sinks her feet into her shoes and glides out the door.

The statement “majority is authority” is drilled painstakingly with a hammer and nail to emphasize that if one goes against the majority then they are not an ‘insider’ and should be devolved into the ‘other.’ It is often difficult to challenge the view of the majority especially if it goes against ones beliefs.

“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” 
― Dave Ramsey

The goal to please people will never be achieved because people can never be entirely pleased. Before the young girl wore the hijab, her family always commented on her hair and the type of clothes she wore. After she crowned her head with the soft silk cloth, the twitters of her family and friends reached a new pitch, “why are you hiding your beautiful hair? I can’t see your face properly.”

Islam allows us to focus past the material, past the wealth, the facade, the masks and realize the true goal of our lives: the worship of Allah SWT. And no one said it would be easy. Wearing hijab or niqaab, praying in public at the time of prayer, stopping family or friends from backbiting – these are action points that one needs to hold on to, which rattles the majority but at the end of the journey who is it better to please? People? Who will always find faults in all circumstances. Or Allah? the One who created us and the One whose pleasure will never fail us.

The majority of people will bend and twist a person until they begin to drift away from Allah. The majority seem like the authority. However, remember the goal of sincere worship to Allah and remember He will not leave His servant. The waves will overpower and the currents too strong for oneself to reach for a root to clutch onto. Though like the salmon who tried and tried and swam till she reached the spawning grounds, Muslims cannot lose hope and give up. The thought that “I tried my best to obey Allah SWT’s commands in face of difficulty” should be of some comfort because what is this life but a struggle and the ultimate resting place is paradise.

Leave a good legacy

The salmon’s struggle and striving had a purpose and what they leave behind is a new generation of salmon that will continue the same journey their mother went through. Humans want to be remembered after they are gone – everyone wants to leave a legacy in some form. Whether through charitable work or a kind gesture. As Muslims, our goal should be towards leaving a good athaar (traces). Going against the majority is a constant struggle and there will be days when one will feel overwhelmed by the crashing waves and strong current. There will be days when one looks in the mirror and asks, “Am I doing the right thing?”

The salmon’s journey parallels a metaphorical journey for Muslims that shows how this world is a test and as Muslims, we should never give up hope in ourselves and others. Always remember the power of du’a and the fact that if people abandon you there is One who will never abandon you and that is Allah SWT.

Fatima A. hails from a country that is not short of snow, igloos, and Tim Horton’s. Fatima is pursuing an undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto in Political Science and History. Her past-times include continuing her studies of Islam, attempts at making complicated desserts, and hanging out with her nieces.

Our Gulf Air flight landed in the Jinnah International Airport of Karachi and I stepped off the flight and walked through the quiet halls of the airport with all the other groggy passengers. It was just before sunrise and Abdullah and I were ready for a long nap. But for now there was too much adrenaline coursing through our veins as we were still in traveling mode.

In the customs line a man cut us. I had sort of given him permission to do so but Abdullah pointed out how I got used. In truth, we were too tired to care. We got to the front of the line eventually and then went into the baggage claim area where we also exchanged some of our dollars for Pakistani rupees in case we would need some money immediately. We then went back into Hajj mode as we split up – I would find us a cart or two to use and he would start hauling our suitcases off of the conveyor belt. It felt just like the first day we had arrived in Jeddah.

That day of only a few weeks ago instead felt years ago. That was in the past. Before all of this. Before Hajj.

Abdullah brought the suitcases to the carts I had claimed one by one. I guarded them while people tried asking me for the cart I wasn’t using yet and other people almost ran me over with their carts in their hustle to get out of the airport as if the tail ends of their kameezes were on fire.

Welcome to Pakistan. (Perhaps we should’ve come here before Hajj to get into the zone of where-nothing-goes-right.)

We finally collected all of our bags and we were ready to jet out of there. When we got outside where my relatives would now start waving frantically at us until we push our carts all the way to them, we couldn’t find them anywhere. I panicked because that’s what I had learned to do when things didn’t go exactly as planned at Hajj before I would calm down telling myself the ‘be patient’ mantra. My family never skips a beat on these things. They always come early, they’re always in the front, they always find—

And before I knew it my forty-two year old cousin was standing in front of us taking our carts away and greeting us and congratulating us. He was followed by a crowd of my relatives running up to us, stuffing our hands with bouquets of flowers, putting roses strung together around our necks as if we were a bride and groom on their wedding.

I let my body be crushed into embraces I waited years to feel again. I greeted everyone five times each. I told them I was fine. I told them I was happy to see them. I tried not to cough in anyone’s face directly. I swept up the kids in my arms. I couldn’t imagine being congratulated on my Hajj any other way.

Then all of a sudden my adrenaline snapped me back to reality and I spun around looking for our suitcases, counting them again and again. And then I started saying to everyone, “Where’s Abdullah?! Where is he?!” This was his first time in Pakistan and the guy barely knew two words in Urdu. I couldn’t lose him. Everyone collectively calmed me down and pointed to him standing a few feet away with my other relatives. I exhaled and told myself to chill. Hajj was done. Foreign countries were done. My family was here now. It was finally time to relax.

I drove home with my relatives, continuously wiping pus out of my eyes as they talked to me about everything and anything under the sun. I rested my head against the window and was ready to pass out and sleep for a month.

When we got home we had a breakfast feast. I devoured eggs I hadn’t tasted in weeks. I sipped the hot chai carefully, savoring every bit of it. After the meet and greet, Abdullah and I took showers and that was the most clean I felt in the entire month. I guess because I knew I wasn’t going to suddenly get thrown into a desert later that day.

After the hot showers we slept like babies – in a real bed, not just a thin mattress on the ground – for a few hours until dhuhr time and we woke up so fresh. It had been eternity since I had felt that way after sleeping.

The rest of the day was filled with more visits from family members and lots and lots of food. As my family members trickled in and out of the house and the phone calls came from those who couldn’t visit that night, I began getting my first taste of how important it is to forgive people whether or not it is during Hajj time. In my interactions with them did I learn if I had truly forgiven people or not. If the answer was no, I worked on it while I was there and even when I came back to Houston to try to forgive them.

I spent the rest of the week eating every chance I got. I was still in Hajj mode, trying to stock up on calories, not knowing when I would get another chance to eat. (But actually I did know when I would get another chance to eat. The next meal would be in three hours. Other than that I had a kitchen to get snacks from all day…) As I said in an earlier chapter, it took me a few months after returning from Hajj to normalize my eating habits again. But while I was in Pakistan, even though I was only eating home-cooked foods, I really upset my stomach because of how much I was eating and the richness of the foods my relatives would cook. I had gone from eating basic boiled rice and some meat and vegetables to things like chicken biryani, haleem, nihari, and koftay. My stomach wasn’t used to these foods at all and I didn’t give it the chance to ease into them.

TIPS N’ TRICKS: Work the foods you used to eat at home into your diet slowly if you had a very basic diet on your trip. Don’t burden your digestive system. You’ll be able to eat that large veggie lover pizza, just not on day one back to real life.

In my entire ten-day stay in Pakistan my cough did not get cured. To this day I don’t know what the pus in my eye was (it wasn’t pink eye), but it got better on its own. My hypothesis was that it was due to exhaustion and lack of sleep. Once I was rested, it went away on its own.

I felt as good as I was going to when we were fixing to leave Karachi. The good-byes were hard like they are every time. I felt like I had so much more focus now after talking to my relatives about what life means for us and the things I need to be doing from here on out, like getting really focused and working hard in the years to come and not letting all the blessings I’ve been given go to waste.

That was a lot to live up to but that is in actuality what we’re all supposed to do. Allah gives us the tools and we’re supposed to figure out how to put them together and use them for His Sake the best way we can before our time runs out.

What was I going to do about it? The decisions would need to be made back home.

As we got on the Emirates flight to take us to Dubai to connect a Lufthansa flight to take us to Germany and then home, I took a deep breath and knew this was it. This was the last leg of the journey before my daily life would begin again. I barely had any idea what I was going to do. For now all I could focus on was getting through another twenty-six hours of traveling.



Disclaimer: Details accounted in this Hajj series are mostly by memory. If a mistake has been made, especially in explaining something incorrectly about Islam, please contact us so we may correct it. If you have any questions, please post or email them. We will do our best to answer them here or in future chapters. Also, all names used in this series are aliases and not the real names of the actual people.

We were relaxed but I wasn’t going to remain that way because as the sun set and the plane took off from the Jeddah airport. I couldn’t stop coughing no matter what. My coughing just went on and on and I couldn’t get a break from it. I didn’t know what happened as soon as we picked up altitude but I quickly realized it was going to be a while before my Hajj cough got better.

On top of that it was going to be impossible to sleep like this. I hadn’t slept in the last half a day or so and I wasn’t going to get rest here either. Then the altitude and coughing were doing something else to me because my ears began hurting badly. It was a pain I’ve never felt before in my ears. Or it was just because I was coughing so hard continuously. I have no idea. All of this combined made me start to cry like a dork.

I was crying because of the inability to rest, the incessant cough, the pain in my ears, all true. But it was also because this was it.

Not only was Hajj over but I was also leaving the environment, leaving Saudi Arabia, leaving my fellow pilgrims behind.

The bubble was burst. It was back to real life from here. Hajj was over and now began the real test. The real question on my mind was about to be answered: Did I really change?

Will I be just another one of those people who go back home to the same old routine and bad habits? Did I perform the Hajj correctly? Was it good enough? Did I forgive who I should have forgiven?

Forgiveness.

It’s a topic I’ve avoided writing about for more than twenty chapters of this series. Forgiveness is a massive portion of Hajj. Part of cleansing yourself and your heart has to do with your ability to forgive. I’ll tell you right now I have a very poor track record when it comes to forgiving.

Before Hajj, two different people sat down and talked with me about this issue. One of them made me list everyone I haven’t forgiven and go through them and ask myself why I haven’t forgiven them. Why do I hold those grudges still, no matter how much in the wrong they are? Why don’t I just do myself a huge favor and just… let… go? It was difficult as I went through that list of people but I tried to convince myself it was easy to do this. I could just get over whatever wrongs they committed and move on. It was easier thought than done.

The other person who talked to me about forgiveness put it for me like this: How would you feel to find out on a Day all is too late that you wronged someone? How would you feel if you’ve crossed the Siraat and there you stand thinking you’re home free, but you’re not? How would you feel if you have one person’s contempt standing in between you and Paradise? Wouldn’t you want them, whoever, wherever, to let it go, to forgive you? So forgive the one who harmed you with their hands, tongues, or intentions. Let it go. God made Paradise big enough for both of you.

And then they put it for me in a different way. What if I was that person who didn’t forgive someone else so after crossing the Siraat I call this person out and then I move on to Jannah and they go to Hell? Once we’re in Jannah, we’re in Jannah. We’re happy for eternity and nothing that happened on earth matters anymore. So why send that person to Hell? How was that going to make me feel any better?

The only thing that can bring relief when someone has wronged you is to forgive. To forget is difficult and unrealistic unless if you have amnesia. But you definitely shouldn’t keep that grudge in the forefront of your mind. Let it be back there buried in between millions of other memories. You’ll happen upon it once in a long while but when you do you’ll just be overcome once again with forgiveness for that person and move on.

Prior to going to Hajj I forgave almost everyone on my list. During Hajj I worked on the less-than-a-handful which remained. I forgave them as well but then a couple remained. I knew I would have to face the realities of my inability to forgive those couple of people very soon. Trials do not wait for us to be ready for them. They come speeding at us to prepare us for the Next life.

All the tests were going to come flooding in now. The moment of truth would begin from this point forward. Through the tears, coughing, and pain I didn’t want it to. I could already feel the physical stress of what that emotional distress brings about.

But as I waited for this plane to land, I just kept thinking: Allah will take care of me. And that’s all that mattered.

TIPS N’ TRICKS: One of your main goals at Hajj is to forgive. To let go. Work on it when you leave for Hajj and while you’re there. If you don’t complete this task at that time then be prepared to continue healing when you return. Think of it this way – Allah is forgiving you of all of your sins, do your best to forgive one person of one or a few sins they’ve committed. If they wronged you, let Allah take care of the matter. For now, take it upon yourself to forgive and move forward with the life Allah blessed you with.

I arrived in Bahrain with red eyes and a strange pus coming out of them again. I needed to use the restroom so I went into one and found baby roaches inside the stall so I decided to just wash my face for the time being instead. I took off my glasses and there was a custodian lady cleaning behind me (all the bathrooms in Bahrain have custodians inside the bathrooms cleaning after us). The lady looked at me and asked me in Urdu if I had just completed Hajj. I was so confused because I didn’t understand how she could know this except that a lot of pilgrims must be flying through here to go home so I answered back in the affirmative in Urdu. Then she responded in the same tongue saying, “I can tell,” and then she pointed to my nose, “you shouldn’t have done that.” I looked in the mirror and saw I had a very obvious tan line on the bridge of my nose where my glasses sat for the last two and a half weeks. I’m not sure how I could’ve avoided doing this but I just half smiled at her and continued washing my face. (I still haven’t been able to completely get rid of my Hajj tan but if anyone has any tips, let me know. I just do my best not to wear my glasses anymore in the Houston sun.)

I still needed to use the restroom so I left that bathroom in search of another. (Yes, I’m that disturbed by cockroaches, even baby ones.) I found one to use and when I was washing my hands I saw there were some more women in the bathroom who had been on my flight from Jeddah. They were standing there arguing with the custodian lady in this bathroom. She was telling them they shouldn’t do wudu in this restroom because wudu is performed in the airport masjid where they have specific wudu stations. In the restrooms, people spill water all over the counters and the floors. Then the lady continued to ask them if they were Americans and they said yes (and I was a little surprised because I thought they were all from this part of the world) and she then said how Americans are always the ones making a mess in the restrooms. Ouch. I did my best to continue washing my hands very carefully, wipe the counters when I was done, and quietly leave. I could understand the lady’s frustrations. She cleans after people all day long and probably gets frustrated that these are all adult (mostly) Muslims and don’t even know how to use the restroom appropriately.

After I left the restroom I felt a lot fresher. Abdullah and I went to a bookstore to browse through and this was the first time I was seeing romance novels in weeks. It was also my first time seeing non-Muslims, Macbooks, and real society in so long. I had been in a bubble this whole time and now Allah was easing me back into the world.

Bahrain was just the stopover before life would resume. We heard our plane number called over the intercom and we picked up our bags to start boarding the next plane which would take us directly to Karachi.

While in the boarding line a man turned around to cough and therefore did so directly in my face, as if I wasn’t sick enough already. I then continued to cough incessantly through this next plane ride as well. (I blame the altitude or something.)

Onwards to Pakistan.



Disclaimer: Details accounted in this Hajj series are mostly by memory. If a mistake has been made, especially in explaining something incorrectly about Islam, please contact us so we may correct it. If you have any questions, please post or email them. We will do our best to answer them here or in future chapters. Also, all names used in this series are aliases and not the real names of the actual people.

In a culture that is so immersed in the idea of individualism and rights, a society that is so obsessed with the dogma of “me”, it is often easy to forget that there is a world out there that is bigger than ourselves. As a fairly average American Muslim, I did not really know what my expectations were for my Umrah trip. I looked at pictures, I listened to the recollections of others’, searched YouTube videos of the Ka’bah. However, having never actually being there before, I really had no idea what awaited me. People have been asking me ever since I got back how I felt when I first saw the Ka’bah. Without trying to be irreverant, I often have to honestly answer, that I did not have much of a reaction. And it had nothing to do with the Ka’bah. It was just that, for the first time in my life, I witnessed what it means to be in the midst of, quite literally, a sea of poeple. The first time I entered Masjid Al-Haram, I was clinging on to my friend and praying that I don’t get pushed or shoved, and lose her. (Of course, when I finally did get across this sea and found myself a spot to pray, I was in complete and total awe of the Ka’bah and all my surroundings, but that is a whole other post on it’s own!).  You see, during Ramadan, which is the most blessed month of the year, many people like to spend such a barakah-filled time in Makkah, the most blessed place in the world- so much so, that this year, Makkah was more crowded during Ramadan than it has been during Hajj the past couple of years.

What do I mean when I say, it was crowded? I mean, imagine the most crowded Eid prayer you have ever been to and then multiply that number by a few thousand! During Taraweeh or Qiyam during those nights, I think I made sujood on people’s backs, feet, on water, in spaces where one can hardly even sit down. And it was overwhelming. The first two days were completely overwhelming, and I thought to myself- I don’t know if I can do this for the next eight or nine days. Finally, during Qiyam al-Layl (nightly prayers) on my second night there, during which I had the extraordinary opportunity to pray in full view of the Ka’bah (I could not help but look straight at the Ka’bah and the people surrounding it during my prayer), I came to a simple yet, profound realization. There were so many of us there. Literally, everywhere I looked, there were people. All I could see besides the Ka’bah were people- walking, praying, running, sitting, sleeping, crying, smiling. And no one cared how rich you were, how poor you were, where you came from, or how many degrees you have. Millions and millions of people had traveled all the way to this holy place to redeem themselves, and while I do not know what their normal lives are like, all I knew that night in Makkah was that I was- I am- so small and so insignificant in the midst of this ocean of Muslims. In Knoxville, TN, I might walk around, knowing that I am loved and respected, but here in Makkah, I am just a tiny dot.

This realization was so huge for me that I kept reflecting on it each time I prayed in the Haram. I began noticing little things. A well-educated, rich professional could try to get to the best prayer spot, but if he came ten minutes too late, then a poor, homeless person could be the one who would be standing in a spot people would do anything for. You might be wearing the nicest clothes and the nicest sandals, but if you lost your sandals, you would have to walk barefoot like some of the Bedouin women, and there was no way for you to complain.

Often, in the humdrum of life, we lose focus on what is beyond us, as individuals. We think that our problems are so big, that our schedules are so busy, and our problems are so stressful. We panic that while we are satisfied, we may not be blissfully happy in a certain career, marriage, etc. We get angry- angry at the world, angry at God, angry at our families, angry at ourselves. And while doing so, we place ourselves in the center of the universe, albeit unknowingly. Pop culture and media do not necessarily help, either. However, sometimes, God, in His Mercy, sends us a reminder in moments such as the one I experienced during my nights in Makkah- that we are so small compared to the Universe. So small, that I could literally be completely lost in the myriad of people just in Makkah, and He is so great. He created everything, including you and me, and while we are enjoying our lives right now, our blessings could be taken away from us without us having any control. Such realizations remind us that our job is to be humble, because very frankly, it does not even make any sense for us to be arrogant.

“Indeed, they who have believed and done righteous deeds and humbled themselves to their Lord – those are the companions of Paradise; they will abide eternally therein.” (Surah Hud: 23)

Mehreen Khan’s hometown is in Memphis, Tennessee. She frequently works with the Muslim youth and volunteers for several Islamic organizations. She also teaches various Islamic Studies topics to the women and youth in her local community. She will be graduating this year with a BS in Elementary Education.

Abdullah and I had no idea that the Jeddah airport was going to become home to us for the next several hours. We made it through the glass door behind our Asian friends who looked like they were in a rat race form the way they wanted to practically trample over one another to be first. But after that we had to get into another line to show our documentations to airport officials.

There were several kiosks set up to do this so everyone tried to get into the shortest lines possible. Abdullah and I got into the first line we saw, even if it was a little longer. But then a new kiosk opened up so we moved over into that line and were second. Several others rushed behind us.

We went past these kiosks, where the official looked at our passports and back up at us with an inquiring look, “Amreeki?” We nodded yes. It was just like when we were coming from Beirut to Jeddah a few weeks ago with the security guard who asked us if we were Muslim Americans and then rejoiced in the fact that we were a couple of Muslims from this far away land called America.

After that some officials directed us to go up a long ramp that zigzagged its way up to the next floor. As we began walking up the ramp we were stopped because there was a line which was coming down from the first floor down into this ramp. This frustrated our Asian friends and several were tempted to cut in line and keep going up the ramp. In fact, when someone got out of line and began going up the ramp, another man began to shout at him to stop cutting everyone. The first man told him he was only going up to see if there were bathrooms available so he could make wudu and pray. The other man didn’t believe him. Later that first man came back down the ramp and told his friends that there were bathrooms and places to pray upstairs so they all got out of line and followed him. Slowly others got out of line to do the same as well.

I don’t remember how long we stood there. It was quite a while. I remember standing there and looking over the railing for a long time at a group of tall African men in cultural clothing going through security checks. They must have been about to board their planes to go home. They had smiles all around.

Our Asian friends in line did not. They were agitated, frustrated, impatient. It was contagious because one person’s frustration became another’s as well. It was starting to become mine and it made me want to throw glances at some of the people but I held myself together. I wasn’t going to ruin my Hajj experience two seconds before leaving Saudi like this.

Eventually Abdullah and I got out of line to check out the food court and make wudu to pray our dhuhr and ‘asr prayers combined and shortened since we were travelers. Then we found a ripped off piece of a cardboard box and sat down on it while we were in line on the second floor still after the ramp line. The line would inch forward and then our Asian friends would cut us before we had the chance to shift ourselves over. So we ended up just sitting there and not moving in line at all. One way or another we would make it onto the plane. Either we could drive ourselves up the wall or chill. We chose to chill.

TIPS N’ TRICKS: Any time you’re about to travel, it helps to brush up on the rulings for how to pray when you’re traveling. When you go to Hajj, you’re a traveler almost all the time so you’ll need to know.

As we sat there in the line, we observed the others in our vicinity. We were with a group of people from a country within Asia. In front of us were a group of people from what we believed to be Kyrgyzstan. In front of them were a group of people from Iran. Everyone’s clothing and mannerisms were so unique to their home countries and cultures.

From word being passed around we learned the Irani folks had their flight hours ago and they were still sitting here in line wiating to board their plane. What did that mean for the rest of us? We would also be sitting in line past our flight times. Great. More waiting.

After the Irani folks were in, then was the turn for the Kyrgyzstan people. They seemed to have a leader. There was a man who walked up and down the lines and told everyone to have their passports ready, to take their coats off, and be prepared for the scanner and whatnot. Apparently there was a bit of a hold up in the security lines because people would get all the way up there and then begin removing sweaters and jackets which caused a delay. I mentally applauded the Kyrgyzstani guy for being so efficient. He was getting something done by expending his energy like this. Other folks would just be getting upset and fighting with one another.

When an hour or so later the Kyrgyzstani people were through, it was our turn. Our Asian friends all rushed into the lines because now they were split – men in one line, women in the other. Abdullah and I continued sitting on our cardboard box piece and thinking about when we’ll finally get in line. When we saw a quarter of the people had gone we finally split so he could get in the men’s line and I could get in the women’s.

But even when I got in the women’s line, I just sat down because I gave up trying to keep people from cutting me. I sat there for about another half an hour. In that time I watched people from different countries walking about or making congregations to pray together. At some point there was a man sitting a little ways away from me on the floor talking to his friend in their native language. I couldn’t tell where they were from but it must be Tajikistan or close by. Something that made their men stand out is that they were all dressed well in black coats. It wasn’t like they were traveling but that they were on some official business. I loved the way they carried themselves. Well, back to the man sitting a little away from me, he spent a lot of the time reciting Qur’an. His recitation was so beautiful, masha’Allah, I wanted to record it and pass it out to people. It was an awesome way to pass by ten minutes of my hour or so I sat in that line.

By this point we were a good three hours late for our flight according its official time. At some point I decided to finally get up and get in line. When I was standing there, the line would shift literally one small step and then I would bend down to pick up my duffel to move it forward a little, but one or two people would cut me. This happened again and again until about seven people had cut me within minutes. I got so frustrated that I just picked up my bag and held all twenty plus pounds of it in my hand and moved up as soon as the line would even inch forward. I couldn’t take the cutting anymore.

When we got into the security checking area I had to put my bags on the belt to go through the scanner. Meanwhile I had to walk through a metal detector and then all the women were pulled to the side to get a better pat down done. So I went into a curtained area where some young black women in black abayas and face veils were doing body pat downs on the women. Then they pointed us out of there and we picked up our bags from the other end of the belt and put on our shoes.

From there I entered the waiting area with plastic chairs joined together in row after row. I did a quick scan for Abdullah but when I didn’t see him I just sat down in a place where he would be easily able to find me. A few minutes later he came out of line and joined me on the plastic seats. We asked each other if we should actually get in line and then we turned around to look at the long line going from the boarding area back to where we were sitting and decided against it. We would just get in line when everyone moved forward.

I really appreciated our chill factor in all this waiting. Getting in line and being agitated the whole time about moving forward an inch at a time can get so stressful and draining on energy you’re already lacking from the fact that you’re traveling and you’ve been stranded at this airport for about twelve hours.

So we waited and then got in line when it was moving forward and everyone had begun boarding. When we got to the front the same guy who had checked in our bags several hours ago downstairs in the Jeddah airport took our boarding passes and ripped off the stubs. He read them and said, “Oh you’re the first ones!”

I looked at our tickets and the seat numbers were for row one. I realized this was because we were the very first ones to check in our bags when we first came inside the airport earlier than morning. We got on the plane and just sat in our seats while our Asian friends rummaged around back and forth trying to put their bags away and get situated.

Abdullah and I were so relaxed in comparison. We just sat there and buckled into our business class seats, since we were in one of the first few rows on the plane.  So much for rushing, huh?

Disclaimer: Details accounted in this Hajj series are mostly by memory. If a mistake has been made, especially in explaining something incorrectly about Islam, please contact us so we may correct it. If you have any questions, please post or email them. We will do our best to answer them here or in future chapters. Also, all names used in this series are aliases and not the real names of the actual people.

We were pretty cozy in our spot on the cool airport tiles. That’s where we parked ourselves after checking in our bags at the Jeddah airport and now we were waiting to board our flight… except we weren’t at our gate yet. We were still in the baggage checking-in area. We had yet to go through a series of lines to get up to the gate from which we would then board the plane.

As we sat and sat and sat. It didn’t feel like Hajj was over at all. The waiting game lived on.

I finally turned to Abdullah and asked, “Isn’t our flight in just a few hours? Shouldn’t we be moving in now to wait at our gate?” I mean here in the States we have to arrive at our gate for international flights about three hours beforehand. Shouldn’t it work the same way in Saudi, especially during the Hajj rush?

Abdullah tried zigzagging his way through crowds to get to some officials and ask them what we should do.

TIPS N’ TRICKS: When going up to airport officials to ask them any questions regarding your flight, always have your ticket in hand and be ready to tell them where you’re from, (e.g., Amreeki).

One by one the officials would ask for his boarding pass, read it, chatter with each other or into their walkie talkies in Arabic, and then turn to him to translate everything in the best English they could manage, which I always found impressive. But in the end the answer would always be that they’re not ready for our Gulf Air flight yet.

What? What did that mean? Our flight was in a couple of hours. How could they not be boarding us soon?

I was terrified. I turned to Abdullah and all I said was, “I don’t want to get stuck here.” Forget paying for a new ticket or missing out on a day of our Pakistan trip. I just didn’t want to be stranded in the Jeddah airport for longer than I needed to be.

We started being a little more assertive with the next few airport officials we met. Trying our best to explain our situation to them and that we need more of an answer than to just wait when our flight might take off without us.

At some point we received some kind of information that we were at the wrong end of the airport. We needed to go to the yellow section. I think we were in the green or something. So we exited the airport building, went out around the gates to the other end of the airport, entered into the yellow area, and then stood there confused. Where would we go from here?

Again we found a couple of young men dressed in clean white thobes and red and white checkered head wrappings and went up to them with our boarding pass and our questions. They took great interest in our issue and began assisting us. They went back and forth over the walkie talkies saying again and again, “Gulf Air” and repeating the flight number in Arabic. I could hear other men responding over the walkie talkies in regards to our Gulf Air question. We stood there for so long and those two young men stood there with us, trying to get to the bottom of the issue. I don’t know what their names were and we could just barely communicate with them but we were so grateful to them. (On a side note, they also didn’t treat me like I was invisible or a piece of meat, like is the habit of men in Saudi. Major props to these guys for that.) I’ll never forget these two officials more than anyone else we met in the airport that day. May Allah help them one day the way they were working so hard to help us, ameen.

I don’t remember if we were supposed to stay in the yellow building area or go back to the green. I can’t recall it anymore. I do remember walking back and forth a couple more times but who knows where we ended up.

All I remember next was standing in line at a glass door area. There was only a single door and an airport official and a law enforcement official standing at it. I remember a line forming of a certain group of people of a certain Asian descent. These people were going to be on the same flight as Abdullah and I. I remember the people turning into a crowd at this single glass door trying to squeeze past the airport official and security guard. They were all terrified they were going to miss their flights… Even though we were all on the same flight… therefore if that plane took off that would be quite the waste of jet fuel…

Abdullah and I were tired and although we were towards the front of the line, we realized it wasn’t going to be worth standing there. People were starting to cut each other and get rowdy. We didn’t have the energy for this, and even if we did, we didn’t want any part in it.

So we did what any sane people would do. We saw some plastic chairs built into the side wall and sat on them with our luggage, quite comfortably I might add, and just lounged there while we watched everyone else fight.

TIPS N’ TRICKS: When everyone else is going nuts, just take a seat and chill. Crowds don’t move with anger or screaming. They move with time. How fast you move isn’t what matters. How you spend that time is what matters. That is one of the essential points of Hajj.

I’m glad Abdullah didn’t get up and start screaming his, “THIS IS HAJJ, THIS IS HAJJ! FEAR ALLAHHHHHHH!!!” spiel again the way he had when we were leaving Muzdalifah.

As we watched our entertainment show the people started organizing themselves saying to let the women go first. So the women were sent forward. Then a man picked up his child like she was Simba and everyone started saying, “Let him go! He has a child!” I started cracking up at that point. It was like some survival game except it wasn’t. Everyone was going to get to go through the glass door at some point or another. Either you would be the first or the last. Regardless, you were going to make it to the plane. Why exhaust yourself in the process?

As Abdullah and I got up to be one of the last ones through the glass door, I thought that would be it for our patience with this very interesting group of Asian people. We were incorrect.

Allah didn’t want our Hajj to be over just yet. Our next Hajj chapter was going to be dealing with our flight mates for a seemingly endless amount of hours. And we were still unsure about our flight. What was happening with it? We had only two hours left to go until boarding time. Were we going to make it?

When we got through the glass door I thought it was home free from there. I was wrong. The waiting game, the lines, the patience, none of it was over quite yet. I never could have fathomed simply leaving Saudi was going to be this hard – not just emotionally, but now it was going to drain us mentally.

Disclaimer: Details accounted in this Hajj series are mostly by memory. If a mistake has been made, especially in explaining something incorrectly about Islam, please contact us so we may correct it. If you have any questions, please post or email them. We will do our best to answer them here or in future chapters. Also, all names used in this series are aliases and not the real names of the actual people.

I woke up as the rocking bus came to a stop. I tried pushing out my sleep and absorbing my surroundings simultaneously. The sun’s light was breaking over the horizon and there were crowds of people hustling all around pushing carts or pulling suitcases.

We were finally at the Jeddah airport. Thank God I had fallen asleep for some of the ride, in between coughing fits and pus constantly coming out of my eye (which to this day I don’t know what it was).

We got our papers together, watched the airport workers unload our suitcases from atop the bus the same way we had watched them load them less than three weeks ago when we arrived at this same airport, and then we followed the suitcase cart to our waiting area for Gulf Air.

It was risky business getting all the way to the waiting area because there was a sea of human bodies sitting or lying down all over the airport. It’s easy to get one or two people to move over, but this was more like one or two hundred folks in your way. Most of the people we passed were all African and seemed to only be traveling with one sack. I wonder what they thought when they saw our cart of luggage going by. I wonder what they thought of the coffee shop they were sitting in front of and how expensive a cup of hot liquid was. I wonder how much more Allah will reward those people who could barely afford to come, who might have scraped together every penny in their savings to arrive at this place and perform this blessed pilgrimage, than those of us from the West with all of our luxuries. May Allah reward them all, ameen.

Abdullah and I were finally dropped off at the waiting area for Gulf Air flying to Bahrain. By the way, the waiting area was outside the physical airport but underneath the huge canopy tents they set up around the airport during peak season times like Hajj.

As we waited there we looked across our small waiting area to one identical to ours and found a couple of friends we knew from Houston who had come to Hajj with a different group. What were the odds?

The husband started helping Abdullah figure out for sure where we should be waiting and how we’ll find out that our flight is ready for us. Meanwhile I chatted with the wife about how our pilgrimages were. She went on to tell me about her Hajj package and how she had the type where they have a buffet in their tents during Hajj time. I could only imagine all the hot steaming trays of food and perhaps some saliva formed in my mouth. I always thought I wouldn’t have gotten sick with such a bad cough and runny nose if I had just been able to eat better during my stays in Makkah and Madinah. However, she went on to tell me how she ended up getting hospitalized for dehydration during a day or two of Hajj.

I just thought, “SubhanAllah, here I was so sick but Allah still gave me the ability to perform my entire Hajj on my own two feet, regardless of how much money I paid or didn’t pay, regardless of how much I ate or drank or didn’t.” Nothing and no one gives you the ability to do all that you do. Only Allah gives you the strength. Only Allah allows you to accomplish what you wish.

I was humbled by listening to her story and using it to check myself. Or in other words, tell myself to stop complaining.

Abdullah and I went back to our waiting area and plopped down on the hard plastic benches like the ones we had sat on when we arrived at the Jeddah airport and waited for our bus to take us to Makkah.  I was so sad sitting there thinking about how we were leaving the Haram for good now. Did we have any guarantee whatsoever that we would ever come back? Would we ever perform Tawaaf around the Kabah? Would we ever perform Sa’ee between the mountains of Safa and Marwa? Would we ever visit the grave of Prophet Muhammed (sal Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) in Masjid an-Nabawi? Only Allah knows.

As I sat there I was so ready to leave because then I could go to Pakistan and be taken care of by my aunts and cousins. But at the same time I was too scared to step foot away from Saudi because it would be another step away from the Kabah.

To this day I feel the absence of it. That same tug from the two Harams I felt for years prior to performing Hajj. I have moments throughout the day or week where I just pause what I’m doing and imagine people right at that exact moment in time performing Tawaaf around the Kabah. I let my heart walk with them for a little while and then move on with my tasks, praying to Allah, “One day, insha’Allah.”

As we sat there trying to unsuccessfully go to sleep as we still had seven hours until our flight, the friends from Houston whom we had run into at the airport brought by a couple of bottles of water and juice for us. Apparently they had this awesome Hajj group which distributes all these type of things to their pilgrims even when they’re leaving Hajj and waiting at the airport. Receiving the water and juices from them was like being handed bricks of gold. It was amazing how they were still in the Hajj mode of giving. They were keeping in practice the deeds they had learned to do during Hajj. That’s the way to live, alhamdullilah.

And this wasn’t the only act of kindness for the morning. Soon an airport worker, a young teenage boy, came to us to ask us which flight we were waiting on. Alhamdullilah he spoke enough English to communicate with us. We told him we were waiting for Gulf Air and we were leaving for Bahrain but that our flight wasn’t for several hours still. He took all of our information and told us to wait there while he checked on our flight. He came back half an hour or so later to let us know that in a couple of hours we would be allowed to enter the airport and check our bags in. We were grateful for this because we had four suitcases, two hand carries, and two backpacks on us. If we could get rid of our four suitcases that would make our lives so much easier.

After more failed attempts to try to sleep on the plastic benches we decided to use up the last of our Riyaals we had exchanged some dollars for and purchase some expensive American brand airport food. We went into a Sbarro pizza shop and bought a slice of pepperoni pizza and a pepperoni calzone. I love pizza; I crave it all the time. But as I sat there eating my slice, I couldn’t bear the sight of the pepperoni spread across the cheese. It was almost making me gag. Yes, it was kosher beef pepperoni. But the sight of it reminded me so much of the familiar pork pepperoni here in the States that I just couldn’t stomach it. On top of that, this was some of the richest food I was eating in weeks. My digestive system wasn’t used to it so my stomach began hurting immediately. It took everything in me to finish my slice. I forced myself to do so because I was still in the mode of “must eat and sleep every chance I get or else I won’t be able to make it.”

The stomach aches caused me to need to use the restrooms which I was avoiding with dear life. It was one thing to use the public restrooms in the Mina camps, but it was a completely different story here in the Jeddah airport which was pushing hundreds of thousands of people in and out of it all day long. The clean freak in me was terrified. To make matters worse, my Bathroom Support Group wasn’t with me. (Who would hold my soap?! But alhamdullilah I somehow survived.

Before we knew it it was time for us to be able to go into the airport and check in our bags. We were the first ones and we felt so on top of things. We found a nice corner to sit in and we sat there waiting to be able to go through the glass doors into the next section of the airport to go through security and then up to our gate for our Gulf Air flight. It all sounded so simple. It was simple. But we were soon going to be reminded how during Hajj time the simplest of tasks can be the most difficult to accomplish.

And I know I’ve been saying this again and again, but I have to say it another time: Hajj wasn’t over yet.

Disclaimer: Details accounted in this Hajj series are mostly by memory. If a mistake has been made, especially in explaining something incorrectly about Islam, please contact us so we may correct it. If you have any questions, please post or email them. We will do our best to answer them here or in future chapters. Also, all names used in this series are aliases and not the real names of the actual people.