I was in Heaven on Earth, literally.

The Surprise Adventure!

The second day umm AR told us she wanted to take us to the rawda that night!

We planned to go really late at night meet at 10:30 and get in by 11:30-1pm to pray our 2 rak’aat

We prayed salatul hajjah that Allah make it easy for us

We collected nervously in the foyer of the hotel at 10:30pm

Walked to Gate 25 of the masjid on that cool night

That beautiful atmosphere always lingering and encompassing us

We walked in, got in sat together and were ushered to move up every now and then by the Saudi women

While we sat umm AR explained to us the dimensions of the original mosque

Where the Rawdah started and where it ended

Where the mihrab was-although it was past the barricade

Where the room of sittena Fatima alayhasalam was and the room of Aisha radiyaAllahu anha

When I was inside the masjid all I could think of was how wonderful the Saudis have made it

I kept saying it is as though the architects of the masjid built it with the intention that no mosque on the face of this earth will be more beautiful nor more grand nor more elegant nor more magnificent than it.

There are tons of domes all over the roof but what I didn’t know and I’m sure most people don’t is that the golden-orangey domes slide across and open to let the cool nights breeze in and aerate the inside of the masjid and in the morning they close to keep the suns heat out. Isn’t that amazing? There are even elevators that take you to the roof of the masjid so you can pray there too if you so wish.

The arches inside are perfectly symmetrical, the most elegant colours with beautiful marble basings and golden decorations with the name of Allah in every corner. TabarakAllahu ta’ala.

As we waited for our turn to pray in the Rawdah we sat in a section of the masjid that was open roofed

The masjid is beautiful,

But the green dome. Ah! The green dome!

There it was

The beautiful thing it is

SubhanAllah.

It’s so incredibly addictive to look at, and you may say it’s just a green dome, I even say that to myself; and its not the flashiest or most elegant or most heavily decorated green dome you will ever see, the paint is not glossy or anything, in fact its dull and flat colour, so ordinary and so plain, but there is something so addictive about just looking at it. If anyone was to ask me what my favourite colour is it would have to be the green that they painted the green dome with. I don’t know how to describe it, pictures don’t do much justice. I think there is something about the atmosphere of Madinah too, the fact that it is light upon light, and has the greatest messenger the greatest man the greatest warrior the greatest statesmen the greatest father the greatest husband the greatest companion the greatest slave of Allah buried in it’s earth and just directly under that green dome. 

SubhanAllah.

It was now our turn to pray in the Rawdah!

Where do I put my head!?

Lol, Oh the Rawdah! What to say about the Rawdah! The piece of heaven it is; everyone wants to get in and pray tarawih,  tahhajud , furud and nawafila all over ever inch of it’s green carpet- only problem is space and time.  Now it’s interesting to see how feisty women can get to get a piece of of heaven. It’s strangely symbolic subhanAllah; I can’t help but think of the verse in the Quran where Allah says

"And race with one another for forgiveness from your Lord,

and for a paradise as wide as are the heavens and earth,

prepared for those who have Taqwa of Allah"

(Surat Aal Imraan verse 133)

Well we definitely raced each other for a piece of heaven that wasn't even half as big as the Heavens and Earth! The Rawdah- which is literally Jannah and the commotion there made me reflect on this verse; it’s cruch time we see it and we want it, and were so fixated on it just as Allah described in the verse above so much so that we shove people out the way and ignore the que and lines just to get in it, boy do we want it! But for some reason were so lax in our other daily matters? How incredible weird! Wouldn't it be worthwhile if we raced each other like we did the Rawdah in our other daily religious matters? We’d be the best prayers, we’d have amazing khushu’, we’d shun evil and command the good; but the most incredible worthwhile thing we’d race each other in is high end morals and manners, like that of the messenger salallahualayhiwasalam. Surely this earth would have been a ring in our fingers had we raced each other in goodness the way we raced each other to the Rawdah!

But this isn’t the most fascinating thing about the Rawdah! ;)

It’s about the space of two average rooms put next to each other, very rough estimate. Women enter the Masjid, sit in their ethnic groups, are lectured by the Saudi women just prior to having their turn to go in and pray- obviously they need to devise a way of distracting the women from getting into the Rawdah and waiting on their turn so what they do is they lecture them in any and every language just before it’s their turn, it’s actually very impressive mashaAllah. But when it comes to that moment where they’re to go in you expect to see the Rawdah empty out and make way for your little ol’ self, but in actual fact it’s as though no one has moved at all lol, its constantly chocablock in there, Sardines sit spaciously compared to women in the Rawdah! MashaAllah! No complaints! How incredibly generous Allah is to allow so many women in such little time pray in Jannah on earth!  Here you truly realise this world works in opposite to what you think it does. There is no such thing as you causing a cause and that cause bringing about a predicted effect. This is a load of rubbish. I stood in the Rawdah, next to Sahar and I tell you the only green carpet I saw was that which was 3 square centimetres in front of my toes!

The rest was women.

Women everywhere.

Women walking in, women walking out

women standing, women bowing, women prostrating, women everywhere.

It was incredible

Where was I supposed to put my head for sujud?

4 times!?

Nowhere it seemed.

But Allah is the one that controls everything, side tracking here but for eg: Allah says giving money in charity doesn’t diminish your wealth but rather increases it, but how!? I’ve just subtracted from my wealth, not given!? Allah said it’s making you richer, you take interest it’ll diminish your wealth, but how!? I’ve just added! Allah said it’s diminishing your wealth. And Allah is truthful in what He says. Your wealth is affected the way He told you it would. Your mind lies, Allah gives and takes; not charity or interest. So if your in the Rawdah to pray better believe there will be somewhere to put your head, even if your eyes and your mind tell you there is nowhere for you to put your head on that carpet. Lo and behold when it was time for me to make sujud, I found somewhere to put my head

4 times too.

SubhanAllah.

It was actually really funny. All the women are praying and the Saudis know we all wanna take our sweet time especially in sujud; the messenger salalalhualayhiwasalam said the closest you will be to Allah is in sujud so ask what you will there, so here we all are, in sujud, in jannah wow you think we’re not gonna ask for everything? Heck man! We were gonna ask for everything. So the Saudi women tap you on the back and tell you to get a roll on, other women are waiting, kinda rude, but I can’t blame them with thousands other women waiting behind us. I was in sujud and I’m trying really hard to make my duas in Arabic and one golden dua Umm AR told us to make in sujud in the Rawdah was:

"O Allah just as you made me enter your Jannah on Earth

allow me to enter Your Jannah in the akhirah."

I asked for other stuff, but it was so hard for me to put the words together in my weaker language with someone tapping me on my back telling me to hurry up. Bas alhamdulilah I did it. When we walked out Sahar told me after I made my first sujud and came up a lady stepped right in the place where I had my head in sujud, had I stayed down for one second longer she would have flattened my nose! lol! Truly, Allah controls everything.

Around Madinah in One Day

Next day- I think- we took a trip round Madinah, we visisted Jabal Uhud reviewed the war with Sheikh Abdul Karim and visited the grave of Our Master Hamza RadiyAllahu anhu and recited Fatiha for the martyrs, I climbed the archers mountain with my Tajweed teacher, God I love her! Took some happy snaps with her and my brother.

We went to visit Masjid Qubaa- first ever masjid built by the Muslims! Prayed there, went to Masjid Al Qiblatayn- Masjid of the two directions, where in it Rasulullah sallalahualayhiwasalam had received revelation to change directions from Masjid al Aqsa in Jerusalem to Masjid al Haraam in Makkah, so it’s effectively a masjid with two qiblas. MashaAllah, prayed there too by the Grace and Will of Allah.

I believe the next morning we went to the Museum in Madinah. Now this little museum is a definite yes yes for everyone to go to. I don’t think people should visit Madinah without going to that Museum.

Nothing is lacking in Madinah because the Messenger sallalahualayhiwasalam is there, and had the entire earth been wiped out and nothing remained except the bare earth beneath the green dome then Madinah would still never lack anything. It will be complete because he is there and he is the only reason Madinah is what it is. Without him everything else will be just another adornment of the dazzling adornments of this earth.

But there is something my heart longed for and still does and it is none other than the flat earth, the rugged land, the tileless barren red brown earth beneath my feet that would have been below his.

The trees and the dead tree stumps before my eyes that would have once been before his.

The mud-brick houses broken and cracked from the intensity of the Madinian desert sun,

the mud-brick Masjid that I could reach out and touch that would have been once touched by him.

All of it there in it’s simple plain and raw-self.

Thank God the museum had replicas of all that though! Lol, no joke this place does what it can to fill that void. Had people not felt the same thing, this museum would not have been, but such is the love this ummah has for its Messenger that although we would grand-ify the masjid of our Messenger at every expense, we would still find a way to preserve the memory of the original Madinah as it was in the time of the Messenger. Here we had a little movie played that showed the original dimensions and appearance of the Masjid, What it looked like, who stayed where, what rooms were attached, the different stages of its upgrade, it even had a replica of what it’s like inside the green dome and what surrounds the grave of the Messenger sallalahualayhiwasalam. Its run and maintained by volunteers- students, who actually made little replicas of the land to show us the wars and how they took place, they had little men on horses lights that light up the path the enemies took and the path the Muslims took during the wars. I only truly understood the battle of the trench and the battle of Uhud here. It was incredible. I loved it all!

There’re two things I love in this world and they fit a perfect mathematical formula.

Amatullah’s Seerah classes at Daar Aisha + the Madinah Museum = Seerah comes to life before my minds eyes. It's beautiful!

          My Secret Unravelled!

Some few hours later I realised I lost my phone.

In Madinah, amongst thousands and thousands of people :/

No idea where it could have been.

I drank zamzam and made dua that Allah return it to me, wherever it may be, no matter how bleak my chances were of finding it again.

I called Walid during my time of distress and said omG I have a problem, what is it? I lost my phone- I honest to God have no idea why I called him to complain lol, but it was with him. Turns out I had left my phone at the museum and although there were two tour groups going on at the same time, the owners happened to give it to Walid and so is the magic of zamzam, my phone came back to me :0) Alhamdulilah.

And that brothers and sisters was my magic little trick. Zamzam! I drank that for my salawaat, I drank that for Dalail il Khayraat and I drank it for the 40 prayers.

I got through all 10,000 salawaat during my stay in Madinah SubhanAllah

I got through Dalail il Khayraat- first ever Arabic book written that I get through from cover to cover SubhanAllah.

I didn't manage the 40 salaats, I was missing 7, but Allah says everything is but by intention and people will have what they intended, so judging by how crazy I was about those salahs on time with the imam, I'm pretty sure I have the rewards for this in the bag! ;) inshaAllah ta'ala.