Umar bin Khattab street!

Patience!!

All goes well, we arrive in Jeddah airport and we get transported to the Hujaj airport next door, only Hujaj enter here, left right and centre everyone calls you hajji *me a hajji *aw!tear*

We enter just before fajr adhan and were lining up to give in our passports to the Saudi administration workers... At this point umm AR- who doesn’t know how many times shes been on Hajj mashaAllah nor how many groups she’s taken around, is telling us that the wait is going to be long, last year they waited hours and hours to get sorted and hand in the passports.. That we should have patience it’s all about being grateful nonetheless it’s a gift alone that your here, appreciate it and prepare yourself because hajj is all about patience. 

We pass through in 5 minutes.

No joke.

What?

5 mins. 

At this point umm AR is rather shocked lol

We enter, make wudu and pray fajr at this point I donned the niqaab, if you know me, you’ll know I look for annnnnnny excuse to put it on, Saudi was a definite yes, yes.

It feels so incredibly good to be covered and invisible to people and known only to Allah,

people will look at me and I will be like a passing shadow to them

the concentration wasn’t on my appearance or my hijab or my distinct facial features or my cultural identity

the wow factor- I wonder where she’s from

her features are so different to mine

all that didn’t matter,

all that mattered was me to Allah

and Allah to me

This is the most liberating feeling.

After we pray we gather around for Umm AR to give us the big prep talk. She tells us here, definitely here at he Hujaj airport, were in for a loooooong wait; last year they waited 9 hours for the buses to come take them.

& first stop is.. 

Madinah Al-Munawwarah!

Allahu Akbar!

So girls stay patient, because where are we going?

We’re going to visit the messenger of Allah,

SubhanAllah

Rasul Allah Sallalahu Alayhiwasalam,

The most beloved man to Allah

Whose name is engraved on the ‘arsh of Allah!

Who when we testify to the Oneness of Allah, we testify that he is His Messenger

His name is simultaneously remembered next to the name of Allah!

This is who we are going to visit.

So there has to be a sacrifice,

prepare yourselves with lots of salawaat on him,

Madinah is all about salawat on the messenger,

This is his city.

His blessed city,

His beautiful city full of light upon light.

This is where he resides

Khatam an Nabeyeen- The Seal of prophets

Wa Imam al muttaqeen-The leader of the Righteously God fearing

The one not sent but as a Mercy to mankind! 

SubhanAllah

Would you not be patient for something like that?

Would you not wait on the outskirts of Madinah for one thousand years if you knew after that wait you would enter to visit him and his sacred city?

The city of Revelation

The city of Victory

The sanctified purified city- the Haram that none enter except those who are physically and spiritually purified.

Patience girls. Prepare your hearts.

The buses arrived in 4 hours.

Lol.

Yeah no literally, 4 hours.

MashaAllah!

Nothing is impossible in Madinah!

Umm AR is shocked yet again.

We had enough time to sit around chat, convert money, eat, pray and I continue my 33,000 salawaat on the Messenger that I had been assigned to do by my Sheikh Al Habib Umar bin Hafeedh.

Allahumma sallai ‘ala              O Allah send prayers             

sayyiduna Muhammad-               upon our Master Muhammad

Nurikas Sarri-                                    Your effusive light

Wa madadika al Jari-                             And flowing aid

Wajma’na bihi fi kulli atwaari-     And unite me with him in all of my states

Wa ‘ala aalihi was Sahbihi-       and similarly (bless )his folk and companions

Ya Noor-                                                  O Light!

My plan was to get 10,000 done during my 8 day stay in Madinah. Sound impossible to do 10,000 of those^? Aha, but I had a trick up my sleeve ;) 

We had 3 buses waiting for us.

We all organised ourselves and got onto our buses,

Makkah is close to Jeddah,

So the distance from Jeddah to Madinah was roughly the same as from Makkah to Madinah,

Umm AR said here on our journey, we should appreciate the Hijrah that Rasulullah sallalahualayhiwasalam had made with the sahaba and Abu Bakr to the city of Madinah

This desert we were about to pass was the desert that they passed on foot

Were sitting in air conditioned comfortable buses carrying our luggage

They passed under the hot Arabian sun in the scorching heat

Leaving all their possessions behind

Nothing in their hands but the reliance on Allah

Nervous at the apprehension from behind and from in front

SubhanAllah

 Apparantly it would take 17 hours to get to Madinah as was the case last year...

We stopped over at a rest area had a bite, prayed dhuhr and asr

Got on again

and continued on towards the blessed city

We stopped over to pick up our little hujaj free food packages, CD’s tapes, fans and other nick nacks as part of Saudi hospitality mashaAllah...

I kept reciting my salawaat,

stopping sometimes to read my Quran,

stopping at others admiring the desert view from my window

thinking of the hijrah,

seeing a lonesome beautiful young white camel running in the desert

kicking up dust almost looking as though it was doing it in slow motion

I wished it was mine!

I slept a bit

Comes the sunset behind the desert mountains,

and it was an unforgettable sight

I stared in admiration at the artistic beauty of Allah

“So which of your Lords signs will ye deny?”

Laa b shai'in min ni'mati Rabbina nukhadhib- 

We do not deny any of our Lords blessings.

The orange the pink the red rock mountain..

Slight dust in the air making the colours of the sky and land all blend in together

SubhanAllah

We got to Madinah al Munawwarah in 7-8 hours

Compared to 17 or so hours last year?

This was definitely the Lutf of Allah upon us from the get-go

There was no denying it

Tender Lovin Care

At its best.

Everyone in our group didn't have the same experience, sometimes we'd split up and on the way to the same places different things would happen to us.. 

Apparently one of the buses had broken down on the way to Madinah

So it was from here I started to count my favours on this trip.

Of course there is always a brighter side to such events though. Sometimes people may take a wrong path and end up somewhere they don’t want to be, but scholars have said that it perhaps could be that Allah is taking that person in the footsteps of a pious predecessor, so one should never consider it a bad thing.

Then we entered the city and I broke down when we got to share’ Umar bin Khattab!

Now that’s a name of a street! I was like, wow, that’s just so beautiful, I know it’s a little trivial, but it just hit me I was finally in the land that the blessed Messenger and his closest, the one they had so many years in, their fortress against Quraysh, their home, the land that received revelation. That very sky above me, that very earth below me..

Allahu Akbar!

This was the blessed land of Madinah.

And this was share’ Umar bin Khattab!

Lol, I loved it. I loved the street signs that looked like Australian street signs but they said Madinah this way, Makkah that way, Taif this way, Muslims through here, non-Muslims through there and streets named after the sahaba! 

SubhanAllah! It was so surreal!