Err...yeah...I promised to post my Hajj story while back... And I promised I'd edit it grammatically, but I can't be bothered to. So have fun as is. (Might decide to put details in Makkah part, but then again, might not..

(If you're a member of IF Gawaher, you already read this, so I don't expect ya to torture yourselves twice. )

Here goes....

We left from California around 6:30 am, and took us 5 hours to reach Washington D.C. (We were goin from here to Washington D.C., to Frankfurt to Jeddah. :wacko: Took 27 hours.) In Washington D.C. we were in the airport for 5 hours waiting for our flight to Frankfurt. (Ain’t fun at all to be in that airport when you’re wearing niqaab…sheesh.) Anyways finally at 6:30pm we boarded the plane, and the plane took off safely alhamdulillah. And then this person needed medical attention. There was a doctor on the plane, but the person needed to get to a hospital. The plane was already in air for 30 minutes when this happened, so we had to turn around and land in New Yorks Kennedy Airport. That took an hour cuz the pilot had to be guided around and it to land in an empty area, etc. Bleh. Anyway, then after the plane landed it had to re-feul, the pilots had to re-route, and do all that stuff. It took 3 hours by the time we took off for the second time. The great thing was that when we got to Frankfurt, we didn’t have to sit around in the airport waiting for our airplane. Our connecting flight was 20 minutes after we arrived there, so we got to board immediately. -_- And from there to Jeddah was 11 hours.

We arrived around 8pm or something in Jeddah (I can’t be expected to remember exact timings, sheesh, fuzzy numbers ppl. :P) Things were a little easier for us because we were not with the rest of our group. The ‘problem’ with the group is getting from Jeddah to Madeenah you’d usually have to wait a lonnnnng time waiting for a bus where all the group members will fit in. Since there was only my sister, brother, and I they could put us on any bus. And we managed to get a bus in a few hours. (It wouldn’t have mattered waiting in the Hajj Terminal, but we got lucky..) It took 8 hours from Jeddah to Madeenah…thought it would longer, but whatever. Anyway, we arrived in Madeenah around Fajr time. (The bus drove past Masjid Al Nabawi on the way from the Muasassa place to the hotel, and we could hear the imam saying “asalaamu alaikum wa rahmatallah…” bleh..) Anyways, the bus driver got lost a couple times and ended up circling Madeenah a few times (looool) and then finally dropped us off at our hotel. Actually, it was good that he got lost, cuz then he had to back to the Muasassa place, and then we realized because the rest of the people on the bus were from Syria, our passport would end up being in the wrong Muasassa. So while the bus driver got someone to help him find the hotels easily, we spoke to one of the people there to have our passports transferred to the right place. Then the bus dropped the rest of the people at their hotel. By the time we arrived and checked in our hotel it was 8:00 or 8:30. The hotel was right opposite the Haram. We even had a great room, cuz we could see the Haram minarats from the window. (Not that it really mattered to us about the hotel or the windows, cuz we spent most of our time outside the hotel anyway. lol)

We went for Dhuhr salaah, and after that we went to give salaam to Rasulullah (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam). I didn't go inside the area where you can see the gates to where the qabr is.. (I dunno…do they even let women there during Hajj season? I know we can go to the Rowdah Mubarak…but are we allowed by the qabr? Well…I wouldn’t wanna go there Hajj time anyway, the frenzy people get into the closer they get closer to Rasulullah (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam) is unbelievable and a little scary..)

After a few days my sister and I plucked up some courage and decided to get into the Rowdah Mubarak. My brothers got in there relatively safely, so we figured it may be easy for us too... I mean there are only women, and you wouldn't expect women to be wild, innit? Well the crowd was crazy there as well, and I seriously dunno how I made it in and out without any injury. I saw a couple people fall from being pushed. But anyways, the Rowdah Mubarak was beautiful, and we were right next to the pillar where Rasulullah (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam) told Sayyida Aysha (Radiallahu anha) that if you make dua in this certain spot it will be accepted. And yeah, before you even ask, I did make dua for you all. (Why am I being asked that? Don't you'll have ANY trust for me? *fake sob*)

For those who don't know, the Rowdah Mubarak is the area that is in between the minbar and where Rasulullah's (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam) house lay. When you're in the Masjid Al Nabawi though, it's easy to distingiush which area is part of the Rowdah Mubarak, because the rest of the carpeting is red, while the Rowdah is olive greenish..

Anyway, that afternoon we went for Ziyarah of Madeenah with Qari my dad knew from last time. He really did a great job. My siblings and I kinda freaked out when we got in the car at first though. Cuz he spent the first five minutes reading dua after dua and then started reading some Quraan.. And we were like... "Err, is he gonna be reciting for us the whole way, or pointing out the important areas?" :unsure: He took us past the Masjids Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Bilaal (Radiallahu anhum). The masjids were originally built by the Ottomons, cuz those were the areas where those Sahaba's lived, and the Ottomon's build the Masjids there as marking so that everybody would know where the Sahaba's lived. The Saudi's had demolished the Masjid Bilaal though a long time ago, and so a Saudi businessman bought the land off and re-built the masjid and put a shopping center below the masjid.

We also visited Masjid Quba, which was the first masjid that was built in Madinah after the hijrah. In the Quran it was referred to as Masjid Taqwa.
"There is a Masjid whose foundation was laid from the first day on piety; it is more worthy of thy standing forth (for prayer) therein. In it are men who love to be purified; and Allah loveth those who make themselves pure" [at-Tawbah; 9:108].

After that we went past the area where Sayyidina Salman Al Farsi (Radiallahu anhu) used to live, and past where his date valley was...his house was torn down by the Saudi's... I guess it was crumbling apart as it is anyway. I kinda do think they should have left whats remaining. Just so that people could see what type of house the sahaba's lived in, and what humble settings they were in, even though they were offered the best of this world.

After that we went to Masjid Qiblatain. That was the masjid where Rasulullah (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam) received the command regarding the Qibla changing from Bait al Maqdis to the Kabah. Thus it has two mihrabs, one facin Al Quds and the other facing the present qibla, Makkah. I think he said its big enough to fit 2000 ppl at a time... He also took on the road which used to be the trench during the Battle of Khandak, Masjid Fatah, the gutter where the wine was poured down after the ayah came down forbidding it, Masjid Ijaabah where Rasulullah (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam) made 3 dua’s, and 2 were accepted and the 3rd rejected.

Anyways, several years ago, a local masjid here in Cali needed a a Hafez to teach the kids Quran. To make a long story short, they contacted the Saudi Embassy, and the Saudi’s sponsored for a man from Madeenah to come and teach here. My brother had already become a Hafez by then, but he wanted to improve his tajweed, and everybody was saying his tajweed was pretty much flawless…thus my brother went to learn by him. When he left back for Madeenah he gave my brother his phone number and all that and told my brother that we have to go for Ziyarah with him, etc. Anyways, on our second to last day in Madeenah my brother called him up and asked him if we could meet in the Haram.. He insisted we go to his house, cuz he can’t bring his wife…the kids will get sick cuz of the pollution with the buses and stuff. So we agreed he’d pick us up after Asr Salaah. (He lives opposite of Jabal Uhud.) His wife was waiting for us (I really do state the redundant, innit?!), and she thought me and my sis would stay with her till after Isha, while the men leave for the Haram Maghrib time. She was sad that we only called them on our last day, and that we didn’t let her husband take us for Ziyarah.. (We woulda called ‘em sooner, but my brother lost his phone number, and our parents only managed to get it to us at the last possible moment. We were happy though, cuz I’m sure he had enough things to do anyway!) Then she was talking about her kids, and education, and stuff in general. (Gotta give one thing to the people of Madeenah for sure, they’re totally classy in the topics they talk about… No gossip and that junk alhamdulillah.) Oooh, and he has a son and daughter. We knew the son, cuz the son was born in Cali, but I swear the daughter was the most precious lil 2 year old I’ve ever seen. (And I’m used to 2 year olds throwing tantrums over nothing, but she was all sweet and charming. )

Then on last day or so we were wandering around Madeenah after Dhuhr salaah and if you go behind all the big hotels and cross the street, 5 minutes down is where the older areas are. Meaning that everything over is not as commercialized as it is right next to Masjid al Nabawi. I like the new buildings...but at the same time it doesn't quite do justice to the city they're in, considering Rasulullah (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam) and the Sahaba's so adamantly abstained from luxery. Ya know...kinda seems weird to have five star highly commercialized hotels standing side-by-side Masjid Al Nabawi. (And no, I'm not picking on the Saudi's, because in the end the Hajji's do like the five star hotels more than living the rough life for a couple weeks.) I really wonder at times how Rasulullah (Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam) would react to us if he were alive... *sigh*

Oh, so in that area there were stores…ya know selling the usual stuff. Abayas, Thobes, Prayer Mats, Food , etc. Anyways, it was cool, we were pratically stopping at each store and looking stuff.. (Okay, why I am I saying random junk…) And then it was around Dhuhr time, and we were about to head back to the Masjid Al Nabawi… As we were walking we saw a bookstore. It wasn’t the regular bookstores you usually see there. It was like an older shop, and had it sooo many old kitaabs, and nobody was even bothering to stop by it.. And the man sitting there must have been in his late 60s or so.. He had a big white beard and a pleasant smile and so much noor on his face mashaAllah. Anyways our oldest was telling us earlier that day when we look for kitaabs look for stuff by Imaam Suyooti.. So we asked him if he had any. And at first he looked at us like are we joking.. I mean, we’re young “confused” hajji’s who don’t know Arabic, how on earth did we manage to know who Imaam Suyooti is. LOL. Then he took of a tafsir of Imaam Suyooti’s and there was soo much dust on it, it must been sitting there for ages, he lightly touched it and a cloud of dust blew off. Anyhoo, after we paid him, he told us he was from Yemen and he moved to Madeenah in his teens. Then he asked us where we’re from, and he smiled and start a lil dua for us that Allah SWT accept our Hajj, and protect us from fitnah and give us barakah.. :wub: Awww…

That Dhuhr was our last salaah in Masjid Al Nabawi. *sigh* We checked out of the hotel a lil before a Asr, and then went to the Muasasa office and then to the Bus station. We were supposed to leave for Miqat half hour after Asr. We ended up leaving half hour after Maghrib. Anyhoo…I think they lost the passports of one the people on the bus, so they had to look for it, and that took almost forever. It took 11 hours to get to Madeenah, and the bus made only one stop at around 1 am or something so that we’d read our Isha. It was really windy out, and I was feelin kinda sick already on our last day in Madeenah (kinda served me right though, cuz I had been going for Fajr in Madeenah with a jersey, and it was coooooold Fajr time, thus I got sick). Anyway the windiness wasn’t very good, I ended up getting sand in my eyes (you’d expect these silly glasses to help some) and I got a sore throat after that. And when we got to Makkah it was humid in the bus, and there was that point were the bus stops and they hand out ZamZam to everybody.. The bus had to wait there for like 30 minutes (and thinking about how many buses there were 30 minutes wasn’t bad), and then they took us to the Muasassa office. Since there was only 4 of us (not our whole group), they made us wait for a lil van to come and take us to the hotel. We waited for 3 or 4 hours, but they were really nice and offered us tea and stuff. (To tell you the truth, oddly the only place I’ve ever drank tea and it actually tasted really nice was Makkah.) Oh yeah, so around 9ish am they came and took us to our hotel. My oldest brother was totally knocked out, he got sick and his bones started hurting really badly, so he ended up sleeping non-stop until Isha. He didn’t even hear the adhans going off, which totally freaked us out, cuz the adhan is kinnnnnnda hard to sleep through! Anyway, after Dhuhr we went to the Haram on our own (my 2nd brother, my sis, and I)…

Part 2 comes later... *You can wake up out of the deep slumber now* :sister:

mashallah bro you had the great experience of the visit to the Holy Place. this just encourages me to go Saudi even more so soon i will go inshallah

Read it again..... :brother:

"Its" a sister

Arent yemeni ppl just gr8........:wub:

cant wait for part 2..... Plz hurry.... i dont think my :love: can bear waiting anylonger............................

sorry about the mistake, i was so into the story of the sis experience i forgot the gender of the person
please forgive me for the mistake

Brother it wasn't intentional. Chill.

mashallah the experience was told very decripitively

Yes bro metsudaistwice, hajj is once in a lifetime experience isn't it? May Allah make it possible for me to perform it again and make it possible for those who haven't done it yet. Ameen.

Ameen bro, i performed hajj when i was 4yrs old, not old enough to fully experience and remember the journey of a lifetime. inshallah i intend to go Saudi next year either for umrah or for study if i get accepted inshallah

sis where is part 2? i want to know who led prayers in makkah when you was there

Asalamu Alaikum

I have a mate who has a mate who knows a publisher. I can also sort out the publicity and cover design. Interested?

^^loq
oh thnxxxxxxxxx

;)

Assalamo-alaikum-wa-rahmatullah-hey-wabarakatu

Subhanallah, Subhanallah - I must admit that is one of the best if not the best accounts I have read of Hajj - I felt like I was there and it brought back all the memories of when I was there.

Jazakallah khair for sharing that sis - may allah accept you Hajj and bless you with many many more Hajjs!

Wassalam

Br ABDULLAH "SST"

yes inshallah i will go soon, *bro clear you inbox its full* (off topic)