My Pilgrimage to Mecca on Year 2000 or “HAJJ 1420H” (Part 2 of 3 Parts)

HAJJ 1420H”
or
“PILGRIMAGE to MECCA 2000”

(Part 2 of 3 Parts)


Afternoon of the 5th of Zul-Hajj / March 11 (Saturday)
Moment of all moments: going to the Kaaba

Whereas some of us preferred going to the Kaaba shortly after bringing our things at the Guest House, some chose to first make a survey to asses the situation around the Kaaba then go back to the Guest house and return to the Kaaba a little later for the Tawaf. The rest on the other hand, decided to go there after Asr (afternoon prayer). Ra Lam and I were with the last group, which included brothers Kamar, Dimabildo and the Eugenio couple.


As the bus rolled to bring us to the Kaaba, there were things we saw along the way that amazed me. The highway, on which our bus was speeding for example, ended up at the foot of huge rocky mountain where a tunnel begins. We penetrated through that long stretch of tunnel which is fully lighted and air-conditioned, till our bus stopped at an entrance leading to an escalator. The escalator brought us up quiet slowly and even before we reached the top we knew that we were already in the place when one after another the tips of those Minarets appeared. Then finally we were on the grounds fronting Masjid Al-Haram.


Seeing and entering for the first time the gate of that sacred complex resting on a wide expanse of marble floor made me feel as if I was walking close to Paradise. There’s this endless stream of people - men in white and women in either black or white Abaya - moving in and out of the Masjid with many others either performing personal prayers or reading the Qur’an while squatting on their mats at the grounds in front of the Masjid entrance. With the Hajj pamphlet in my hand, I walked with the rest of the group following brother Kamar, our leader. He suggested that should any of us be separated from the group while in the course of performing the rituals inside, the front gate shall be our meeting place afterwards.

Entering Masjid Al-Haram
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_2olrm-l4U

When we were just a few steps away from the entrance, I removed my slippers and put it in the plastic bag that I reserved for it and then tucked the thing under my belt. Although there’s a rack intended for slippers near the entrance, many pilgrims carry their footwear inside for they fear that if they leave them outside, they might, as experienced by many pilgrims during their exit later on, not be able to find those slippers anymore from among the other slippers that pile up as more and more pilgrims arrive.

Ready to enter the Masjid, I lifted up the pamphlet with my right hand and recited softly the appropriate Dua, then moved my right foot in. I depended so much on this pamphlet which I had to glance from time to time for the Dua in Arabic that need to be recited in appropriate places and times.

Once inside the Masjid, I observed among other things, that the pillars are of very shiny white marble stone. I estimated that there are hundreds of those pillars at the ground floor alone. The chandeliers too are plentiful inside the Masjid and many of them are of golden frames. On our way towards the center of the Masjid where the Kaaba stands we passed through zamzam water stations with containers and drinking cups. We also passed by wooden racks containing copies of the Quoran.

The Masjid being too crowded, we had to walk forming one line because the possibility of one to be separated from his companions while moving inside the Masjid is quite strong for people in haste could, suddenly cut through someone else’s path. Then, looking through those pillars ahead of us, I said in whispers, “oh, I’ve seen you at last”, referring to the unsheltered Kaaba around which we saw those worshippers moving shoulder-to-shoulder in counter-clockwise direction. Momentarily, our group had to pause, trying, like the other pilgrims who just came, to find a passageway from among those sitting on the floor whose number became so large that the path leading towards the Kaaba became practically blocked.

From where we stood, we saw that the Kaaba grounds are about a few steps lower than the ground floor of the Masjid. Through hand signals we agreed to continue moving. Trying to reach the stairway, our group was split because there were others that moved with us and we had to slow down in order not to hurt those on the floor and sometimes we had to stop to let a pilgrim finish performing Sunna prayer before moving towards the vacant space in front of him. We did just that and just as we feared earlier, by the time we were on the Kaaba grounds we have lost sight of some of our companions who may have, at that time, been wondering where to find us from among those hundreds of thousands of other Pilgrims moving about the Kaaba grounds.

Our time to perform Tawaf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgfIIjN0QWs&feature=related

Realizing that there was no way we could find our ‘missing’ companions, the 4 of us, Ra lam, who was at my left and the Eugenio couple who were right behind us, started to move along with the other pilgrims already performing Tawaf. We should have started, as the pamphlet says, our Tawaf on the Black Stone corner of the Kaaba which is the established starting and ending point of Tawaf, but we couldn’t go there anymore because of the immense crowd that we had to go against to reach the spot. We remedied this by agreeing among ourselves to just add one more round to our Tawaf

Many of the pilgrims performing Tawaf could recite prayers in Arabic and they unconsciously attract other pilgrims to swarm them and quietly pray along with them in the hope of receiving reward from Allah for having joined in their prayer. The most unforgettable to me about Tawaf are the pilgrims themselves, the Muslims who traveled from far away places of the earth to converge, pray and moved together around the Sacred House begging for forgiveness and blessings from their Lord. In due time, our Tawaf was over and as we moved with other pilgrims leaving the place, we saw others arriving and making their way into the Kaaba grounds to start their Tawaf. That sight gave me the impression that Tawaf is an endless day and night movement of worshippers, until the Hajj season is completed. Later on I discovered that Tawaf doesn’t end but goes on and on 24 hours each day of the year! This is because there is an endless arrival of worshippers the world over coming to the Sacred House.

Forgetting to perform the Sunna Prayer before the Makkam Ibrahim

After finishing our Tawaf we were suppose to proceed to the Makkam Ibrahim to perform the Sunna during which the Quoranic verses recommended are: Surah Al Qafiron and Surah Al-Ikhlas - in that sequence. However, none of us came to remember about it anymore. Our oversight could have been due to the fact that the Kaaba grounds was already so crowded at that time and the motion of people, many of whom were taller than us, might have obstructed the Makkam Ibrahim from our sight. What we came to remember instead after our Tawaf was the drinking of Zamzam water, which in fact comes after the Sunna prayer. So, we intended to proceed to the Zamzam Well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZeTFs0lwr4 which was then just a few steps away from us, but although we were so excited to go there, we saw that the crowd was already so thick to hurdle for us to be able to get there, so we decided to just find some other source of Zamzam water. For this reason we walked towards the steps going up to the ground floor of the Masjid and once inside, we saw an open cubicle where faucets for Zamzam are plentiful.

Performing Sa’y at Safa and Marwa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyK8_8qeL84

After drinking Zamzam water, we inquired from fellow pilgrims for the direction of hill Safa that was our starting point in performing ‘Sa’y’. Our pamphlet says that upon reaching hill Safa, which we found to be an incline on one end of the 2-lane corridor which composes ‘Safa wal Marwa’, we have to turn our faces towards the direction of the Kaaba and then raise both hands and at the same time recite the appropriate Dua.

As soon as we performed the dua at hill Safa, we joined other pilgrims who slowly moved down and away from Safa and proceed towards the hill Marwa incline. With several pilgrims moving at one time, I was separated from my 3 companions but I went on with my Sa’y just the same, hoping that we would still see one another before our Sa’y is completed.

The corridor connecting Safa and Marwa is a long stretch of marble floor. In this corridor pilgrims on both lanes move in opposite direction. These lanes are separated by 2 other lanes (narrow ones about 3 feet wide each) intended for the use of the handicapped carried by wheel chairs that also move in the opposite directions. Each of the outer lanes is approximately 30 feet wide and the ceiling, about 50 feet high. If a pilgrim is making Sa’y from Safa to Marwa, at his left side is the location of the Kaaba approximately 300 feet away, while on his right side is the wall of Masjid Al-Haram along which are gates for pilgrims moving in and out of the Masjid Al-Haram complex.

This Sa’y differs from Tawaf in that, Sa’y is a 7-time-march in opposite directions, with march in one direction being counted as one (1) Sa’y. Tawaf on the other hand, is a 7-time-march in the counter-clockwise direction. Another difference between these is that, Tawaf is being performed around the unsheltered Kaaba, while Sa’y is done within the sheltered corridors of Safa and Marwa (with the exception of the 3rd floor of Safa & Marwa corridor that is unsheltered). I remember that perpendicular to and above the Safa and Marwa corridors are semi-bridges on which other pilgrims move about and watch those pilgrims below performing sa’y. At one point during Sa’y, the pilgrims gradually increase their speed upon reaching the ‘green mark’ on the wall at their right and they return to their normal speed upon reaching the next green mark. This area between those 2 green marks is said to be the area where Hagar, prophet Abraham’s 2nd wife would start rushing as she was anxious to find a caravan on the other side of either hill from whom she hoped to beg for some water for her and her son Ismael.

As soon as we reached the Marwa incline, we moved a few steps up then turned our head towards the Kaaba. Standing on this spot, we raised our hands and at the same time repeated the Dua that we did at hill Safa. Then we moved down and away from hill Marwa to proceed to hill Safa - which makes up our second Sa’y - the time when we found one of our missing companions Mohammad Ibrahim Du. When all the required 7 Sa’y were completed, brother Du brought Ra Lam and me to one corner and with scissors, cut portions of our hair as part of the rituals. Then we saw brothers Dimabildo and Gadat rejoining us, the Eugenio couple and Ra Lam still out of sight. For a while we waited at the stair on one side of the Safa wal Marwa corridor hoping that our missing companions would appear

Leaving Masjid Al-Haram

Outside the main gate of Masjid Al-Haram, the 4 of us, brothers Mohammad Ibrahim Du, Dimabildo, Gadat an I were wondering if there were buses parked somewhere near the Masjid assigned to transport us pilgrims who stay at the Prince’s hotel in Azizia. Uncertain about this, we agreed to move out and look for such buses though we felt that our search would be a difficult one for 2 reasons: from the gate of the Masjid are a number of roads (separated by tall and short buildings alike) and we didn’t know which road to choose to begin our search; secondly, a walk from one road to another wasn’t easy for even the roads at that time were flooded with pilgrims leaving or coming to the Masjid, and naturally, with crowded roads it is difficult to determine a service bus from a passenger bus unless one gets so close to those vehicles. Just the same we moved out of the Masjid premise and proceeded to one of those streets. As we came closer to the buildings we found that beneath them are shops selling assorted articles from dresses to necklaces and watches, fruits, posters, books and cassette and video tapes of Arabic and or English inscriptions. Along sidewalks we saw vendors selling Siwak (a kind of wooden stick said to be used by prophet Mohammad in brushing his teeth), Hijab (women head cover), post-cards, etc.; there were shops too selling Shawarma and other food stuff. Unable to find any service bus to our hotel, our option was to take a taxi.

Problem: How to return to the Guest House

Getting a taxi was likewise difficult because hardly could such a vehicle penetrate the roads teeming with pilgrims. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHy2gIafs3A We were practically stranded on that road fronting the end of the tunnel where our service bus from the hotel dropped us hours earlier. In spite of heavy traffic resulting from over-crowd, we saw a number of taxi able to sneak in from among those small streets in the area. In Mecca, taxi drivers pick up passengers if there are still vacant seats in the car. In addition to the typical taxicab that we saw there, we also saw wagons running with passengers standing as they hold on to the braces of such vehicles . We tried calling a number of taxi and showed them our wristband which tells of our ‘residence’ at Azizia, near the Masjid Bimbaz but these drivers just shook their heads and or reasoned out in language we didn’t understand. Then we heard the Adhan or call-to-prayer through loudspeakers. At the second call, we saw men from all directions hurrying towards the middle of the road and positioned themselves standing side by side, occupying almost the entire width of the road. Within seconds the line of worshippers standing side by side was duplicated several times at the back. We should have joined one of those lines but we felt that our anxieties during the past 2 hours have made us impure and we couldn’t see water around the place to wash ourselves with or perform ablution. So we decided to just perform the prayer upon our return to the guesthouse.

The Fulfillment

The lack of sleep the previous night and the Tawaf and Sa’y that we did today made us feel tired somehow. But this was compensated enormously by the fulfillment we felt for having walked around the Kaaba tracing the footsteps of those Holy men known as Prophets who have one after the other walked on those same grounds in response to the Lord’s call.

(To be continued)