Wednesday 28 June 2017

My Umrah Story 14.2 - 25.2.2015


 selfie in Madina shops  ..
Assallamualaikum w.r.t.

Behind me are shops sellings trinkets and food ..i usually buy shish
tawok made by Pakistani / Afghan / Indian / Burmese not sure ..  all moslems look same not matter what nationality here (even whites look the same). Only asians and africans descendant are identifiable .. anyway my sons love the shish tawok.


In front of Masjid Nabawi 


Pic left are taken in front Masjid Nabawi around 11 am. Its very
peaceful and tranquil in Madina. The purpose of coming to Madina is to visit prophet Muhammad S.A.W. pbuh

We took van from Madina to Makkah which is approximately 400 km away.
road journey from Madina to Makkah



Makkah is more than 300 km away from Madinah and took us roughly 4-5 hrs by bus. We arrive in Makkah around 8pm. Check in, took our dinner and set out to performed tawaf at 11pm and completed saie around 3am. We are completely exhausted and blissfully happy and peaceful .. :). We take so long to complete the umrah because we are performing umrah with my two sons age 9+ and 5+ ..

Pic right : My husband and two sons after completing saie .. on the way to the barber shop to shave their heads (tahallul).  This is my husband and my eldest son second trip to performed umrah, and the first trip for my second son, daughter, sister in law and our helper, bibik. Alhamdullillah .. i thanked Allah S.W.T. for granting us the opportunity to visit his house again.


In this trip, i made several mistake. Since i have been to umrah before, i assumed i know what to do and what to avoid, once i get into the holy cities. As such, i did not revise the dos and don'ts while you are in the holy cities, during state of ihram as well as out of it.  Of course,  once i reach the holy cities, i forget many things for example what to read once you passed Hajarul Aswad and Rukun Yamani. Luckily umrah groups from turkiye and indonesia loves to scream their prayer so i also repeat what they read hehe. Also i forget to stop and read prayers at the foot of Safa each time.. instead i was focussing on completing the saie and proceed with marathon between the two hills ...

 Experience that stand out  in this trip ( for me)  .. for the rest of my group, they have their own lessons learnt accordingly .. :P

#1 After Isyak prayers inside Masjidil Haram .. group of niqabi passed in front of me and i told my sister in law that people in niqab freak me out because they look like ghost especially if they suddenly turn up from my back. Note that women from middle eastern culture clothing usually comprise of black clothing with their face covered called niqab. Afterwards, i was back in my bed eating red apple while watching masjidil haram live and suddenly i broke my denture. Wow .. and i still have 5 -6 days left in Makkah. I whatsapp my family back in Malaysia .. and this is what they say (highlighted in blue).
1.  You have to watch what you say and think in tanah haram because everthing will be paid back in cash. Alright .. i know that but totally forget about it. (told you i did not revise the dos and dont's)
2.  Go and find a dentist. Dentist will fixed it in 1 -2 hr. So I went to find dentist from the zam-zam tower untill all the way up to Aziziah (roughly SR20 away by taxi from masjidil haram) but no luck. Dentists don't work everyday like back in Malaysia. They work on certain days and certain time only. So for the rest of the umrah trip, i have to closed my mouth and i certainly can not eat many things. This is tough because pilgrims are very friendly, they talk to you and keep giving you food. Also dust keep entering my eyes for one day after the incident.
3. Why don't you wear a niqab ..hahaha. If i wear niqab, i can open my mouth hee ..

#2 Me and my husband ask the uztaz if he knows where to find dentists, and he ask me if i have tooth ache .. i just nodded. Everytime they saw me, they ask what is my problems .. do i have tooth ache and i nodded some more. After so many times, my other teeths start to throb.  So i change my strategy, everytime they ask me .. i said ok.. and after sometime the throbbing go away.

#3  The importance of seeking knowledge expecially ilmu tauheed and ilmu fiqh.

#4  Understanding of Qadha and Qadr (sunnatullah) and the importance of making rational decisions

What I loves most when performing Umrah

#1 Performing the tawaf .. i read a lot of prayers in the rounds of tawaf such as Allah please forgive me, my husband, my parents, my husband parents, my children (and i mention all their names), my families, Muslimin Muslimat, Mukminin Mukminat, please let us live and die in islam and iman, please let us enter heaven .. etc ..etc .. the list goes on. I really hope Allah S.W.T. will grant me all my prayers but this kind of prayer .. will not make you cry in such deep happiness.

#2 When performing the tawaf, and seeing the Kaabah and you proclaimed to Allah with Kaabah as your witness,

 "La illahah illah 'lla Wah Mohammadan rasulu 'llah" 

 “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”

will make you cry and cry and cry and cry in happiness and i believe this is the greatest happiness existed.

At least that is my experience.

# Note this article is my personal spiritual experience based of  my understanding of islam. FYI .. I am not a scholar thus everything I said must be counter checked against the Holy Quran.


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