Back from Hajj

Well I’m back. Truthfully I got back over a month ago but have had so much to catch up with uni stuff that I just I haven’t had time to update this blog. But now good luck getting rid of me for a while! I suppose I should be typing up my promised diary but it was a stupid promise to keep because I hate keeping diaries- it makes me feel foolish (even looking back at these entries make me cringe), and besides any spare time in Saudi was taken up praying, sleeping, looking around, or trying desperately to get my essays finshed.

So an ultra quick summary of my Hajj was that it was the most amazing experience of my life. And I’m not just saying that because as a Muslim it should be- what with all the praying and history etc. And of course that (the praying and the history etc) was a big part of the experience, but what made it for me was all the people there. How even though they were so different, how incredibly friendly they were. And this friendliness came from rich and poor alike. Examples? Between our hotel and the Ka’baa there used to sit a man with hundreds of the juciest dates you ever did see piled in front of him, and as people passed he would offer them. Now what other city in the world would a young woman (or for that matter anyone) accept food from a random man in the street? Or the sight on the street of the not very well-off old man on his prayer mat standing next to a young man without a prayer mat, so the old man turns it around sideways so they can share, even though he’s now standing on the unprotected concrete. Closer to home, my dad must have given away at least twenty prayer mats after praying with people who did not own any. To someone from this part of the world it would be astonishing how willing people were to share EVERYTHING- whether it be the man who saw my brother, father and I wondering why on earth he was spraying into his hat, so insisted dad and my bruv spray some in their’s too and sprayed some on my wrist (and man did it smell nice) or people who would share their food with randommers in the Ka’baa between different namaaz.

The sight of people standing next to each other- poor, rich, sunni, shi’ite, black, white, MAN, WOMAN, (yes you read that right), old, young, colourful Africans, sombre Arabs- all trying to squeeze another person in the lines next to them.

To me, this is what true Islam is- not the debates on how a hijaab should be worn, who was the right caliph, how long a beard should be, and of course not terrorism and causing death in any form (their own or others).

Of course I have a whole host of other memories but I will share them as they become relevant or if I just feel like it. Also photos that would have been here but the computers being dumb so maybe next time.

xxx