Al - Haramain Part 1

Al Haramain is an arabic word which means The Two Holy Lands.  Alhamdulillah, praise to Allah Al Mighty, I was in Madinah and Makkah again last May/June.  This post should have been written while I was there but time was not on my side.  It was a last minute decision actually.  At first I scheduled my visit to coincide with Ramadhan Kareem, coz the best time to visit the holylands for umrah is during Ramadhan Kareem.  There's an hadith that says an umrah performed during Ramadhan  will be rewarded as though we are performing the Hajj.  But I decided to go earlier as I may not know what will be holding me in the next few months.  True enough, if i have decided to wait until August, I may have not been able to go.

It has been quite a while since my last visit, 5 years to be exact.  The first time was in 1999, where i was also very fortunate to be able to visit the third holyland, the Baitulmaqdis.  But that is another story.

The Clock Tower and The Kaabah

Now that we are in the month of Ramadhan, i remember one incident that happened to me during one of my visits to Makkah.  It was nearly dawn, I was already sitting in the front lines in front of Kaabah. the jamaah are preparing for the Fajr prayer.  Suddenly i felt thirsty and would like very much to drink a glass of zamzam before the azan.  Once the azan called, you had to start the fast and couldn't drink anymore. In order to get that drink, I had to get up and leave my place. And i knew if i do that, I would lose the place for my solat and had to walk all the way to the back lines. And at the same time , i wanted to drink d zamzam so much.  While i was contemplating on what to do, i felt the urge to turn to my back. And i did just that. There, infront of my face, an Arab brother was handing me a cup of zamzam. MasyaAllah, Allah solved my problem.  I got my drink and I got my place in the front lines.

Back to my journey last May/June.    We touched down in Jeddah after a long flight from Kuala Lumpur.  They have upgraded the arrival hall at Hajj Terminal, now it is a new building with air conditioned. It took about one hour to get all the clearance.  It was delayed because all the immigration officers decided to stop working for awhile, for whatever reasons that only known to them. .   I was just too  familiar with that kind of  situation. A couple of years back, I was at Riyadh Airport Immigration clearance and for no reason, the Immigration officer refused to process our passports and ordered us to proceed to the his superior office.  The senior officer couldnt find anything wrong with our passports and ordered his junior to let us go. You just can't beat them. And one hour clearance was considered rather fast.

Once outside the terminal, we could not find our vehicles, the GMCs.  Perhaps that was one of the "test" for our umrah journey.  The we found out that they were not allowed to pick us up at the terminal, instead they must wait at the first check point, which was about 500 meters away.  We had to take two taxis to the check point and that three minutes journey cost us SR200.

....to be continued..