I was meaning to write this journal earlier, but I felt so worn-out from the pilgrimage that I decided to wait and took the time to instead take a break and let my mind at ease. And then I almost forgot to write this journal. x_x Oh well, at least I've had my rest. Also, I've written strings upon strings of my tweets on Twitter while I was there, so those of you who have been following me on Twitter would already know most of it.

Before I begin, the Malaysian Muslim's understanding of both the Hajj and the Umrah are, well... a bit reversed. Generally, the Hajj is considered compulsory for all Muslims to perform at least once in their lifetimes, only if they're able-bodied and that they can afford the means to travel all the way to Mecca to do so. That, we all agree upon. Increasingly, due to the Saudi government imposing a quota limit on the number of foreigners allowed to perform the Hajj, more and more of us are unable to afford performing the Hajj. So for the time being, my parents and I opted to do the Umrah instead. The Umrah is considered like a "lite" version of Hajj. According to what I've read, it's not actually compulsory, but highly recommended. But here, the way we were taught about Islam in Malaysia, it is considered just as compulsory as the Hajj, and unlike the Hajj, everyone must perform the Umrah at least once, no exceptions. It was this thought that made my parents want to go and perform the Umrah immediately.

Well, our Umrah group my parents and I joined together with took our flight aboard the Airbus A380, currently the biggest commercial airliner in the market. Our flight probably took around 6 to 8 hours. We arrived at Medina, one of two of the most important sites in Islamic history. There are a lot of historically famous mosques here, one of which is the An-Nabawi mosque, which my parents and I ended-up praying every day there during our stay in Medina. Prophet Muhammad personally built this mosque, and it also became his final resting place, where he was buried in. Thanks to years of modernization and expansion, this mosque has several electronic umbrellas that open during the day and close during the night.

We learned a lot about the history of Islam during our stay there. Although my parents sternly insist that we came here to Medina and Mecca in order to "visit and see Allah", I still like to treat the entire trip like a tourism. And indeed, with these archaeological visits and we were following a tour guide through all these, it did seem to feel more like a tourism. One of the important sites we visited is Mount Uhud. The story goes that, in 625 AD, a battle commanded by Muhammad and his army against the Meccan "kufrs" -- the tour guide likes to keep referring to these Meccan forces "kufrs" ("non-believers", "infidels"; i.e. non-Muslims), as if that's an insult =_= -- took place on Mount Uhud. The Muslims were winning, and the battle would've won... if it wasn't for one fatal mistake in the part of the archers. Seeing the Meccan forces retreat, against Muhammad's orders to stand on their ground, the archers leave post to pursue the Meccans. Turns out that it was actually a ruse by the Meccan forces to lure the archers out, and... well... around 70 lives paid the price as a result. Mount Uhud became their graveyard, and while we visited there, our tour guide ordered us to pray out loud for these 70 archers.

(Really, I wished that we would stop calling non-Muslims "kufrs". =( I felt that it's a very insulting term.)

After around 3 days staying in Medina, before leaving to Mecca, we then had to wear this funky dress they called the "ihram":
http://orig01.deviantart.net/ce3e/f/2015/342/0/7/marwan_ihram_by_marwangreencritter-d9jff26.png
Yeah, I look like a monk. ^_^;;

And we had to wear it through the entire 5-hour bus ride all the way to Mecca. x_o;; Well, at least halfway along the way, we did stop by at a mosque to pray a bit more, but that's just it. This dress is a nightmare to pray with, because the ihram kept falling off my shoulder every time I bow. >_< I heard that those doing the Hajj pilgrimage have it worse: for 5 days, they're not even allowed to get out of this dress except to take a bath, and even having to go to bed wearing it.

This only applies to males like me. Females have it easy: just wear that same body-concealing white hijab they've always worn while having prayers, with the only restriction being that they can't conceal their face.

Upon finally reaching Mecca, our travel agents immediately booked us our rooms to our hotels. And already immediately we had to enter the Al-Haram mosque to perform the very reason why my parents burned RM30,000 just to get here: to perform the Umrah. The Umrah must be performed while wearing the ihram. It begins by doing the "tawaf": circling around the Kaaba 7 times counterclockwise. After that's done, we then had to perform the "sa'ey", which is to walk back and forth between Safa and Marwa hills 7 times. Walking from Safa to Marwa counts as having performed the sa'ey once; walking from Marwa to Safa counts as another. After that's done (ending on the Marwa hill), there's one last step we needed to do: cutting a little bit of our hair from our heads. (Or shaving for the balds.) Once we've done that, the Umrah is complete, and all these restrictions while wearing the ihram no longer applies -- the ihram is now nothing more than a mere funky dress. We can get back to wearing our normal clothing, if we so choose to.

There's even more sightseeing around the Mecca, too. There's a museum which shows stuff from the Kaaba's earliest days, like the fact that its doors needed some replacing at one time, and there was a well near the Kaaba where they drew out the Zamzam water from, before the Saudi government then demolished it due to too many crazy Muslims gather around that well too much and disturbed everyone else doing the tawaf. Our tour guide also took us to where we would've gone to if we chose to do the Hajj after all, like that place where the Hajj performers do that "Stoning of the Devil" ritual, where people would throw stones at a pillar which represents Satan.

My parents actually planned to do the Umrah at least three times. So, two days after our first Umrah, we then had to wear that ihram again and then do all that tawaf and sa'ey once again. Soon after, before we could do the third Umrah, my mother caught a cold. o_o We decided, that's it. We theorized that doing this Umrah caused much strain to my mother, so we decided to let her rest.

Anyway, I'd like to mention that the city of Mecca is such a beautiful place. It's so modernized now. It's a shame that the entire city is off-limits to non-Muslims: non-Muslims are barred from ever stepping foot onto this city. =/ Somehow, this gave the word "haram" a double-meaning. While "Masjid Al-Haram" literally means "Sacred Mosque" and is how it's translated to English that way, it can also mean "Forbidden Mosque". The Al-Haram mosque is the largest mosque in the world, owing the fact that it houses the very epicenter of where all Muslims should face towards when having their daily prayers, and it's still being continuously expanded as we speak. Lots of historical Islamic structures sadly had to be demolished for its continued expansion. Just across the street, there's a gigantic clock tower -- the Abraj Al-Bait, aka. the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, which somehow managed to overshadow even the Al-Haram mosque, and it houses several hotels, one of them which my parents stayed at during our several nights at Mecca.

I noticed a few things while I was in both Medina and Mecca. For example, there are lots and lots of watch shops here in Saudi Arabia. Expensive fine Swiss watches appeared to be the thing here. XD I guess it's because Muslims constantly need to know when the next prayer time would be so they can pray on time, hence they buy these watches so they can look at the time. And they're all in normal clockwise direction -- I did a journal entry before ridiculing Hijra Timepiece's watches and why insisting on counterclockwise movement is a bad idea. There's also something I've discovered which is not as great: every single worker is a male. Even the store owners are all males. There are no female workers. In Saudi Arabia, men and women are not equal. =( And apparently, women are not allowed to work.

On the last day, we had to perform one last tawaf -- the Tawaf Al-Wadaa, or the "Farewell Tawaf". This must be performed before anyone can leave Mecca. After that, our Umrah group took the bus ride all the way to Jeddah in order to take the flight back to Malaysia. The King Abdul Aziz International Airport has a special terminal far from the main airport itself: the Hajj terminal, built specifically for pilgrims performing the Hajj (or in this case, the Umrah). It literally has no gate number. Apparently, they created this terminal separate from the main airport due to the large number of Muslims who travel to Mecca to perform the Hajj and so that it wouldn't disturb the airport's other activities, such as visitors who went to Saudi Arabia just to be tourists and such. I'll have to say, I don't like their security procedures. They separated men and women. Men were given that standard airport security procedures (albeit a little more harsh), while women had to enter this special room where they do additional security checkups and such... My mother still haven't told me what they're doing to her. After all that security nightmare, we went aboard another A380, which took us back to Malaysia.

I'll have to say, even though it was a 10-day trip, it sure felt like a month had passed. @_@ Maybe it's because my parents and I literally had to go to the mosque to pray every day, and every single one of those 5 prayers per day. That really messed-up my sense of time, because I'm so used to going to the mosque only during the Friday prayers, not every day. Well, there's a good reason why: it is said that those who pray in the An-Nabawi and the Al-Haram mosques are rewarded over 100,000 times more than when they pray anywhere else, so there's that incentive among Muslims to want to reap these rewards as much as they can. Another thing, these places draw Muslims from all over the world, all with their own Islamic beliefs and their own way of praying, some of which made the Malaysian group felt awkward because that's not how we were taught to pray. Some of these Muslims are overly fanatic, too; they represent all these negative view of Islam that the Western world are familiar with. And who knows, some of these Muslims could be terrorists, too. O_O But really, I shouldn't worry much because people travel to Medina and Mecca to pray, not to plan for the next attack.

My parents are now focusing on doing the Hajj. They've been appealing for the permission to do the Hajj for years, and it appears that their permission is granted and that they'll get to do it next year. I don't get that opportunity yet... Which means that I'll remain at home alone for a month. =(

Well, that's it for my journal entry about my experience while in Saudi Arabia. Now that I'm back in Malaysia, life went back to normal and such, and I'm sorry I didn't get to say Thanksgiving for those who celebrate it. x_x (Then again, I already have on Twitter.) So, a very belated Happy Thanksgiving! =) And this is also a very long journal entry, so if you managed to make it that far, congratulations! =P Good for you, and thank you for you patience for even bothering to read this entire journal entry.