I begin in the name of Allah, The Most Beneficient and The Most Merciful. Alhamdullillah.... my doa of going umrah again with my beloved husband has been answered. This time round we went together, not only with him but with my brother Ali and his wife Iyda.
Our journey begins from Changi International Airport on 10-March 2011, Thursday evening. There were 43 people in our group. This is a big group as compared to my 1st umrah in 2009 which was only 15 people.
This umrah trip is not restricted only to Medina and Mekkah but also to Baitul Maqdis where our third holiest mosque is situated. Following are the brief itinerary of our umrah + ziarah :
• Fly to Bangkok for a connecting flight to Amman
• Drive across the border to the West Bank and into Jerusalem
• Stay there and visit Masjid al-Aqsa for 3 days
• Go back to Amman and stay for 1 day
• Fly to Medina and stay for 4 days
• Drive to Mekkah for umrah and stay for 5 days
There's no direct flight flying to Jordon from Singapore, hence, we flew by Thai Airways to Bangkok and later connected to Royal Jordanian (RJ 183) to Amman. Upon touched down at Amman's Queen Alia Airport, around 04:50 am, we were informed by the inflight captain that the outside temperature was 5 deg C. Oh Gosh! Immigration clearance at the airport was a breeze. After our subuh prayer in the arrival hall, we boarded a coach which brought us straight to the hotel in Amman where we have to leave our big luggages there. The reason for this was that it would expedite our passage through Israeli customs and give them less of an opportunity to delay us. Really, this is what we expected to face as we had been advised by our travel agent. What we were told was that the Israeli officials will look hard for any reason at all to make you wait, to annoy you, to provoke you, to question you at length i.e. to just put you off travelling to Jerusalem. We could even be pulled aside and outright interrogated. We were told to just be calm, be polite, answer all questions with a smile and present the impression that whatever they do, you will not be irritated. It’s a psychological game, that’s all it is.
We drove from our hotel at 07:30 am to the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge crossing which is on the border with the West Bank. It is a main crossing, built over the Jordan River and north of the Dead Sea, from Jordan into Palestine. Now the crossing into Palestine has two phases. The first phase is on the Jordanian side where Jordanian customs administer security checks on your passport and have your luggage scanned through an X-ray machine. Once we were finished on the Jordanian side we then drove through a raised barrier onto a road which lead us to the security fence which is the Israeli side of the border. One of the things that struck me sitting on the coach and passing through these various security stages was looking out onto the terrain.
As we passed from the Jordanian side over to the Israeli side, the terrain, rocks, desert and land is, of course, identical and I thought to myself: Nature is anything but territorial, unlike man. You have the same land, same colour, same view on one side and the other. Yet, the atmosphere depending on who controls the land completely changes when passing from one part of this land to another. This made me think about how contentious this whole region of the world is. SubhanAllah....
Anyhow, we waited for about a half an hour before being let through the Israeli border fence. Once we passed through that, there stood before us the Israeli buildings housing all the checking stages of this side of the border in which we had to go before we were allowed to enter the West Bank. As the coach pulled up alongside the building I looked outside and saw a young man who couldn’t have been more than 18-20 years of age. He had a light coloured t-shirt and beige trousers or jeans. What he also had slung around him was a thick black strap which I realised after a few seconds was a big black automatic rifle. The fact that there was an armed security guard here was not striking in the least. But what struck me most, was the youth of the soldier and the casual way he was walking around, almost slouched but with a confident and alert manner asserting his and his country’s authority, gesturing to visitors, staring at them and directing them.
In fact, not only this young man but 95% of the customs and border officials inside were surprisingly young, I’m talking late teens young. After a bit of surmising I arrived at the understanding that this was to humiliate and degrade visitors, especially Muslims by the reality of young, perhaps obnoxious Israelis snapping orders and refusals to a visitor (in almost every case) older than themselves.
Anyway, all of our passports were taken away by the Israelis who then in turn called out our names to ask some questions. A few of us from the group were actually taken aside by Israeli security itself to be interrogated and I was one of these lucky souls. But lucky me, the interrogation lasted only for few minutes. A young man, maybe in his late teens, called out for me and took me to another girl in another corner of the hall for some questions. She introduced herself as a member of Israeli security and proceeded to ask me some routine questions. After I replied her politely she thanked me and released me from her custody. Alhamdullillah... However, the other five younger jema'ah who were interrogated were asked more bizzare questions along with the routine ones. We feel that the interrogations were ridiculous and clearly showed the apartheid regime’s racist and discriminatory policies. Most of the questions had absolutely nothing to do with the security of Israel.
After we passed through the above stage of security checks, the next was to have our passports and personal details checked and verified for authorisation of passage.
We first had to fill in one of those small entry cards which would be the most important document along with our passport that we would have whilst our stay in Palestine. After asking our tour leader we managed to get hold of some and filled them in after which we all queued up at one kiosk where we would present ourselves for checking. Our passport are not supposed to bear any Israeli customs stamps otherwise we cannot enter Saudi Arabia. The reason being is that basically Saudi Arabia (officially) doesn’t like Israel or anything to do with it and also doesn’t have a peace treaty with them like Jordan does, which allows passage between the two countries. So we had kindly and emphatically requested the customs officials that they stamp on the small entry paper we had filled in.
Our tour leader had earlier on warned us that it could take maybe 2-3 hours, up to 6-7 hours until we were let through. But Alhamdullillah, it took us only 3 hours to be let through. We arrived at about at about 08:30 am and were allowed through at 11:40 am. I have never quite experienced anything like this in any other country.
Happy, we boarded our coach and were warmly welcomed by Firaz, our Palestinian tour guide. We drove away from the border with him talking on the microphone and expressing his heartfelt emotions by having a group of Muslims come to Palestine. Firaz is a very knowledgeble man and spoke excellent English and Bahasa Indonesia as well. We had finally arrived in Palestine, the beautiful and ancient land where so many things are wrong, and also right.
We then drove straight to the oldest city in the world, Jericho, a city with much Biblical history where Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan and cured the blind. We had our luch in a restaurant called Mount of Temptation Restaurant named after the nearby mountain. We even managed to spend some time enjoying the sunshine and a small shopping area before proceeded with our journey into Jerusalem.
When we were driving in the direction of Jerusalem we came upon one of these disgustingly hideous security barriers at which point the coach was waived down by Israeli soldiers. They asked the coach driver some questions before raising the barrier.
Now this is how much they seem threatened by our presence or indeed the presence of anyone who is not Jewish and is not in this place for a Jewish reason. We were told by Firaz that we were very lucky to have the ability to move around quite freely, as some Palestinians are made to wait hours upon hours in the open, whether it’s raining or hot and constantly humiliated in front of their families by arrogant soldiers of youth.
It was a fine Friday afternoon with the customary hustle and bustle of a city. On the way to the hotel where we stay, we drove past a city with mixed identities. Along with the Arab and Jewish residents, there were tourists pretty much everywhere. The weather was very cooling around 10 deg C, the sun was out and it was a very good day to be out and about. Our first stop is offcourse, The Dome of the Rock or Qubbatus Sakhra as its known by Arabs. However, we were brought to our hotel first to check-in and have a quick wash-up before exploring the Old City. When everyone had get together in the hotel lobby, we hopped into the coach again and drove towards the Lions Gate to the old city. The Gate itself is at the top of a very steep hill rising up from a busy main road. The coach stopped here and we walked up to it, passing through into the Old City.
We entered an old gate and as we passed through it the atmosphere transformed completely. The Noble Sanctuary or Al-Haram al-Sharif compound was a peaceful, serene with tranquility beauty and calm. It was amazing. It covers over 35 acres of fountains, gardens, buildings and domes. At its southernmost end is al-Aqsa Mosque and at its center the celebrated Dome of the Rock. The entire area is regarded as Baitul-Maqdis or Al-Qudus and comprises nearly one sixth of the walled city of Jerusalem. I never actually thought that this place would actually cause an affect within, shared I’m certain by my other jema'ah as well.
There were few old Palestinians strolling at the garden. We exchanged salams and they were smiling happily after having found out where we were from. In fact, that was the reaction from practically every Palestinian we met. Once they found out that we were Muslims from Singapore, we were practically smothered with love and attention. I think partly that was because of Islamic brotherhood and also the fact that they came to realise Muslims from around the world have not forgotten Palestine or its people. We were made to feel so welcome throughout our stay here.
Up close and personal, the beautiful and exquisitely crafted designs of Qubbatus Sakhra are simply breathtakingly out of this world. It is a truly magnificent building, from the outside and even more from the inside. Words struggle to describe the majestic stonework and masonry and the richly engraved designs of the pillar columns inside surrounding the Foundation Stone, from which the famous Mi'raj account heralds. We managed to pray our jamak Zuhur and Asar there with Ustadz Firdaus as Imam.
As we still have some time before the maghrib prayer, Firaz took us to the "Wailing Wall", in the Jewish quarter, which is considered by Jews a significant and holy site. To them, it is one of the last remaining portions of the ancient Temple of Solomon. The original length is estimated to have been around 485 meters, but today what remains is just 60 meters long. Originally it was called simply the Western Wall, it acquired the name Wailing Wall because of the nature of the prayers said there. Firaz explained about the Sabbath and life of these Othordox Jewish. At times, his voice was full with anger whenever he talked about the "unjust" 40 years of occupation of Israel into Palestinian territories. He sounded very angry and revengeful. As a Muslim, I understand his feeling as I feel the same too.
It was nearly maghrib when we walked back to the Muslim quarter passing the Golden Gate on our way to the mosque. Standing at the Dome of the Rock and looking towards the Hijaz in our line of sight was then of course the real Masjid itself. Masjid al-Aqsa, with its grandiose arches and the solitary, dark yet strangely inviting dome on the other end of the compound. The masjid is situated some depth beneath the altitude of the Dome of the Rock.. There was a circular fountain with stone seats between the staircase and the masjid where some of us refreshingly performed ablution for our jamak Maghrib & Isyak. We then entered the Masjid.
It was to be remembered where we were sitting. The one place on the earth where every Prophet gathered and was led in prayer by the Final Emissary to Mankind (saws) was where we were sitting now in this majestic Masjid al-Aqsa al-Sharif. Alhamdulillah... it was one of the greatest blessings in my life to have shared a moment with my husband in this place, an ambition that I had finally achieved. I had now been to all three Holy and Sacred sites. May Allah increase the blessings of this place and uplift all who enter it. Ameen.
After the prayer had finished, we all walked out together to our waiting coach which drove us back to our hotel for dinner and to retire.
2nd day - Saturday
After a good night’s rest in the comfortable beds of the National Hotel, Jerusalem we prepared for another day of ziarah. After breakfast we were ready quite early on in the morning to make tracks straight away on a busy day of journeying this holiest of holy lands. As soon as everybody was ready we boarded our coach driven by our good Palestinian driver. Our itinearary for today is to visit Maqam Nabi Dawood (AS) and also the city of Hebron.
Hebron is situated in the southwest of Jerusalem which is approximately one hour road journey from the Old City. The closer we got to the part of Hebron where the Tomb of the Patriarchs, or Haram al-Khalil, was situated, the stranger it became because the streets were all deserted and quiet, almost like a ghost town. As a matter of fact, our first attempt entering the city was turned-down by the Israeli soldiers who guarded the entrance there for some reasons I'm not quite sure. Firaz told us that they will try entering from another way through the Palestinian side. Alhamdullillah .... we are allowed to enter from there.
As mentioned, the streets were totally deserted, quiet and eery. All windows and doors were shut and shops closed. There was hardly anyone around, except for some little children walking on the streets when we disembarked in a seemingly market area of Hebron. Hebron is a very old town and we had to walk some way through eerily silent and old alleyways to get to where Haram al-Khalil was. One thing that we saw which I believed will stay with all of us as we were about to start our walk was a unit of heavily armed and fully equipped Israeli soldiers. There were about 5 of them as they walked by us, eyeing us carefully and assessing all of us. The tension was thick in the air as these men were ready to fight, ready for any threat, to meet with ultimate intensity.
Its inhumanity is immediately striking and it really does emanate a dehumanising presence. In fact, staying in Hebron, one cannot avoid the constant reminders of the reality of Palestine. That of a land under occupation by a nation called "Yahudi Jahannam" with a self-absorbed sense of importance which is scared to death of an incorrectly yet constant and perceived threat.
With this rare sight of conflict, we kept on walking towards the alleyways. On the way to walking there some children approached us and seemed to want us to buy ornaments and other homemade things that they had with them. They were very good salesmen as they brandished and offered deals in dollars as well as shequels and dinars. They stayed with us as we walked through the alleyways of Hebron and then emerged into an open area to the left of us which was the entrance to the Haram. Going back to my previous point about this place having been completely taken over by the Israelis, the Haram’s entrance was teeming with armed police along with metal barriers, checkpoints, metal detectors and revolving gates. Talk about protective, but talk about paranoid as well. After going through the drama of being checked for nuclear warheads we proceeded up the ramp to the main building. The Tomb of the Patriarchs refers to there being the graves of three Prophets and their wives here. • Prophet Ishaq and his wife Rafiqah
• Prophet Yaqoub and his wife Leah
• Prophet Yusuf (peace be upon them all)
We spent quite some time there, praying, making doa and contemplating being in the presence of these great Prophets and their pious and exemplary wives.
After spending a spiritually uplifting time there, we then paid our respects, greeted the elderly caretaker and left back the way we came. We drove back from there and straight to our hotel in the Old City for our jamak takhir zuhur/asar.
Immediately after prayers, we went out again as it was a free and easy time. We just reallised that our hotel was actually near to a busy shopping streets called Salah Eddin Street. Without wasting much time, the four of us strolled the busy streets and did a little bit of shopping too. We found out that most of the items sold there were so much cheaper than what it cost back in Singapore.
From the shopping streets we just crossed over to the Old City, Lion's gate. We strolled slowly in the Old City to the Masjid al-Aqsa for our maghrib prayer. We reached the masjid just after the call of adzan. After the prayer had finished and after much of the congregation had dispersed I spent some more time in the Masjid while waiting for my husband to finish his doas. As the reward for praying in this holy place was at least 500 times as much as praying anywhere else other than the two holy mosque. As I would not know when I can come back to this mosque again.
We had a wonderful and eventful day today and walked back to our hotel for dinner and to retire.
This morning we will check-out from our hotel and travel back to Jordon. These were to be our last hours in Jerusalem before we left back for Amman through the border from which we had entered three days ago. Before we did so, we had few sites to visit still.
First the coach brought us up the Mount of Olives which overlooks the whole city of Jerusalem. A wonderful, panoramic view of the whole city of Jerusalem, this is the spot from where many of the photos of Jerusalem around the world have been taken from. We came to a place where there was a wide platform teaming with tourists. This was an ideal spot to look over the whole city of Jerusalem and out towards the sacred and holy sanctuary of al-Aqsa. We could clearly see the old walled city of Jerusalem in front of us with its medieval wall weaving a border around the central part of the city. We could also see the majestic compound of Masjid al-Aqsa with the Dome of the Rock atop the Foundation Stone on the right and the actual Masjid on the left.
In the compound of Salman's maqam, Firaz explain briefly the life story of Salman al-Farisi (May Allah Be Well Pleased With Him). In one of the Prophet's battles called al-Ahzab or al-Khandaq Salman advised the Prophet to dig trenches around Madinah in defense of the city, a suggestion which the Prophet happily accepted. He then went ahead and helped the digging with his own hands. During this excavation, Salman struck upon a rock which he was unable to break. The Prophet took an axe and hit it.
From the two maqams, we drove out of Jerusalem and towards the Jericho desert where our final site of interest stood. In the middle of the desert, with nothing else in sight was a Masjid building that housed the tomb of Prophet Musa Kaleemullah (AS). There was literally nothing else for miles around. On the way there Firaz pointed out some Arab Bedouins with their pitched tents. He told us that Bedouins get harassed quite a lot by Israeli settlers whom I imagine are rarely punished. Another reminder of the “democratic” state of Israel.
On leaving the border on the other side we were met by our Jordanian bus driver who was absolutely thrilled and delighted to see us again.
More than half a day had gone now, and we still had miles of road to travel, to our hotel in Amman. I actually dont mind the long drive at all, because I really enjoyed the panoramic view of Jordan mountains from the coach. It was breathtaking, as you could see mountains and hills and valleys all around you stretching away to the Dead Sea in the distance, which is where we went next.
The Dead Sea is an inland sea which separates a part of the West Bank of Palestine and the state of Jordan. The shores of these waters are the lowest point of the Earth that you can walk upon. It was a memorable drive due to the scenic views all the way down, really beautiful and really stunning as we approached the Dead Sea in the distance. One thing that I observed of this area of Jordan geologically, as I dazed at the deep valley walls leading down to the floors which you couldn’t even see, is that you could sense the real age of this area going back tens if not hundreds of thousands of years; the area is completely untouched, rocky terrain.
The Dead Sea itself at the bottom of this valley area was itself below sea level. Its characteristics are world-renowned such as that due to its high salinity one floats rather than sinks and also that the Dead Sea because of these characteristics is devoid of life (hence the name!), although it is rich with various minerals out of which special Dead Sea branded cosmetics products are made. We stopped along the Jordanian side of this natural delight and had a 'picnic' as some of the jema'ah wanted to take a dip in the sea. We spent a good three hours of swimming, scrubbing & playing with the mud. Offcourse I'm not one of them! After everyone had enough, we left the beach at 05:00 pm.
A calming coach ride along the shore of the Dead Sea followed as the sun about to set in this beautiful and rich land, full of geological wonders, natural beauty and archaeological history. On the way to the city, our coach had to pull-over by the road side to the nearest mosque for us to perform our jamak takhir zuhur/asar before maghrib set in. Immediately after prayers, the journey continued again ..... to the hotel where we left our big luggages on our arrival day in Amman. We got our room keys, performed jamak takdim maghrib/isyak in the room before going down to the restaurant for dinner.
What a long day ..... tomorrow we would explore another part of Jordan before continuing our journey to Medina.
4th day - Monday
In the morning, our coach was ready and so were all of us. There are so many places to tour in Jordan, I was very taken aback. Places where the Prophet’s (saws) companions are buried, places of Islamically historical significance and places where important events relating to the previous Prophets (AS). As well as this, Jordan itself is a stunningly beautiful place full of mountains and valleys and, of course, the Dead Sea.
The first place that we went to was the maqam of Prophet Shuaib which is located about 2 km west of the town of Mahis in an area called Wadi Shuaib. The long and winding journey offered a panoramic views of mountains looking across the surrounding valleys and vast landscape of Jordan. The prophet mosque was situated down in the valley.
Prophet Shuaeb Mosque & Shrine
After the sumptious meal, we went straight to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. This refers to Surah Kahf and the story of seven pious young men who fled the corruption of their city and sought refuge in a cave where they miraculously slept for 309 yrs.
Inside the Cave, you get the sense straight away that this is an incredibly ancient place indeed. This cave are supposed to contain the graves of the Seven Sleepers.
I am so eternally grateful to Allah Almighty for having given me the opportunity to visit this very special place. As Mekkah and Medinah is special, believe me this place is special in its own unforgettable and capturing way.
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Details of my journey to Medina & Mekkah can be found from my blog first umrah as there were not many changes between the two visits, except that this time round my beloved husband was with me performing the rituals together. Some photos to share here :
