It all seems so nice and wonderful in pictures of people in the land of the haram. They seem so happy, all smiling and looking pious with their decent clothes and sometimes showing themselves in their ihram. It makes you want to be there too. It looks so inviting and you are just so curious wanting to know what it is like to be there.
Well, it is all about worship. Lots of worship. Sitting in the masjid, iqtikaf, reading the quran, doing lots of voluntary prayers, tawaf, dzikir and repeat. Guess what? Other than tawaf, you can actually do all those where ever you are, even in your neighbourhood. If your are merely talking about the umrah, it is just a three hour ibadah and the rest of the days are purely additional voluntary worships. Some would spend 11 days in both Madinah and Makah and how you would spend your time there, is how you have been cultivating & practising your religion in your own home, in your own country. You don’t expect to have miraculous knowledge just by going there and suddenly knowing what to do, or even being comfortable worshipping.
There are many pious and religious people who have never ever stepped their foot in Madinah or Mekah but they never fail to perform their obligatory prayers on time. They have never failed to perform their righteous deeds and being comfortable doing iqtikaf in the masjid for hours & hours. Sitting and reading the quran for them is a normal thing to do. These are the bunch who would treasure the moments if they ever get to perform their hajj and umrah. They understood the beauty of getting close to Allah ﷻ. They are not pending their worships until they reach the holy cities. They are doing it now wherever they are.
Umrah and hajj requires lots of sacrifices. It requires faith, wealth and health. You might have the wealth and health, but without a strong faith, making that pilgrimage would be a mere holiday and shopping. You would be spending your time chatting, eating, shopping and sleeping in the hotel room or in the tents or even under the stars. It would be a meaningless journey if you do not cherish the time there with lots of ibadah. Sitting and reading the quran would be something very foreign, awkward, tiring and boring for those who do not enjoy iktikaf in the mosque. In the end, the bored ones would take out their smart phones and look for entertainment.
The pilgrimage to Mekah should change you to be a better person. You should come back with a stronger faith and have greater desire to get closer to Allah ﷻ and not the opposite. Once you are back in your own country, you would be longing for the call of the prayers, the congregation prayers and recitation of the quran. You would want to be consistent with the good habit of making good deeds and actively performing worships. You would be more discipline and wouldn’t want to delay any prayers and you would always look forward to the next prayer. You would be “God Conscious”.
Why dream of performing the hajj or the umrah when we can’t even bother to drop the entertainment immediately when the prayer call is called? Count the number of hours, or rather minutes, that we are spending for the sake of our afterlife. How many pages of the quran do we read a day? How many hours do we spend making prayers, raising our hands and ask for forgiveness or any desires and needs from Allah ﷻ? Of course, the next question is, how often do we pray in congregation at the masjid, or even making and attempt to pray in congregation at home with your family members? Those are the things that we would do in the holy lands.
Don’t feel bad if you have not perform the pilgrimage but do worry if the main and obligatory prayers are not your priorities in your life. Be really concerned if we are not grabbing the opportunities that we have right now to make the ablution and perform our prayers. The mosques are not filled and we have the exclusive chances to fill up the parking spaces and walk slowly to get the first row for the congregational prayers at the masjid. Show Allah ﷻ how serious we are in answering His calls, no matter where we are. We have no excuses and we can’t blame anyone if we are not getting the deeds we could achieve. Oh yes, going for the pilgrimage is to achieve good deeds and the pleasures of Allah ﷻ.
والله أعلم بالصواب