Land of Redemption

إِنَّ أَوَّلَ بَيْتٍ وُضِعَ لِلنَّاسِ لَلَّذِي بِبَكَّةَ مُبَارَكًا وَهُدًى لِّلْعَالَمِينَ

"Behold, the first House (of Prayer) established for mankind is the one at Makkah; it is full of blessing and a centre of guidance for the whole world" - QURAN, 3:96

The journey to the sacred lands of Makkah and Madina is life-changing. The experience, once-in-a-lifetime. When thirteen year old me bid them goodbye, she never thought she'd be fortunate enough again to be welcomed back. She was old enough to savour the moments, yet too young to understand what it means to need them. Not yet old enough to appreciate the magnitude of that need.

With the years slipping by, I have found that need bury itself deep. I have found myself craving the spiritual detox with an insatiable hunger, yearning for my return to His grounds for a long, long time. It found me at my most vulnerable. Not quite broken yet not quite whole. It found me at a time where I was seeking salvation for a tired soul; peace, for a restless heart.

By invitation only. That is the law of the pilgrimage. Waiting for His call to welcome you into His home, if and when He deems it so. I had waited for so long, I was convinced that maybe it wasn't written for me again. I didn't let myself believe that I would be chosen to be one of His guests a second time. And so, when the invite arrives, I refuse to accept it is real until I am standing at His door, at the gates of redemption. It's why, in cold, stormy England, when the plane sits motionless on the runway, contemplating the blustering December winds and relentless downpour that are resisting takeoff, my nervous energy escalates. Nothing could sedate the desperate itch to touch down in the Holy Land.

And when we do, when the wheels of the plane skid across the harsh tarmac in the sweltering heat of Saudi Arabia, the overwhelming relief and awe at the honour that is being bestowed upon me, hits with a ton of bricks. When my feet touch the cool marble of The Holy Mosque, when my head touches down in the sunset prayer, when my lips are touched with the words of Surah Maryam - the story of Mary - as they pray along with the reverberant echoes dancing off the surrounding walls, my mind cannot touch the reality. I could not be here. I am uncomprehending of the surreal, alternate dimension I find myself in. I am a single drop in a sea of white. Millions of pilgrims from all walks of life, all clad in two pieces of white cloth, as we stand in solidarity, united for the single purpose of submitting to our Creator. I have left the material world behind.

My heart stops when I lay my eyes on the Ka'bah for the first time. Proud in all its elegance and glory and majestic beauty. Welcome home. The wind is knocked out of me, my soul weeping, tears through the fissures against its eroded walls. Fix me. The words are tumbling out, fast and desperate and nonsensical but I know that You know. Please stitch the wounds this world has inflicted on my fragile soul. Please fix my broken faith. I drift into the crowd that is gaining momentum and I find my voice...I dig out my deepest fears, secrets, desires from the depths of my heart and soul and as they float up to the Heavens, I am feather-light. Freed. Liberated. Empowered. My heart sings the praises of the Almighty, my lips chanting with a new-found purpose, my feet carrying me closer to Him with each step I take in the direction of Tawaf. And when I pace between the hills of Safa and Marwa, commemorating the struggles of Hajrah as she prayed on a miracle for her little boy, that تَوَكُّل, that unconditional trust that I have been searching for my whole life, surfaces. Just as the water surfaced for Hajrah. 

I flit between sunrises and sunsets in a dream-like state, my hands, feet, lips, mind in constant worship. The Divine adrenaline rush that comes with being swept up by the tidal wave of pilgrims, the spiritual surge that comes with waking at the crack of dawn with the sole desire to pray pray pray, the strength that comes with connecting with Him...it is unparalleled.

And I weep when I have to yield to my farewell. I am at the Ka'bah for the last time - do you know what it feels like, to have faced you my whole life, five times a day, every day, only to be here, physically present at your sacred site, feeling the presence of my Lord in a way I never have before. It is a profound, bone-deep spiritual connection that is so intense, it almost hurts. And I am walking away and I wonder if you can already feel the distance between you and I the way I am feeling it. I wonder, if He feels my absence as my feet leave His courtyard. In seconds, you will be out of sight and I may never lay eyes on you again and that thought alone is enough to shatter the soul I have only just managed to save. I glance back at you from the stairs - this is my last memory of you - and I cannot breathe. 

Don't let me leave. Please don't let me leave. Please don't let this be the last time. 

Until we meet again, soon. 

Isn't it the most bitter-sweet feeling, to say goodbye to the City of God and step foot in the beloved City of the Prophet. The air of Madina is unlike any other…it holds the promise of mercy, the sweetness of an era thousands of years ago that has left its mark on an entire nation to this very day. Nothing compares to delivering salutations to the Prophet himself, in such close proximity that one cannot truly fathom the deed. Nothing compares to following his footsteps whilst walking the streets of Madina and praying in his Masjid where he once stood. The stories of his life come flooding back to memory and I don't think I am truly able to appreciate the honour it is to be standing on the soil that once bore his footprints, to be treading the path that he and his beloved companions once tread. 

And if I could get closer, if I could whisper quietly enough for only him to hear, I would tell him that being part of his nation is a gift beyond comprehension. I would tell him I don't deserve it. I would tell him that I don't deserve him. I would say sorry...for all the ways in which I have let you down, for not doing your religion justice. I would say thank you for guiding me, for inspiring the ways in which I try to live my life. I am trying...and I promise to try harder. And I would tell him I look forward to seeing you, one day. I will be too ashamed to lift my eyes to yours and say, I am part of your Ummah, but I hope you will accept me all the same, in my wretched, crippled state that will always recognise you as truth. 

It is with a heavy heart that I left the blessed lands. It is with a lighter soul that I returned. Redeemed. Unburdened. Content. Detached and no longer disillusioned by the false promises of this world. I return humbled, my heart no longer enslaved to worldly entities or my fickle, insignificant life. I have stood in the Courtyard of my Lord and begged, begged, for the things I want to happen to me and for me. And I am okay with it if they are not written into existence. Because I have left them there, in His hands, to do with as He pleases. I left His home with the promise of gratitude...to be thankful for what comes and thankful for what goes. And that promise, it has changed my life. I am, after years of searching and praying, entirely at peace with where I am.

The pilgrimage was life-changing. The experience, once-in-a-lifetime. The journey to finding God is a deeply personal one. It is an intimacy of the rarest kind. And it is at its strongest at its roots. I left my heart in the city of Makkah. Three months it's been and my heart and soul are still tethered to the Holy Ka’bah, still circumambulating, still in complete surrender, worship, submission, the gravitational pull a constant ache as they are drawn to the compass they always reach out for. It doesn't matter if I am in front of the Ka'bah, or thousands of miles away, my heart will always be His. 

Labbayk, Oh Allah. Here I am.