nowadays, ‘umrah is often framed as this romanticised “retreat” that’s almost panacean in nature
you go thinking “this is what will unbreak me. this is what will fix the parts of me no one sees or knows are broken” “i must make the most of it and become my most optimal self” “upon returning, i should be absolutely healed / shape shifted beyond recognition... otherwise, what's the point?" you go seeking a transformative, spiritual experience and spiritually rich it is indeed but not in the way we might expect. ‘umrah is an intense spiritual exercise… one that unravels you. you go there seeking Allah and His messenger ﷺ only to be brought face to face with yourself. before being a meeting with the Habīb and habībullāh, it is an internal confrontation.
i never thought i’d stand where i stood. do what i did. think what i thought. or even be who i was… who i am.
less than two years ago, if anyone had come up to me and said “in ramadan of 2026, you’ll be invited to baitullāh.” i’d have looked at them like they’d grown two heads and been like “yeahhh no. i don’t know about that” the reason for that reaction would be the fact that growing up, i had a complicated relationship with islām (to say the least) and i honestly didn’t want to be anywhere near it. not because i thought it was all a lie but because i knew there was at least some truth to it… and that scared me. the “restrictive” nature of it was ridiculous to me and the change that it demanded of me was too big. in any case, i loved dunya too much to even think or care about the ākhirah. everything that i wanted… needed was right here. and death? i’d cross that bridge when i got to it. in all truthfulness? i liked to think i was immortal. everything obviously changed and flipped over on its head in december of 2024 when the person i was supposed to marry was called back to His Lord. my past, present, future… everything collapsed right in front of me and all i could do was watch. i don’t really remember my initial thoughts/instincts but i knew who i was was no longer who i would be.
my doleful desperation paired with the duty of having loved / being loved was my entry point back into islām. in a world sans him, i simply had nowhere else to be and there was no place better moulded to the shape of me than sujūd.
may Allāh take my soul before He ever takes that away from me.
humiliation comes from a multitude of sources; whether one accepts it or not is a separate matter altogether but it is something that not even the best of mankind were spared from. but honour… honour comes from Allāh azzawajal alone. when i was in madīnah, all i kept thinking about was “am i worthy of this? breathing in this air? walking where habībullāh rasūlallāh ﷺ walked” but then i thought “is anyone?” when i got to makkah, i asked Him why he’d chosen me to be His guest and kept wondering if it was all a fluke… if i’d gotten here by some divine… glitch. but is there such a thing as a divine mistake? ma’az Allāh
madīnah
it is said that a ruh that has tasted the sweetness of madīnah keeps longing for it until its exit from the body. that city… there’s something about it that slows you down. in that it grounds you; not that you become sluggish. something that i’ll eternally be grateful for is the fact that i’d (somewhat) familiarised myself with the seerah before leaving for ‘umrah and i’d urge everyone making this journey to do the same. to truly love someone, you must labour to understand them, know them… and who more worthy of that labour, that love than the best of mankind?
the one who’d cry in the quiet of the night for us, who said “i’ve been given a du’ā that will surely be answered and i have saved it as intercession for my ummah,” saving his for our ākhirah when every prophet before him used theirs in the dunya, the one who will call out “my ummah, my ummah” when every other soul is consumed with itself, the one who said to his companions, “you are my companions… my brothers are those who will come after me and believe in me without ever seeing me,” the one who longed for us before we ever even existed, the one who defended the dignity of a sinner instead of stripping it away, the one who went to ta’if and was stoned by its inhabitants until his sandals filled with blood, and still refused to curse them but instead made du’ā for their descendants, the one who lengthened his sujūd when his grandson climbed on his back, the one who shortened his prayer at the sound of a baby crying out of mercy for its mother, the one who faced loss after loss after loss and showed us what true sabr looked like, the one who taught us how to return to Allāh even after breaking, who carried the kind of grief that could’ve easily turned to something bitter and still chose gentleness, who was a mercy in every small, overlooked moment as much as the grand ones… the one who was the word of Allāh personified so i ask again, who is more worthy of our love than him? than the one most beloved to Allāh swt Himself?
everyone carries some kind of “checklist” into a journey like this, whether they admit it or not. things they’ve already decided they need to experience, to complete, to witness, to walk away with. for me, in madīnah, visiting the rawdah sat right at the top of that list. it wasn’t optional, not something i could leave to chance. i had already made up my mind, i was going to get there, no matter what it took. i’d been told the only sure-fire way in was through the nusuk app, so i signed up as soon as my visa came through and started checking for slots. there were none. when i reached madīnah, i kept trying… over and over and over again but nothing opened up. so i’d go to their desk inside the haram, asking if there was any other way and each time i was told the same thing: استمر في المحاولة عبر نسك
“keep trying on the app”
i had been trying. for weeks. and it was clearly going nowhere. no one seemed to care and slowly it started to feel like something heavier… like i wasn’t just failing to get in, i was being kept out. and the pressure didn’t help, i only had three days left in this city so there was no space to be calm about it and no room to tell myself it would happen eventually. i turned to my mother and said, “let’s go. we tried the proper way” so we joined the queue. no permit, no nothing. just hoping we might slip through. we had a story ready: the nusuk app was on our phones (true), and our phones had turned off (we’d turned them off so technically we didn’t lie) but the guard had clearly heard that one before and so we were turned away.
there’s a kind of black market that’s formed around access inside the haram. clearly, supply and demand doesn’t spare even sacred spaces. i was already coming apart when someone came up to me and said, “i have a contact. pay him 100 to 200 riyals and he’ll get you in.” the truth is, in that moment, i would’ve given whatever i had. a couple hundred riyals for a meeting like this felt like nothing. but to bribe my way into the resting place of rasūlallāh ﷺ? no. it took everything in me to refuse. i told him, “if i’m meant to visit, i’ll be allowed to do so in a dignified manner.”
but i won’t lie. by then, i’d almost lost hope. almost. when we tried to get in earlier, i’d come so close, close enough to feel it and being turned away from his door… it did something to me. i stood there, crying, thinking “i was right. i’m not worthy of this. this is proof.” the walk back to the hotel hurt, physically and otherwise. i’d made it to his city and still felt uninvited. rejected.
a couple of hours later, i was back on the nusuk app, almost mechanically. for all i knew, nothing would change. but what else was there to do? 7:07 am. i was clicking away and all of a sudden, a window opened… one i’d never seen before. i didn’t read a word. just hit “agree and confirm.”
please stay close. your visit time is approaching.
i was in my hotel room. in bed. the masjid was nearby, yes but there was no way i’d make it. the crowd, wudū, getting dressed properly… this wasn’t just anything. this was a meeting for the ages
where was my abaya?
where was my musalah?
where was my tasbih?
where was my head?
ya Allāh madad. i jumped out of bed and let out a quiet scream.
that day, madīnah watched a woman rush through its marketplace, half-laughing, half-crying making her way to the resting place of rasūlallāh ﷺ, abu bakr al-siddīq r.a, and umar ibn al-khattāb r.a. this wasn’t just moving across streets, it was a crossing; from a version of herself that had been split open by grief, suspended in that… quiet, suffocating after into someone who could still run towards something beautiful without collapsing under the weight of what she’d lost. this was grief walking beside longing and unworthiness pressing against the need to be seen by the One and His beloved. this woman, if anything, was / is a lover so above all, there was love in that walk. love that had nowhere to rest in the dunya anymore and so it turned upward toward its Maker. to be held in a place where it meant something still... where it could be refined into something that might one day become a means of reunion and salvation; and toward him ﷺ, toward a space where mercy was promised and promises were fulfilled.
makkah
“how was it? seeing and then circling the ka’aba for the first time?” that’s a question that i’ve been asked over and over ever since i’ve been back. and when you look at the people asking this question, you just know they want a feel-good story. or a few exclamatory adjectives. or tears… just lots and lots of tears. and i have all of that but i also have something else. something raw and frankly, a bit ugly even.
so picture this: it’s post fajr. i’m with my parents, holding hands with them and walking towards the ka’aba from the king fahd gate (the famous gate 79) i tell them “keep your heads down, your eyes low and look up exactly when i tell you to. make du’ā, okay? don’t think too much about it. the most sincere du’ā will find its way to you so don’t stress” we start hearing takbīrs from all over and i knew it’s time. i say “now” and all three of us lift our heads. i start crying, i collapse, i make du’ā. my parents lift me up and we start walking to the matāf. we start our umrah. as we’re doing our tawāf, i start feeling… weird. just really out of place. i look up, i see the ka’aba. i look around and i see hundreds, if not thousands of people. their right arms raised, calling out to Allāh. my Allāh.
here’s the thing. until that day, that moment… i don’t think it truly registered to me that Allāh was rabb al-ālamīn. i’d known the title and i’d said it countless times by then… and it still hadn’t registered. not in the way that would make it fall into its proper scale.
i know right now it might sound like i was trying to “gatekeep” Allāh swt but that could not be farther from what was happening. i was just having a lot of trouble comprehending the vastness of Him, the collective devotion of His sea of slaves, my complete inability to absorb any of it, and lastly… the fact that i was even there. it was the most overwhelmed i’ve ever been. the arms raised were like a tidal wave… and i was drowning in thoughts like “which of these arms is worthy? all except mine. what’s the story of the one with that scar on its wrist? it’s a scar like mine. is it my arm? no it’s not. how’d he get that scar? how did i get invited here? which of these arms will Allāh honour and His Messenger hold on the day of judgment? i’m undeserving of standing here, walking with these people who surely have a better hold of their īmān, who’ve most definitely believed / obeyed longer. why am i here? if there were a leaderboard present, i’d be at the bottom… and that’s being gracious. why am i here?”
i think perhaps the way i first learned to reach Allāh is part of why i reacted the way i did. i found Him in my small, dark room… in whispers. in the depths of the night. in spaces like that, your ibādah becomes quiet, contained. it belongs to you in a way that feels almost… hidden.
and then makkah: the open skies. the bigness of the ka’aba. the constant movement. bodies folding into bodies. worship made collective, visible, shared, rhythmic, immersive… ranked (at least in my head at the time). i didn’t know where to place myself in any of it.
i was used to the kind of worship that no one could see. and all of a sudden, i was being pulled into something public, into the most intimate part of my existence being laid bare among thousands.
for me, the problem also lay in the way i’d learned to lean into Him: as a confidante, someone who had my back, someone i could speak to, someone near and far all at once, someone who’d witnessed it all. and in doing that, quietly, without realising it, i'd humanised Him. He is all of that, that much is true, He allows Himself to be known that way, to be called upon with that kind of closeness. but He is also al-Khāliq, al-Mālik, the One who brings into existence and the One who owns it entirely. the One who governs what is seen and what will never even begin to be grasped. the One whose authority doesn’t just surround a single life but engulfs all existence, all timelines, all realities, all possibilities, and supposed impossibilities.
the words had been there… we say them 33 times after each fard salāh “subḥānallāh”
but here’s what i hadn’t fully conceived before: He isn’t something described by glory as if it’s an external quality placed upon Him. He is al-Majīd, the source of all glory, its origin as well its return, the reason anything can be called glorious at all. my intimacy without… sufficient awe had made things smaller than they are. it had softened the magnitude of who He is. now that magnitude has begun to stretch back into place. i was reminded that the One i lean on is not just near… He is distance itself. transcendent.
"so what was it like being there?"
it was like being in space. i was like an astronaut… untethered, looking at saturn for the first time. it wasn’t just awe. something else entirely. it almost felt like i’d stepped outside of myself, like i was still there but not entirely contained by my own body anymore. gravity almost… changed form; in the way everything that usually anchors you to dunya just loosened its grip. if you’ve ever been to either of these places, you know what i mean. wherever you go, there’s magnetic forces pulling you from all over. it’s like the elements are saying “habībullāh rasūlallāh ﷺ was here and we borne witness. gratitude... in every breath. tread lightly, speak softly.” even something as distant as the moon feels like a part of him. you gaze at it and the profound realisation hits you: it’s the same qamar that hung over his horizon, reflecting the same light his eyes once met, unchanged across lands and centuries, the same celestial body that split at his command. in those lands, even the seemingly simple act of gazing at the moon feels like ibādah and you feel closer to Him and His beloved… you truly do.
and just like in space astronauts face a kind of ego death, i felt deeply and utterly… inconsequential. being face to face with a force too big to comprehend is a terrifying, disorienting experience but it's also humbling in the most beautiful way. i no longer think i was the “other” in that sea of people. because i understand now that no matter who you are, to simply be isn’t the honour. the honour is in being as He created you to be. and in that moment, we were honoured... in that we were all aligned with our fiṭrah.
