Beautiful Holy Lands of Mecca and Medina

It’s been a week plus since I came back from the two Holy Lands of Mecca and Medina. The experiences there are beyond words. I do not know how to explain it but it’s totally different to all the other places that I’ve been to and totally incomparable to the other places. A definitely must go places for all Muslims.

In this post, I won’t go into the detail of what I did there like my usual travel post, but more to some tips and tricks that might be useful if you’re planning to perform your umrah. Whatever are written here are solely based on my experience during my time at the holy lands hence it may be different when you reach there and the time that you were there.

Before I proceed further, I will explain briefly what is umrah and what we Muslims do during umrah. There are 4 things that you need to do to complete an umrah cycle and they are:

1. Niat (Intention)– You need to be in the state of ihram before entering the holy land and you usually niat at the miqat stations.

One of the miqat stations: Hudaibiyah Mosque

Another miqat station: Jaaranah Mosque

2. Tawaf – Walk around Kaaba (Black box within the Sacred Mosque) 7 times while saying doa and zikr.

People performing tawaf

3. Saie – Walk between Safa Hill and Marwa Hill 7 times, starting from Safa Hill and ends at Marwa Hill.

The saie area

Part of Marwa Hill that is still present

4. Tahlul – Cut a bit of your hair for female or shave the whole head for male.

Now that you know what is umrah, I’ll share some tips that may be useful to you if you’re performing umrah.

Mecca:

1. A month before you are scheduled to go there, try to walk a lot. Try to walk as much as you can, as you’ll be doing a lot of walking there. This is to get your body used to walking when you’re there.

2. From experience, performing tawaf after dhuha, lunch or after midnight has less people. There will always be people performing the tawaf but those times are the times that I find more peace while doing the ibadah.

3. After asar and subuh they are many more people performing the tawaf.

4. On Friday there’s an extra number of people as locals performed their umrah as well.

Tawaf on Friday night

5. For saie wear thick sock (for ladies only as men can’t cover their feet) and you will feel less tired and to protect your feet for the marble floor.

6. Don’t forget to bring body lotion, heel balm and lip balm. It’s a bit dry there so you need the lotion and lip balm. As for the heel balm, the chemicals that they use to clean the floor may cause heel crack.

7. If you want to pray on the ground floor (for ladies) be at the mosque very early as the places get filled very fast. Even 1 hour before the prayer time, the place will be packed already. So if you arrive at the mosque 1 hour before prayer time, go to the first floor. There’ll be plenty of places available.

The ground floor of the mosque, 1 hour before p

The first floor of the mosque, 1 hour before prayer time

8. After each prayer, if you want to avoid the human traffic, wait for 15 minutes before you make a move out of the mosque.

Human traffic after every prayer time

9. Want to do extra deeds? Give the people there some zamzam water to drink or something to eat.

Medina:

I went to perform my umrah in Mecca first and then visit Medina. I was thankful for this schedule as we can relax in Medina and perform our ibadah peacefully. There’s not much tip that I can share in Medina but I do have some tips on visiting raudhah for all the ladies out there.

There are 3 visiting times for ladies to raudhah; after subuh prayer, after zuhur prayer and after isya prayer. The best time to visit raudhah would be after subuh as there are less people. If you have ziarah plans, during the internal ziarah please inform your Mutawif to be at the raudhah area before 9am as they usually close the door to raudhah at 9am.

After these prayer, they will separate you into your countries/regions. For Malaysia, just keep a lookout for sister holding the ‘Malaysia’ sign. They will gather you at one area and wait for the door to open. Once the door open, you can see people rushing inside. But my advice, wait till you get instruction from the sister in charge before you make a move inside.

Once they bring you inside, there’s another holding area. Wait until you are instructed to go inside, or else you’ll be stuck in a human stampede. Be patient, there will be some people pushing trying to get themselves in, but be patient and you will get your chance to go to the raudhah.

Waiting to get into Raudhah

When you go inside the raudhah, look for the green carpet. The green carpet marks the raudhah area. Perform your salat, say your prayer and go out straight away to give chance to ther people to perform their salat and prayer. Don’t forget to greet Rasulullah and his two companions, Saidina Abu Bakar and Saidina Umar while you’re in raudhah as their tombs are just next to raudhah.

The green carpet of Raudhah

That’s all I guess my tips and tricks for the 2 holy lands. Lastly, have fun there and make many new friends. Here are some more pics at the holy lands: