.....Continued from Reflections on my Hajj Experience: 2009 Part 1

We slept till Fajr, and since the rest of our group left early that night, myself, my brother and a friend of mine decided to walk to Jamarat. SubhanaAllah, this walk was both awe-inspiring and scary. 2million+ people walking early morning after fajr in one direction, doing takbeer (it was morning of Eid) and Talbiyya, heading towards the Jamarat and pelting of Shaytan ritual. My younger brother made an interesting observation saying, “SubhanAllah, rewind to thousands of years ago, when Ibraheem (Peace be upon him) came with Ismaeel to this place, only to meet iblees trying to persuade them away from the command of Allah..and now thousands of years later, millions of people are following on his footsteps!” At first we both laughed at this, thinking how iblees must be regretting trying to persuade Ibraheem (Peace be upon him), but looking deeper at this, you really understand how privileged we are to be continuing the footsteps of the best of humanity and how our history and their history is connected.

The Jamarat complex - 5 story building with the 3 Jamarat wall- was an engineering genius. The way that each road leads to a different floor, and it’s a one way system was truly great. I compared this to my experience 5 years ago, when this complex was not yet built, and literally almost lost my life in the Jamarat but Allah saved me. Many others didn’t make it.

We returned to our camp in Mina - after 4 hours walking - shaved our heads, and changed out of our ihraam.  I thought I would be dead tired and sleep right away but somehow I couldn’t sleep, I was full of energy! And I was wondering whether this was the energy I kept on propagating on ProductiveMuslim.com, the energy that fills you up after you’ve done act of worship and keeps you super productive! Allahu A3lam.

The best days of Hajj for me began with the days of Mina (Days of Tashreeq). I love these days for the discussions, debates, lessons that one learns during these days. You form new friendships, new bonds, you learn from each other and share ideas/thoughts. This is when truly the Ummah meets! And you can see just one of the wisdoms of Hajj: It’s the meeting ground of the Ummah, an international conference of humanity that is repeated every year to share across culture, across boundaries, what truly connects us all together.

Sometimes I’m moved to tears, as I remember how this all started with one man, a truly productive & blessed man: Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). I wonder if he’ll smile to see his Ummah this big? Or will he cry to see it this weak? - I ask Allah to make us those we become the reasons for the Victory of this Ummah & make our Prophet proud. Ameen.

We went to Makkah for tawaaf Al-ifadah, and Alhamdulillah, Allah made the journey and the tawaaf and saii easy for us. Seeing the whole tawaah circle filled with people and all moving to glorify Allah was amazing. I remember a shaykh telling us: Hajj was ordained for the remembrance of Allah. Because in every action, and in everything we did, there was remembrance of Allah. What I love most about this, is how remembrance of Allah is connected to certain actions: tawaah, saii, salat, pelting of stones..etc. This to me reinforces that this is an Ummah of Action, of productivity, of constantly working hard.

The last day came as quickly as Hajj began. My heart was filled with so many things that would take me days and months to understand. As I said to one of my friends during Hajj: “You’ll only truly understand Hajj, and what happened to you during Hajj...after Hajj.” We said our good-byes to our brothers on camp - and left for Makkah for the final Tawaaf.

I do not wish bore you further with details...so I’ll stop here. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I wrote this post for you, or was it for me, to start understanding my Hajj. But regardless, inshaAllah, I’ll be issuing part 2 of the Hajj Talk “Secrets of Productivity from Hajj” with more deeper thoughts/reflections of Hajj & Productivity.

Thank you for reading this, JazakumAllah Khair, and I would love to know your thoughts on all/any of the above. Assalamu’alaikum.