AFTER 168 HOURS [BOOK 2,168 HOURS SERIES]

Chapter 45: A Journey To Umrah

Humaira and Doctor Zayn left home a little before midnight. It was a heartbreaking experience to step out of the house at that hour. It was like she was leaving her life behind her, not knowing whether she will come back to it again or not. The duas of travelling are a big gift. They let you face reality as it is and yet make you hopeful and optimistic. So when was about to leave, she recited these words:

'Allahumma antas-sahibu fis-safar wal-khalifatu fil maali wal ahl…'
(O my Allah you are my companion in my journey and you are the protector of my property and my family).

Just then, Humaira felt like some unseen hand was putting a soothing balm on my heart. Instantly she felt cheerful and it seemed like there was nothing to worry about except for the acceptance of Umrah. She began to look forward to all that I will see and experience but mostly I wanted to feel the pure faith, the pure love and consciousness of Allah which I had always yearned for.

The flight to Jeddah was comfortable and the best thing was the awesome experience of seeing dawn stripping apart the curtain of darkness. Her glittering eyes were glued to this miracle and her heart wondered:

'Does this happen every day? Or is this an extraordinary way of Allah to tell us that a new dawn had come in our lives… which will tear apart the curtain of unawareness?'

They reached Jeddah in the bright shining new day. However, fate made it that it was the same airplane but the couple missed each other.

However, they had to wait several hours before we could move on towards Makkah. By that time Zainab was quite exhausted from lack of sleep and the heat of the desert was also making her very drowsy. Therefore she couldn’t enjoy the drive as she had imagined; rather drifted off to sleep every now and then and would be reawakened by noises and jerks! This went on throughout the drive but Khalid's presence offered her little comfort.

Finally, the plane landed and they were already in Makkah. Stressed and tired, Zainab and Khalid went to the hotel room booked well. It was one room. It was two different rooms facing each other just like how it was at home in Nigeria.

Although, Zainab always had the excitement to travel out as well as, to visit the beautiful places. She'd read about everything in a small pamphlet in her hands. Zainab was already tired. Immediately she got into her hotel room, she fell on the soft, cozy bed and slept off.

Humaira too had planned to pray immediately she gets there but this time, she couldn't stop thinking about two things; Bed and sleep.

Thus she was not able to perform Umrah that night. Feeling immensely sad and disappointed for not being able to accompany everybody to the masjid, Humaira just managed to offer my prayers in my hotel room and fell on the bed… Thus her second lesson of Hajj was patience and endurance. She had expected things to happen in a certain way because of our limited knowledge and vision, but she forgot that Allah gives us things in a much better way, due to His limitless knowledge and vision.

So we must have faith in him in order to protect our hearts from being impatient and ungrateful.

Meanwhile, Doctor Zayd got into his room as well. The room Zayn booked was on the sixteenth floor so, it was in the same hotel but they didn't meet.

Zainab woke up in the middle of the night at the sound of a most beautiful Azaan which seemed like coming from just outside my window. Just then, she realized that it was the call for Tahajjud… and her heart seemed to jump with joy, just to think that she was going to see Kaaba for the very first time in her life. She just couldn’t bear to be separated from it anymore… so despite the fact that the headache and nausea of the previous night was still hurting her, she got ready to go.