Diary of a Haji: Day 13 | SoundVision.com

Diary of a Haji: Day 13

May 19, 1994 (Thursday) (8th Zul-Hijjah): 

We prayed Fajr, [ate] our breakfast and then it was time to put on the Ihram for Hajj.

We made our intention, prayed two Rakas and left for Mina [at] around 10:00 a.m. The routes to Mina were extremely crowded and hard to describe. There were buses, vans, cars of all sorts and shapes.

There were people of all different shapes, sizes and nationalities, but they were all wearing the Ihrams. Only the females had some colorful Ihrams. All men were wearing the same two sheets of seamless white cloths.

On our way we passed a hilltop palace. We saw some buses in smoke due to the hot weather and the hard hilly trip to Mina. One of our buses had a clutch problem, but luckily near the tent site. Those people had to walk to the site and they reached there before we did.

Our area was flagged with Ismael Farooque's insignia. We were to share our area with so many other groups from other countries. The other group appeared to be mainly from Africa, perhaps from Sudan.

There was hardly any place to lie down in the tent. I eventually got a small mat to lie on. There were about seventy people in our tent. There were air coolers and fans running all around. It was still hot and it was hard to imagine how you could do without them. I should be thankful to Allah, since not every tent was equipped with such luxury.

We prayed Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha in the tent.

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