..Mina, and the mean side of the haj...

..by the time we reached Mina after Muzdalifah, it was almost dawn...we found our tent soon enough, H 14...and it became apparent when most of our tent members showed up, that there was just not enough room for all of us...it was too tight a squeeze...for a moment,  nerves frayed...a momentary furore amid all the suggestions, and pakmat was promptly elected penghulu...when you are slight of built but big of voice, you will be easily noticed.....in our disagreement, we agreed to push the canvas walls and lined them with our baggages...and slept like sardines - criss-crossed...a really closed-knit group, I thought..

...its easier to interact with the forced proximity...and I soon learnt that on the day my roommate died, a lady pilgrim died a day earlier..and her husband was that quiet man who would sometimes sat alone outside the tent, pullling upon a cigarette...and I commented in my heart for his smoking ways...I did not know he was suffering his wife's loss...but later, when I got to know him better, also named Pak Mat, I extended my hand and asked for his and His forgiveness...please forgive my erring thoughts...

..Pak Mat, pulling upon a cigarette..

...one night we had a tahlil for the late Tokwan and Pak Mat's late wife...halfway I could see tears welling in his eyes, as he tried to follow the tahlil...couldn't....walked to outside the tent...and sat alone by himself as we continued...there is no God but Allah...there is no God but Allah..there is no God but Allah..there is no God but Allah..

..there was also not enough toilets...they were built on the septic-tanks and you walked up five steps to get to the door, that is after you queued up for anything from ten to fifteen minutes...but the ladies were worse-off...their queues were longer, along with their time waiting...which sometimes resulted in some cutting in into the men's queue...and some males protested, with the husband coming to the defence of the wife with a show of fists...which led to brief fisticuffs..

..for some there was little of that virtue called patience...they just could not wait or made adjustments...so it was into these bottles...and pakmat took in the sight and the stench one morning, marvelling at the various shades of yellow  and the bottles lining the walls...

..waiting for the bus back to Makkah..

..the orbs of Muzdalifah and beyond..

..Pic 1..Haram..taken by Nik Faris with his budget digital camera..

....I really do not know what they were...the first time I was shown them was by a young 'tahfiz,' Nik Faris,  who was there with his mother...he had taken some shots around Makkah and Muzdalifah with his budget digital camera...thinking that there was some defects in his camera...he had shown it to his mother.. and later, to me as we get to know each other better....but by then, we were well on our way to Madinah...

Pic 2....Muzdalifah...taken with the same camera..

..I thought they were caused by dust particles..it was very dusty around the holy city of Makkah..but as I searched the web for reports of similar orbs when back in Malaysia, it became evident that such orbs caught on digital camera was a common occurrence... I came across a Dr  Klaus Heinemann...and article on him can be read here...

..Pic 3...Nabawi Mosque, Medinah....taken with Sony Ericsson
Xperia  with flash..

...in Madinah, we tried again taking night shots around Nabawi Mosque, this time with a Sony Ericsson Xperia smartphone...with flash on manual  we took pic 3 and pic 4...we marveled at the orbs..not able to explain it but not totally dismissing them either...

Pic 4...pic taken a few seconds later by pakmat...

..pakmat even took a shot of a roommate, Haji Rasit, as he was reading the Quran in our hotel room, and got this picture of him with  a small orb seemingly floating next to him...Pic 5..

Pic 5...shot taken by pakmat in our hotel room,
Al-Haram, Medina..

..Pic 6...the sky over Nabawi..pic taken by Pakmat..

..intrigue, pakmat searched the web for other images...and found the following pictures...all with orbs in them...there were no mention of it by the owners...perhaps they dismissed them as just a quirky display of light...

..Pic 7...pakmat searched the web and found this picture..
..MasjidilHaram..

..Pic 8...and this...

...Pic 9..and this of Nabawi..

..Pic 10..and this...

..Pic 11 .pic taken by wife with pakmat's handphone, HTC Aria..
..no flash...no orbs..

..Pic 12...taken by pakmat with HTC Aria...no flash..no orbs..

..that I have created jinns and men that they may served Me...surah Az Zariyat

..the title..

...we were called 'Hajji' the moment after we stepped down from the plane in Jeddah...as we trailed into the waiting foyer, Bangladeshi pedlars called out to us with their Mobily and Zain simcards...henceforth the cry 'Hajji..Hajji..' was an often heard cry...most times followed by 'Toreek..Toreek..' when in the Holy City...inevitably it was someone being wheel-chaired, asking for the right of way....but  pakmat got used to it soon enough...and it was easier calling fellow pilgrims Hajji or Hajjah, having no talent memorising names...

..pakmat knew the responsiblities it bring, being called a hajji.....not so much because he is a hajji, for titular means nothing to him...but more because he has set his feet in the Holy Land,  tawaf the house of God, wukuf in Arafat, stayed a moment at Muzdalifah, stoned the satans in him and outside of him, and sheared his hair....

..more because of the tears that he shed just a few meters away from His House...imploring the Lord to forgive him of his sins...imploring the Lord to accept his repentance...imploring Him for His Blessings....His Bounty....beseeching His Clemency....not just for him...but also for his late mother and father...his children and his grandchildren....his family and friends....the people of his village...muslimin and muslimat....

...'Lord, You are the Most Compassionate and Most Loving....there is no God but You, Allah...and Mohammad is Your Prophet....I stand now before Thee...bringing doa's from my children, brethren and friends..from the people in my village...they seek your forgiveness, Lord...as they seek Your bounty...their lists are long as Your Compassion is endless....please, Lord, grant them their wishes...if You find them fair and of benefit to them....for truly, Lord, I know not what You know'...

..for pakmat, the haj is the divide...that separates him from the old and the new...but inasmuch as he knew his weaknesses, he knew his strength...

...and his journey starts not from the day he left  for Makkah....but from the day he returned...

man's proposals and God's disposals..

..Jabal Rahmah..

...he stood out like a sore thumb from among the golden, way past expiry date jemaah like pakmat and company...fair of skin, youngishly handsome, clean-shaven and hair cropped short..... .with a Colgate's smile, to boot...ahh...to be young and handsome...and in his case, to be young, handsome and on the plains of Arafat, doing the haj....its all that pakmat could do to supress his envy...

..waiting for pakmat's turn at the loo..

..I hardly noticed him earlier at Misfalah, being seldom at the hotel, but here we shared the same tent...and he was here as a mahram, family, to his grandmother..hmm...grandma's pet...and he smiled when I said that...but his smile was not that of a happy man....

... I mentioned him later to the wife as we were strolling around the tents whilst waiting asar...bakpo nyo....why, they were from Bachok...the grandmother was in the late fifties or early sixties...hale, healthy and smartly dressed when we left Kuala Trengganu Sultan Mahmood Airport, with dark shades, even...but her health took a turn after three or four days in the Holy City...

..Jabat Rahmah..

...she pee'd on the carpet as she walked pass, causing discomfort to the other jemaah's...slowly she started losing control over her body...and it was causing great discomfort to the grandson, unable to be with her as segregation among the sexes was enforced for the benefit of all...

..boiling hot water on tap...

..her daughters volunteered, but she refused, preferring her grandson....my wife added, reading the query in my eyes...she did not bargained on being sick....and I nodded in agreement...

...later I was to learn that she never recovered...her illness aggravated to the extent that she was certified by the medical authorities as 'lost all control over her bodily functions'...somehow they managed to complete the haj rituals, albeit wheel-chaired and left for home immediately after, missing out Medinah...I remembered her grandson's forlorn look as he wheel-chaired her for their trip back home...

..the plains of Arafat..

....by the sun and its morning glow

by the moon as it follows in tow

by the day as it reveals its glory

by the night as it conceals it totally

by the heaven and He who built it

and by a soul and He who proportioned it

inspiring it with depravity or piety

he who purified his soul has succeeded

and he who stifles it has failed....

surah Al-Shams

..on the 4th of November, 2011, the 8th of Zuhiljah, 1432 we left for the plains of Arafat...towards the Mount of  Arafat, Jabal Rahmah...it was a Friday... some walked the distance..some took a ride on the roof of a bus, in the cargo hold, as it were...but for pakmat and wife, it was a comfortable ride in one of the Muassasah air-conditioned buses...bus no. 16...

..for some, the journey was on top of a bus..

..we left the comforts of hotel Luat Al-TawHeed, Misfalah, with its attached bathrooms and hot water on tap, for two nights under tents pitched together to house more than a 100 of us per tent, with bedding of carpets spread on sand and communal toilets built on a rise, right on the septic tanks, where we lined up and waited our turns...it was one of haj most important rituals - the wukuf...and pakmat savoured its moments and the opportunities it brought...

..silhouetted in the evening sun..

...and it revealed pakmat's defects and weaknesses...as a muslim and as a man...but the moon that peered unhesitantly through the gaps of the tent bore witness...that the nights pakmat sat with those who read His Book...and solat with those who solat those additional solats...and the days he walked the plains of Arafat...mixing freely with his fellow pilgrims, trying to bridge differences in languages and cultures...and always, always, Jabal Rahmah as a backdrop....

..'by the moon as it  follows in tow'..viewed from
within the tent of Arafat as pakmat pondered...

..others before him had made this journey...clutched the same sand he clutched in between the carpets...looked up the same sky...others before him from amongst his family, his kin and kindred...they were here before there were airplanes....braving the waves for months on ships...bringing along stocks of food, budu and salted fish....

..pakmat with his brethren, all in ihram..

..as there will be others after him...his children, of which and of whom he fervently prayed...his grandchildren and great grandchildren...they will wukuf the same plain, look up the same sky...for the haj is His Gift...an opportunity...

..missus with her sisters...pic taken upon their request..

...he who purified his soul has succeeded...