14th January 2020

Despite my predictions, I could not sleep for more than 2 hours. Surprisingly, I was feeling fresh like I do (almost never). Fully charged and determined to make the most of the day, Shakeeb and I left for Masjid Al Haram.

Today, Shakeeb and I did Tawaaf on ground floor. It is surprisingly shorter, even though the mataaf area from Hajr-e-swad to Hateem is awfully packed. The distance between second and fourth corner is relatively sparse and we could navigate our ways in and out of crowd. No matter what, one round takes at least five minutes and one Tawaaf takes 40-45 minutes. It nearly doubles on first floor as the circumference of circumambulation doubles.  

We did zohr, my first farz namaaz inside Haram Shareef, and that too with Imam leading.

Can life be any better?

After one Tawaaf, we came back to first floor, offered wajib-u-tawaaf and had some snacks. In this tawaaf, we were lucky to get close enough to maqaam-e-ibrahim, touch it and see the footprints of Ibrahim pbuh.   

Then we headed back to mataaf and started doing second tawaf. This time we were very close to kaaba and walked right next to hateem. We could see hajr-e-aswad, the real hajr-e-aswad and not just the border around it. And touched maqaam-e-ibrahim a second time. The second tawaaf took 45 minutes 

 After wajib-u-tawaaf and sunnah we offered Asr and came back. We discovered that Bab Al ajyad is much easier to get into, without much walking and it takes us fairly close to hajr-e-aswad, the beginning point of tawaaf. 

 I have stayed in the room since. 

 January 14 will be forever etched into my memories as the day I did Umrah and two Tawaaf, alhamdulillah. 

Prayers for all ummah.

Shabana Mukhtar