The Evening Post

Sep 8, 2010

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‘Peace envelopes us, even before reaching Makkah’

Pilgrims on their way to board

By Sindhu Suresh
sindhu@eveningpost.ae
Dubai is main transit point for western tourists on their way to the Holy City for Hajj

Dubai Groups of pilgrims on their way to the Holy City of Makkah to perform Hajj, congregated at the Dubai International Airport yesterday. Outnumbering pilgrims from the UAE, however, were transit passengers from as far as Australia and the United States. All of them were to fly to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on special Hajj flights being operated by Emirates and Saudi Arabian Airlines.
Groups of pilgrims from the United States, Australia and New Zealand stopped over at Dubai yesterday morning to board the evening Emirates flight to Jeddah. They were accommodated in hotels during the intervening period.
While some pilgrims turned up in white garments, clad appropriately for the pilgrimage, others said they would change from their casual attire in the plane, just before reaching the holy city.
Although settled in the West, most of these pilgrims hail from the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. Nafeesa Sheriff, who travelled from Australia with her husband, is making the pilgrimage for the second time. “From the moment the finer details of the journey are in place and debts cleared, one experiences a wonderful change from within,” she says. Sheriff was part of a 15-member group that boarded the flight from Dubai to the holy city last evening.
Ali Hussain, leading a group of 100 pilgrims from Sydney, Australia, says it is his sixth pilgrimage. “At forty, this is by Allah’s grace,” he explains. “It is not easy to make the pilgrimage as the process is quite elaborate. I happen to be one of the organisers of a group that arranges Hajj pilgrimages in the city I live. That is how I could make it for the Hajj as many as six times,” he says.
Zain Sheriff, originally from Pakistan, has been living in Sydney for the past 25 years. Last year, Sheriff and his wife made the pilgrimage for the first time after trying to do so for 18 years. When asked why he wished to make a second visit to the Holy City of Makkah, he says, “It is not I who decided to go. The call has to come from the Prophet (PBUH) and when it comes nothing or nobody can stop you,” he says.
Akhtar Maqsood and his wife Amra have travelled from the United States. They reached Dubai on Friday as part of a group of 60 pilgrims that travelled to Jeddah last evening by the special Emirates flight.
Maqsood says this is their third Hajj pilgrimage. Talking about life in the US, he says religion has become a casualty of the war on terror in the West. “We take care not to do anything that would make people around suspicious. That is the price one has to pay for no reason at all,” he says.
Maqsood, however, adds that the difficult times only made people more determined to practice their religion. “This year, we had 20,000 applications for the pilgrimage from the US. Last year, it was 14,000,” he says.
For these pilgrims, Hajj is an experience of a lifetime. Zain Sheriff describes his experience in Makkah as “incredible”. He says, “It cannot be explained. It is not just peace, but a kind of bliss that can only be felt. The peace envelopes one’s self even before reaching Makkah.”
Like Khalid Hussain Altaher, Department of Civil Aviation employee, says, “I have been a member of the Hajj reception team for the past six years, but have not been able to make the pilgrimage. Inshallah, I may go next year.”