Mecca

Late Friday night, Ousseynou and I travelled from Jeddah to Mecca with our guide Saad. It is incumbent upon all Muslims to make pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammad and the holiest site in Islam.

Around 1AM, we arrived at the Grand Mosque that houses the Kabaa, the place all Muslims face when praying. As the largest mosque in the world, it can accommodate up to 4 million people. We joined the thousands of worshipers circling the Kabaa in a ritual known as Tawaaf. The area surrounding the Kabaa was a veritable melting pot—Africans, Arabs, Turks, Iranians, South Asians—all converged in a single place of worship.

After circling the Kabaa seven times, we performed a second ritual of sa’i by walking between the hills of Safa and Marwah seven times. According to Islamic tradition, in order to test Abraham’s faith, God commanded him to leave his wife Hajar and son Ishmael in the desert without any provisions. As Hajar ran back and forth between the two hills in search of water, a spring miraculously arose where baby Ishmael was kicking his feet. The ritual of sa’i is meant to reenact Hajar’s frantic search for water and pilgrims still drink from the spring—now known as the well of ZamZam—to this day.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit Mecca. It was by far the highlight of my trip, and one of the most memorable experiences of my life.