 حجاج بيت الله للحج قد قصدون من كل فجن عميق أتم لابنة للمال والأوطاء أهلهم تركوا حجاج بيت الله للخير راجين الشوق يحمله آهد معهم درام السلام عليكم my name is Majid Ali Khokhar I'm a dentist from London and I've come on this spiritual journey for Hajj My name is Kumail Mehdi and I'm from Toronto Canada I'm originally from Pakistan and I have a brother and a sister and loving parents and currently for work purposes I work with the Ontario Public Service as a financial officer with the Ministry of Economic Development Trade and Employment السلام عليكم my name is Asim Zady and I'm from Toronto, Ontario I have a degree from the University of Toronto in political science and English and right now I work in the municipal government the Mississauga municipal government as well I have one older brother and a twin sister actually and both of them are medical doctors working in the states I've always faced challenges and from a very early age and I've been able to learn how to cope with challenges and overcome challenges I was actually born with cerebral palsy a minor case where I use canes and a walker to walk but I can still walk and I've had a few surgeries but Mashallah say they've been quite successful in fixing my vagaments I decided to come on this journey it's been in the back of my mind for many years because Alhamdulillah Allah has blessed me with everything but more recently I just had a son Isa Muhammad Koker and with that Barakat I had to give Allah back and so I decided to come on Hajj it is an archon or a tenant of our faith so that's one of the reasons this is also a very emotional journey because my father passed away earlier this year and I'm also doing this Hajj or during this Hajj I am honouring him and remembering him now my father performed his own Hajj in 1999 and he would have loved to before leaving he would have loved to have been able to share his own insights but unfortunately that's not possible so the decision to come to the Hajj has been a long pending one I always wanted to do Hajj as soon as possible at a young age and I first decided to do it two years ago but due to personal reasons I was not able to do it and this year I had the most phenomenal chance to apply for the Hajj and the Hajj Visa and Mashallah it has been a very good year for me I was married last year and this year I have a baby boy who I haven't seen since the day he was born he is currently in Calgary I miss him a lot and I told my wife if she would come before leaving for Hajj so I can meet him and meet her as well but due to his young age he was not able to travel from Calgary to Toronto but thanks to my wife she has never let me feel that way and she has always sent me pictures every day videos of my son and to this day even over here sitting in a hotel right next to the Haram she sent me a couple of pictures every day just so I am with my son and her I wanted to come with my wife and my son but there were a lot of complications in a young person traveling and the reason why I took the parent to leave was it is hard to get a four weeks vacation to come over here and do a once in a lifetime spiritual journey while you are working full time so I decided to take the small break and do the Hajj even though I know that I would miss them dearly but I am looking forward to going back on October 10th and my wife and my son will be coming back on October 10th as well and I am looking to spend every minute with them to be honest I was quite nervous to come on Hajj nervous because I was to meet my lord the carba that I prayed to every day of my life I was going to be there and see the carba directly in front of me and I was finding I am a sinner I missed my lord so I was pretty nervous I left in Allah's hands and Alhamdulillah the visa got approved the ticket was booked and then I slowly started to become excited I said my farewells very difficult when you've got a seven month load and a lovely wife at home but Alhamdulillah this trip is just for Allah you have to leave your family your money, your car, your work everything behind is just for Allah and that makes it easier when you know it's just for your lord when I made the decision to come to Hajj I asked my cousin if he wanted to come and I knew he would not say no he wanted to make this journey because it meant so much for him his father passed away seven months ago exactly today and he was his partner he was one of his best friends and I knew how much this would mean to him and I was willing to help him any way possible and once he's here I realized that he's more strong willed than I am I learned from him more faith than I think I had and a small faith story I would tell you about him is up until three days before we would have departed for Hajj our visas were not confirmed I had I had left all hope of coming to Hajj and I had accepted that it's a calling of a love whoever he wants to call to his house and I accepted it but awesome he said that no we are going to get the visa you're coming to my home and we're packing and the faith that I see in him I still had no hope I still went to his house we did some packing even though we had no visa and while we were packing we got an email from our coordinator, travel coordinator that we have got the visas and it was a moment of joy and again to test our faith differently on how people believe in what they will have and achieve I faced I actually was going to come on Hajj with my walker and Keynes which I have with me but when I got to Medina I realized that my walker was nowhere to be found so that really caught me by surprise because the walker allows me to be more stable and I can actually walk quicker so right now for Umrah and Hajj I am using I am using my Keynes in a wheelchair which I had not actually anticipated on using the wheelchair at all لاباك الله لاباك الله لاباك لاباك لاباك إن الحمد ونعمة لك والملك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك لاباك في القرية التي موجودنا مع بناتها . ربما قديم التعلق بها ، حيث نقوم بمردها ونقوم ببرناها . وردناها ، ومنذ أن هناك أمر مستمر من أشخاصين لقد أخذتني as an awe that VR here and it was a moment that I still did not cannot get over that this is real I was fortunate enough to send my salam to the master of all mankind right next to where he's buried And I was able to be next to him for a good 30 minutes and it was a very unreal experience And also you mentioned Bucky, it's a very different level of experience The Bucky is not too far from where our Prophet is buried And Bucky the power of the imams that are there All tens and thousands of prophets that are there They give us everything We learn from Prophet Muhammad SAW The rules of religion Then we've got Imam Ali who has protected the religion And then we've got Imam Hassan AS During his time of the Khilafat he was actually trying his best to maintain unity within the Ummah And so we learned from Imam Hassan AS compromise And then finally with Imam Hassan AS The best thing we learned from him is how to non-violently affect change And because of Imam Hussein's non-violent act or act for Islam Imam Hussein has been a role model not for not just for Muslims but for the whole of humanity So going on this journey in the bus ride I became more and more anxious, nervous Will Allah accept me I'm a big sinner I've done many wrongs in my life I'm coming here to perform this Holy pilgrimage Am I worthy? Slowly I thought I've been accepted to come But still I was nervous We walked in the mosque We had Ahram We adjusted it We prayed our namaz Still nervous We did Talbiyah لباك اللهم لباك لباك اللا شريكة لقى لباك We said this Every time we said this Something changed inside This courage This energy came in And when I finished And I was walking outside the mosque I thought I'm not nervous anymore I'm not nervous at all The mission had started The pilgrimage had started The spiritual journey had started And that made me feel closer to Allah Subhan Allah Just being there was unreal And I was there with my cousin Awesome And he re-shared a very touching experience over there Where we were not able to go up in the front And view the imams with our naked eyes But we were just standing there We were praying there To even have a glimpse of it And out of all of a sudden There was this man who came up And he knew that we wanted to be in the front And do the ziyarat For all four imams over there And he cleared the way for us We went up in the front And when we were there You know You have four imams over there A six muscle means over there It's a very unreal experience One of the best things about Medina Was that we went on a tour And visited several sites Where the Holy Prophet Peace Be Upon Him And his family had walked And that feeling of me Walking on the same ground That the Holy Prophet Peace Be Upon Him Had walked on Was overwhelming One of the places we went to Was Uhud Where obviously the famous battle occurred And we traced the steps of Where the horses went And his uncle Hamza Was actually buried There's a beautiful feeling To be part of that history The only problem was that To pay our respects to his uncle Which the Prophet has specifically asked for He said there's a hadith If you go to Medina And you don't visit my uncle It's like you haven't visited me So we visited his uncle However his uncle's grave Was covered in a cement boundary With glass Which you couldn't see through Luckily somebody had broken a space through And through the space We looked at the Prophet's uncle And paid our respects A very sad reality After that We went to Masjid-e-Kiblaten Two kiblas A story you hear about When you were a child Where the Prophet peace be upon him Was praying And the whole mosque Jama'at had to turn around 180° We actually went to this mosque You can actually see The old Mehrab And the new one And so we prayed Two رقات نمارس There for the Masjid God willing Ask your hajat Insha'Allah To fulfill the name of these imams There are millions who go to Karbala But only a few who come here لأنهم ينفقون في حياتهم ونفقون بعدهم لذا دعنا نسأل الله سبحانه وتعالى فراحة جاد ونسمع هذه الأشياء قمزة الذي يسمى سيد الشهداء قبل إمام الحسين عليه السلام وكثيرا بأنه قمزة لسيد الشهداء أبا عبد الله ولكننا نسأل الله سبحانه وتعالى أنا فقط أبقى في مكان where this history had occurred ونحن في بس نحن نتحدث عن شيخ خلي كيف حدث يحدث أنه قمزة جماعه 180° بأنه حدث في صلاة صلاة لذا يجب أن يتعلم جميعه بأنه سيكون هناك محطة يمكن أن يكون في صلاة صلاة وعندما يحدث نحن نفعل هذا يتبعون وكل شخص يتبعون 180° والصلاة يتبعون والأفضل هو أن تذهبون إلى هذه المسك والزيارات ويستطيع أن تظهر هذه المسك بحيث أن يكون هناك مدرسة في مدرسة في لندن يمكنك أن تتكلم عن هذه المسك عندما تذهبون هنا المسك يتبعون وهذا هو المسك أخر موسك الذي نشاهده هو المسجد القوبة هذا هو المسك الأول that was made الناس جميعا جميعا sunnah جميعا جميعا جميعا جميعا جميعا جميعا جميعا جميعا جميعا جميعا الجميع ينزل مدينة وعلي ما شکته ومسه should وعلي ما شکته ومسه ويهجم يتبعون يفضل يقسم على المسك يتبعون ويستطيعه لماذا في المسك لقد كانت الكثير من المشاركات لأن فقط جنة الباكي والمدينة المشاركات لم تكن فقط ونحن مستعدة لنضع أراماتنا في مجد الشجرة ونأتي إلى المكان where we always have prayed المجد الشجرة التي نضع أراماتنا في مجد الشجرة ونقوم بتتعذي الحصول لأن Our Prophet when he performed the Hajj for the first and the only time in his life he put the arama with there And you followed what he did and it's an amazing experience that you just keep going on how our Prophet did it بعد 5 سنوات من مجدد الشجرة نحن في مجدد الهرام وكل فتاة وعادة من الناس يتحدث عن تشاهد الكابة ويضع الهرام علىها لقد كان always an emotional experience ويجب أن نكون نفس المجدد لذلك نحن نتحدث عن المزيد من الهرام حتى إلى المدى المسك نقولنا لباك الله وملاباك وشريك الله وشريك الله وملاباك وفي الم moment of the truth كان هناك تطبيقك تطبيقك كان هناك تطبيقك you bow down every day 5 times a day and the first experience of have laying my eyes on the kabah was once I entered the mosque I was accompanied by a friend I didn't want to be alone at the time I wanted to share that experience and I wanted to see the experience of others as well and once we walked in could see a very small glimpse of Kaaba but I wanted to see a full Kaaba in front of my eyes so I lured my gaze and I kept on saying like God here I am and slowly I walked to him knowing how how sinful person I was I am and knowing that my creator will forgive me and the first time I laid my eyes upon the Kaaba I stared at it for a minute and I went straight into the prostration I went straight into the Sajda and I glorified Allah at that time with all my heart and soul it's difficult to touch the Kaaba even if you're a big man able bodied full of strength Asim needed help but his request was an honest request and we decided to help him there were four of us two in the front two on his side and Alhamdulillah we made the request after we'd done the Tuaaf another brother that I knew just came out of nowhere and helped us and the crowd seemed to move for us and we slowly planned the movement inside and we managed to get him in and it was a beautiful moment because he was very emotional to touch the Holy Kaaba he wasn't sure if he would be able to touch it but Alhamdulillah he touched it and his wish was complete because he came on this journey for his father who had passed away recently and this is maybe why he was emotional so Alhamdulillah we were grateful for Allah having blessed us to have this opportunity and share in the feeling it was quite difficult to do but I'm just happy that I was able to do that because these crowds are just immense I mean I was just elated to have the opportunity to be so close to the Kaaba and remember you know among these birthdays and his Makam in Islam and his contributions to Islam wearing the Eram was something quite new and actually quite uncomfortable because you have two pieces of unstitched cloth and just getting everything around the bottom part and the shoulder part was something that can be challenging and I found challenging especially walking and when you're trying to climb on the bus it was a bit of a challenge but I had my cousin Kumail helping me and in terms of how to cope with the challenges that we had I'm just maintaining my ... and just remembering why I'm here which is to try to elevate my spiritual self and I think that once you do that physical hardships once spirituality has been elevated that physical hardships they diminish so I may not feel it as badly and with that in mind I'm putting my feet forward happily I have prepared for this before I even left home me and Asim's had started before we boarded the plane and we were determined on whatever challenges there are we will do it, we will face it and currently in my room we are three people and all three of us are down with a sore throat and flu and some other disease because we're down in a place where there are two million people and you're all together, you're bound to have some kind of challenge and I am still looking forward to all the challenges that there are whether it be in Arafa, Mosdalifah and I know for sure that even if I'm not up for it I know Asim is definitely up for it he's the one who's always pushing me he's the one who's brave enough to go forward and just to see his strength and faith is amazing and that's what gets me going as well and I'm looking forward to actually performing the Hajj together with Asim if I would be very honored to be considered a helper or Ansar of Imam Zaman Ali أجل الله وفرجه his relation with me it's one that I would hope continues to grow and the best thing I think we can do to prepare for Imam is to make ourselves the best Muslims that we can possibly be so to be the best you can be so whether that's praying our Salat on time and regularly or our Zakat on time and just generally helping fellow humans because a lot of people they they're really great with the Arqans or the Amals of the Deen but when it comes to Imam a lot or relationships with others be it co-workers, relatives or which includes non-Muslims they kind of drop the ball there because as Muslims in the West we are ambassadors of Islam so we must ensure that we are representing Islam to the best of our ability and in a light that is welcoming and invites people through Islam not when people look at us they see oh these people are always wait or these people don't help out or they're self-interested so we must make sure that essentially we must make sure essentially that we're the best Muslims we can be and inshallah when we are Imam is Imam will inshallah use our skills that we bring to use our skills or our talents for his needs