Pilgrimage in Makkah and Madinah, let it be Hajj or Umrah, is an upfront gallery of human relations – fathers helping sons with Ihram, husbands fending wives from crowd, young and stout shield-walking old and weak while performing Tawaf (circumambulation), children and grandchildren pushing parents’ or grandparents’ wheelchairs.
My effort to recall these frames from my Umrah memories soon turns into a regret that I should’ve carried my camera all the time to catch all of them. Then it strikes it was in fact a blessing in disguise that I didn’t carry the camera all the time, because that would have defeated the very purpose of being in the holy land at the first place.
But missing the time is a good thing – it reinforces the urge to go back to the holy places again and again. You can add to the goodness by praying for your family and friends to be there too, to be able to get the point an emotional you try to make ever since.
This was taken shortly after daylight had just begun in Makkah and waves of pilgrims that had either been for Fajr prayers or spent the night inside Masjid al-Haram was flowing out. As it is both him old enough to be her son and her young enough to be his mother, the resemblance makes me assume they are probably siblings, Masha’Allah.
Just Another Muslim 