Thankful Slave: Hajj steps 9: Tawaf Ifadah

Tawaf Al Ifadah, the other most important pillar in Hajj...you just cannot miss it as there are no replacement for it and you need to come back to finish it, even if it was 30 years later!!..

After finishing the Jamarat at 04:00, we carried on our walk towards Mekkah. If you plan to walk to the Haram Mosque, you must take the Pedestrian road towards Mekkah. Beware that many people are confused at some point of time and might follow the signs for the cars, which is much longer. You must take a LEFT TURN towards Mekkah after you pass the Barbers, it is a path that has sun cover on top of it, so you should not miss it. There are also indication plates everywhere, you will not get lost so do not be scared.

Fortunately, the road between Mina and Mekkah is on a gentle down slope. This will help you as you are probably tired from the long walk you have done so far. However, just remember that Allah is Helping you in every step, so just keep holding onto Him to make your matters easy till the end and you should just be fine.

The trip from Mina to Mekkah will take you about 1 hour exactly. We reached the gates of the Haram Mosque at 05:00. My wife and daughter went to the ladies and I waited for them. We still had our back packs with us and I just left them hanging somewhere on the grills outside. Allah is there to Protect them from any harm and if it is written that you would get stolen, then there is not much you could do. Hopefully, Allah will not allow any thief to get onto your belongings.
Note: Although I am tall and put the back packs high, after I returned to take them, I found them buried under several other "heavy" other bags and it was all mingled and difficult to release the knots people had put on their bags, just keep this information in mind.

As my wife and daughter returned from the ladies, the Azan of Fejr took place. We prayed outside then entered the mosque to make our tawaf on the ground level.
It all went fine for the first 3 turns, but then, the Eid Salat took place and the pilgrims stopped the tawaf to make the salat of Eid. This is a mistake as the pilgrims are not obliged to pray the Eid Salat. The ground level was then in a mess, with some pilgrims trying to continue their tawafs while others deciding to stand in their path and pray the Eid salat. This generated tiredness on us all and my daughter could not continue any further..

I just can't walk anymore..:
When my daughter told me that and I looked at her face, I knew that it was maximum she could take. Now, trying to find a wheel chair inside the Haram will prove to be a little bit more complicated (and expensive) than anticipated.
We found a wheel chair person who asked us 800 SR!!. By that time, we did not have much money left in our pockets, we negotiated the price down to 600SR, but as I searched for the money to give him, we only had 560 SR left, which he accepted al hamdulil'Allah and we went to the 3rd floor to continue the rest of tawaf.
The duration of 1 tawaf on the 3rd floor lasts around 10mn. When we started on the ground level, our 1st turn took 10mn, the 2nd took 12mn and the 3rd took 15mn because the crowd kept coming. There are no much difference between the floors and the 3rd floor is more relaxing than the ground one, you can make more duas at ease.

The 560 SR wheel chair, make sure he does not run faster than required.

We started our Tawaf at 06:10 and finished the tawaf ifadha + the saii between Safah and Marwah by 08:50, so it took us 02:40 in total.

We went out of the Masjid after the Saii, then walked to the grills, picked up the back packs, walk again a bit, drew some money and headed to a Turkish restaurant for some very nice chicken grills to gain some strength.

Where are you? we are still stuck in the buses!!
At 10:00, I decided to call our group leader to give him from our news. I was shocked to learn that they still had not reached the Jamarat and they were stuck in the buses on the road after Muzdalifah, not even reaching the limits of Mina!!!...They could not believe that we had already finished all our rituals and were having nice food, so they decided to drop off the buses and continue by walk..I was glad that we did not stay in the buses and went by foot all the way from Arafat, it might not be easy, but it was certainly better than staying stuck in bus for hours and hours.

Return to the Hotel:
We took a taxi back to our hotel and paid the price of 200SR, we reached the hotel by 11:15, and took a good shower, changed the clothes and had good rest. Luckily, I managed to find a cash machine close by.
Note: it is not advised to try to negotiate taxi price from Mekkah, just grab any taxi as you might not have the chance to find another one. If you have already walked 30KM, I doubt that you would have enough energy to negotiate long or to stand again for much longer time, so just grab whatever taxi is there and for whatever price you will get.