How I did it: I went to Hajj 4 years ago when I was 18 years old. It happened quickly. In the 7th of Thu Alhejja, my dad asked me if I want to perform Hajj. I was surprised. He said he's going to travel today and I have to make my mind soon. I couldn't believe it, I was thinking this is my chance may be I won’t live to next year or may be next year I won’t be able to, I decided to go and start crying of joy ... I can't explain why did I cry but I was going to complete my religion I'm going to do the fifth pillar of Islam, it feels different.

 The Ka'aba in Mecca

That year the weather in Mekka was cold, we had a small tent with us. We "My dad, my sister and I) traveled by car, my dad's car. When we was colse to Almegat, my dad toke a shower and then wears the Ehram which is a white cloth, and when we arrived Almeqat we intent to perform Hajj this is what we called “Neyyah” you intend inside you that you’re going to do Hajj without saying it, like between you and God. Then we drove to Mekka, we arrived there in the morning, we went to the Ka’aba and made Tawaf Algodom, that is to circle the Ka’ab seven times, Algodom means arrival. Then we walk down the Safa and Marwa seven times also.

  Mena

Then we went to Mena. We stoped our car in there and built our tent (a plastic tent actually :$), my sister and I slept inside and my dad slept outside, he slept on a rug we had outside the tent. We collected small stones from Mena for further use. My dad was the one who made the dinner, breakfast, coffee and tea, he was a good cooker :P.

Arafa Mountain

Next day, Arafa, we woke up early and drove to Arafa, we park the car near a mountain and start walking inside Arafa. We sat there until sunset, saying prayers and Athkar and asking Allah to forgive us. A lot of different families were around us, Malaysian (I loved that family :) ), Egyptian, Kuwaiti, Pakistani and so many. It feels great to see your brothers around you from different countries you won't feel alone :) 

 Mozdalefah

After sunset, we drove to Mozdalefah, we had our dinner and that night was really cold. My dad toke us to a hotel in Mozdalefah to spend the night there, when we woke up the next day it was raining and the roads was full of water and everything is messy so my dad throw the Aqaba stone in Mena instead of us “me and my sister” then we went to Mekka to do Tawaf Alefada.

 AlJamarat (Pillars)

At night, we went to Mena after the rain has stopped our tent was down :D the weather was cold, we slept the night there and the next day we went to stone three stone pillars called “Jamrat”: The smaller, the medium and Jamrat Al-Aqabah, each thrown with seven stones. We did this for the 11th, 12th, 13th days of Thu Alhijjah. Then we got back to Riyadh, our cousins missed us :D because they spent Eid without us. I felt comfortable I preformed my Hajj the fifth pillar of Islam. What a relief :)  

Lessons & tips:

• Stay together with your family there is a lot of people there and you don't want to get lost
• Keep your place clean for the same reason although there is workers cleaning but as you are a Muslim you have to be clean
• Think about taking some can food and vegetables so you won't spend a lot of money  

Resources: Actually my dad knows how to perform Hajj he reads books, but about me when I was in school we have lessons about Hajj in religion class. But for the people who's interested I recommend those sites:

for Arab: http://www.tohajj.com/Display.Asp?Url=fqh054.htm

http://www.islamweb.net/hajj2003_en/HowtoPerformHajj1.html

Nov 06, 2008, 10:13AM PST | 2 comments