Mohsin Aziz 

Each Hajj journey is unique. Every Hajj pilgrim has some deeply personal, emotional, and spiritual story to share. It is very normal for pilgrims coming back from Hajj to share their unique, often deeply emotional and spiritual encounters. How a stranger helped when there seemed none or how suddenly their problem was solved when their was no hope. People who have still not made the journey listen to these stories with reverence and hope that one day they would also get a chance to go to Macca. However, some stories stand out, become viral (in todays social media driven environment), and provide unique insight on the desire of millions to make once in a lifetime journey. Here are four incredible Hajj stories that I found very unique. I am witness to two of them.

Four incredible stories

The first story is of a poor Ghanian villager, Al Hassan Abdullah. It all started with a Turkish film crew shooting a shot in his village with a drone. Al-Hassan asked the crew, ‘if a drone can take him to Macca’. The story was shared on social media by the crew and went viral in Turkey. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavasoglu, intervened and helped arrange his trip to Macca (Daily Sabah, 2017). The poor man had no monetary means to do Hajj, but he had genuine desire. Often, we believe that money is required for Hajj. Yes, it’s true. But as this story shows that many times, genuine desire trump’s monetary problems. It was his intence desire that made him ask that innocent question full of hope. Nobody found his question to be childish, though it might look like on the surface. Everyone saw the burning desire of thus poor person to visit the mist desired place for millions of believers.

The second story is an incredible story of faith and hope from Libya. This was the viral story of Hajj 2025. A Libyan man travelling for Hajj was stopped at the airport in Libya. His name flagged on systems no fly list. By the time he was cleared to fly, the doors of the aeroplane were closed. The pilot, despite the request of the ground staff, refused to open the door as all the procedures were done, and he had a go signal from the Air Traffic Controller. The Aeroplane left without Amer Al Mahdi Al Gaddafi. He was determined to go to Hajj and refused to leave the airport. A short distance in the flight, the aeroplane developed a technical snag and was forced to return. The engineers fixed the issue.and the aeroplane took off again. The Aeroplane took off and developed technical malfunction again. The pilot, according to the passengers, said,’ I swear I won’t fly again unless Aamer is with us on this plane’. Aamer boarded the plane and did do his Hajj.

The third story relates to my Hajj. There were people many people from Oman in my group who applied, but their names were not selected for Hajj. There were a few whose names were on the waiting list. They were frentically and fervently praying till the end that some miracle may happen and they may get a chance to the guest of Allah. This is the story of a couple from Rajasthan. The wife, before the Hajj flight from Muscat, fell and hurt her back. It was not a bad fall, and the injury was not serious. They were apprehensive at first but then decided to go ahead. They were on the flight with me. They had a reasonably good time in Madina. With the group, they travelled to Macca for Hajj on 1 June 2025. They completed their Umrah and joined. On the 2nd and 3rd of June, they were in Macca. On the night of 3rd June, the wife had  pain. The next day, we were shifting to Mina to start Hajj. Hajj is a five day affair. Out of the five days, the most important rukan is the stay at Arafat on the second day. It was falling on the 5th of June. If a pilgrim misses any rukan, there is dum (expiation). However, there is no dum for Arafat. It is compulsory. If one misses Arafat, Hajj is considered not done. That is why Saudi authorities have special arrangements for Arafat Day. For those who fall sick and can not go to Arafat, special arrangements are made. Sick are taken to the ground of Arafat on ambulance with doctor and paramedical staff. The duration of the ambulance stay in Arafat depends on the medical condition of the pilgrim. Those who are serious are kept for a while and moved to the clinic or hospital. They stay at Arafat, albeit for a short while, validating their Hajj. Hours before our groups departure for Mina on 4th June, the couple decided that they could not go ahead further and decided to quit Hajj. When Jamal bhai heard of this, he tried to convince them to change their decision. They were not convinced. Their daughter, who was a doctor in Abu Dhabi, counselled them to return. Their son from New York called and said that he will bring their parents next year. Jamal bhai tried to convince them that nobody knew about the future. We may lose health or even wealth by next year and may not be able to do Hajj. We may not even be alive by next year. Despite a lot of prodding from Jamal bhai, they were adamant about their decision. Finally, Jamal bhai gave in and made arrangements for their Jeddah journey so that they could go back to Muscat. When the Saudi authorities got to know of the situation, they sprang to action. At the Jeddah airport, people from Saudi Hajj ministry tried to convince them to postpone their plan for a few days. They were promised to be taken in ambulance for a very short time, The couple did not change their mind. The Saudi authorities kept convincing them. After a while, the husband said,’Who can stop us? Hearing  this statement, the official  said that nobody would stop them, and they were allowed to leave. It was a matter of a few hours, but their Hajj was not to be. I pray that they get to do it very soon.

The last story that I want to share is from Aligarh. I am personally witness to it. The university house that was allotted to my father at the Aligarh Muslim University had a sprawling lawn in front and a huge kitchen garden at the back. Once in a while, we required help to clean the weed. It so happened that once no worker was available. The only one available was a poor old man aged 60. We were reluctant to hire him looking at his age. He insisted that he would do a good job. He was hired by my fatheron condition that instead of 3 days that were usually required, we would hire him for 5 days. He was asked to work at his own pace with adequate rest in between. However, he surprised us with his hard work, finishing the work on the second day itself. Still, we kept him engaged in some work or the other. He was not only very hardworking but very particular about working full 8 hours. In between, he took two very short breaks for Zuhr and Asr. On day four, I learned that he is from Azamgarh and has been living alone in Aligarh for the last three years. He came to Aligarh in search of work. The sole aim of his life at that point was to save enough money to go for Hajj. He was, for the last three years, working and saving every possible Rupee for the dream journeyof his life. He had no other desire. According to his estimate, if he could save at the same rate, it would take him 2 more years to have enough savings for Hajj. It was an incredibly motivating story for me. An old person, living alone for 3 years and doing physically hard labour, striving to get enough money for Hajj. When his work finished on day 5, my father did pay him some extra money, which he took very reluctantly. I hope that his dream was fulfilled.

There are millions of such stories. They provide us motivation to prepare for our Hajj. May Allah allow every Muslim to do Hajj as early as possible in his / her life. May Allah accept my Hajj, Ameen.

(Continued in Part 13)

References:

Ata, Huda (2025) Faith, fate and a flight: How a pilgrim named Al-Gaddafi finally made it to Hajj. Gulf News, 25 May. Available at: https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/faith-fate-and-a-flight-how-a-pilgrim-named-al-gaddafi-finally-made-it-to-hajj-1.500139626

Daily Sabah (2017) Turkey fulfills wish of Ghanian villager dreaming of Hajj. 18 August. Available at: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailysabah.com/turkey/2017/08/18/turkey-fulfills-wish-of-ghanaian-villager-dreaming-of-hajj/amp