Monday, 20 January 2025
Early morning, we had breakfast at the hotel. There was a nice spread but I wasn’t able to eat much due to the heavy dinner from the previous night.
After breakfast, we went up to the roof to check out the lounge. It had a nice view of the surrounding area.
We checked out at 10AM and started our tour. The first stop was a fruit stall. Taif is famous for its fresh fruits.
From there, we headed to the Rose Perfume Orchard. It’s a touristy place that has a rose orchard and perfume made from roses.
Our third stop was Taif Town. It is a small town but with significant islamic history. There is a famous mosque in the city centre called Abdullah ibn Abbas Mosque.
We stopped by Aman & Zaman Cafe, a traditional looking cafe in the middle of Al Balad, Taif.
We then visited the Abdullah Ibn Abbas Mosque, located in the town center. From the mosque, we visited the Addas Mosque. It is the place where the prophet rested from his journey to Taif in 620CE.
After leaving Taif town, we had lunch at an arabic mandy rice shop at the outskirts of town.
Given that we are planning to perform umrah tonight, we had to perform the miqat (ritual to initiate intention and wearing ihram). The nearest miqat point for us was Qarn Al Manazil. All miqat points are essentially a mosque with facilities to change. There were quite a number of other pilgrims there too performing miqat.
From Qarn Al Manazil, we headed straight to Makkah. We arrived at Intercontinental Hotel Makkah around 6:30PM.
My last visit to Makkah was nearly 20 years ago. My immediate reaction was feeling amazed by the tall buildings surrounding the mosque, and also shocked by the large crowds akin to Hajj.
We started umrah at 9:30PM. The route to enter the mosque is quite different from my last visit as pilgrims in ihram were given a special route. To better manage large crowds, only pilgrims in ihram are allowed on the ground floor of the mosque (and to the mataaf area, that is, the tawaf area)
I could see major renovations going on in the mosque. The mutawwif told us the Saudi government is expanding the infrastructure to accommodate more pilgrims.
The last time I performed Umrah was nearly 20 years ago. Back then it was very different. The crowds were not as heavy and there were no big buildings (such as The Clock Tower) around the mosque.
Despite the heavy crowds, I was able to perform the tawaf on the maataf (the while floor surrounding the Kaaba), and did the Sai’e on the walking route. Alhamdulillah we were able to complete the ritual at 12:30AM.
Imran Jaafar 