Saturday, 25 January 2025
Today we visited a few sites around Madinah. These are the typical sites visited by umrah pilgrims. We started the day by visiting the Quba Mosque.
Quba Mosque is considered the first mosque in Islam as it was founded on the prophet’s first day in Madinah when he arrived there in 7th century.
After Quba Mosque, we visited a date farm. It is a famous shopping stop for the pilgrims as we get to buy dates directly from the farm.
From the date farm, we went to visit the martyrs of the Battle of Uhud (625CE). It was the location of the battle between the early Muslims against the Quraysh. There were a lot of lessons to be reflected at the battle site. The graveyard of the 70 martyrs is located near the Uhud Mountain.
In the afternoon, we went for some light shopping at Bin Dawood. It’s a well known supermarket near our hotel.
In the evening, we decided to try Dubai Chicken for dinner. They serve the famous broast chicken. It is surprisingly crispy and juicy.
Sunday, 26 January 2025
In the morning, we visited the Prophet’s Mosque Museum. It was located next to the Prophet’s biography museum. We signed up for a guided tour at the biography museum which started a bit later, so we explored the mosque museum first.
Much to my surprise, the exhibitions inside the mosque museum was really interesting. It showed a replica of how the Nabawi mosque looked like during prophet’s time, and how the building evolved over time.
There were also details on how the prophet’s burial chamber was sealed over time. Between the 2 museums, I find the mosque museum to be the most fascinating.
For zohur prayers, we managed to get a seat outside of rawdah. After going to the mosque museum earlier, I realised this section is the original section from the prophet’s time.
In the afternoon, I went to explore the buildings near my hotel. I wanted to have a look at the Uthman bin Affan hotel.
The mutawif informed us about Saidina Uthman’s bank account in Madinah. I was really fascinated and did some reading. The 3rd Rashidun Caliph, Saidina Uthman bin Affan (576 – 656 CE), really does have a bank account in Madinah in modern times.
During his life, he performed waqf on many of his properties around Madinah that up to this day, those properties generated so much revenue (such as rent from hotels as seen above, plantations etc). To manage the revenue from the waqf land, the Saudi government created an account in his name. The money paid into his account is then used for various charities.
Later in the evening, I went to take away dinner from Sunda, an Indonesian restaurant that serves excellent fried rice.
Monday, 27 January 2025
Today is our flight back to Malaysia. We checked out from the hotel early in the morning and took the high speed train back to Jeddah.
The departure side of the airport looks new and modern.
At the airport, the mutawif gave us our pre-packed zam-zam water. About 20 years ago, the pilgrims had to buy their own empty bottles and fill in the zam-zam water themselves. The pre-packed zam-zam now is much easier to carry around.
I managed to get another round of Al-Baik before boarding the flight home. All in all, it was an amazing pilgrimage. It provided a whole new appreciation to the history of the prophet and the struggles of early muslims. I am looking forward to come again with my 2 daughters, hopefully sometime in the future.
Related posts: Umrah part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7
Imran Jaafar 