We welcome you to our sīrah caravan, wherein we seek to tread the path of our Prophet ﷺ throughout some of the pivotal milestones of his life. Allah has graced us with eight full days in Mecca and Medina, to draw closer unto Him while journeying through the sacred lands that hosted the Message and the Messenger ﷺ. From all corners of Earth, our travels begin with our arrival at Mecca, home to the Prophet’s paternal ancestors, and onwards to Medina, home to the Prophet’s maternal ancestors. Though Mecca was home, our migration to Medina is homecoming.
And so we advance toward Mecca with the promise of Allah in His majestic Book “Verily, Ṣafā and Marwah are of the symbols of Allah, and he who makes the pilgrimage (ḥajj) unto the House or visits it (ʿumrah) shall not be to blame to lap betwixt the twain; and he who obeys his own impulse toward good: God requites and well knows” (al-baqarah 2:158). Behold, our Lord invites us into forgiveness as guests in His House. Together in Mecca, we shall visit:
- the site of the birth of the Beloved ﷺ to glean the traces of light that his mother, Ãminah, beheld in a vision;
- the home of his noble wife, our mother Khadījah whereupon Jibrīl descended to convey the greetings of God;
- jabal al-nūr, whereupon Jibrīl descended with the advent of Truth;
- the valley of al-ṭāʾif, whereat the Beloved ﷺ turned to Heaven with heartfelt hands pleading for those who banished him, pleading for their progeny;
- the site of the pledge of ʿaqabah, whereat we will covenant with the Messenger ﷺ;
- jabal thawr, whereat the dove and the spider conspired to protect their Prophet ﷺ before his blessed migration.
And then we migrate to Allah and to the Beloved of Allah ﷺ, pressing toward Medina at the behest of our Lord “If only after they had sinned to their own hurt, they had come to thee asking pardon of Allah, and the Apostle had asked for their pardon, they would surely have found Allah relenting, compassionate” (al-nisāʾ 4:64). Behold, our Lord invites us into forgiveness in the presence of His Messenger ﷺ. Together in Medina, we shall visit:
- masjid qubāʾ with the echoes of voices that aforetime welcomed the Beloved of their hearts and ours ﷺ as they sang “The full moon shone upon us”;
- the well of al-ʿidhq to drink from the water that quenched Abū Bakr’s thirst as the Beloved ﷺ sipped;
- masjid al-qiblatayn, where hearts turned toward God turned toward God;
- the masjid of the Prophet ﷺ, wherein his companions took to ascend day and night;
- the marketplace of manākhah, where the ethics of trade were coined into proverbial maxims;
- the battlegrounds of badr and uḥud, where companions gave their lives for us to come to know him ﷺ as they knew him;
- the homes of the companions, wherein angels beheld at dawn the recitation of verses just revealed that twilight;
- the site of khandaq, whereat Salmān the Persian was ascribed to the Prophet ﷺ as family;
- the graveyard of al-baqīʿ, where we hope to be buried in unmarked graves, lost among the Prophet’s uncles, his aunts, his wives, his children, his descendants, ten thousand of his companions, the greatest sages and scholars of this ummah, and the pious dead of Medina, whose death-right it is to be buried in al-baqīʿ and granted his intercession on the Day of Reunion.
We gratefully respond to this bountiful invitation from our Lord to be forgiven in the sacred lands of revelation and to commit our lives and souls to bear the mantle of the Beloved of Allah ﷺ and his pure family and noble companions. labbayka l-lāhumma labbayk, labbayka ilāha l-ḥaqqi labbayk (At Your behest, Allah, at Your behest! At Your behest, God of Truth!).
