Name: The Girl With No Arms | #MyHajjStory
Uploaded: 2020-07-28T19:45:54.000Z
Channel: Dr. Edward Omar Moad
Description: Dr. Edward Moad reflects on some of the harsher realities witnessed while performing Hajj.

<p>Dr. Edward Moad reflects on some of the harsher realities witnessed while performing Hajj.  </p>

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My Hajj Story

 When I thought to myself what would be the thing that I remember most,  well there's an event or a strange sort of series of events  that happened on my first hajj that I always think about.  Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.  I was asked to tell about some of my experiences on hajj.  I went for hajj twice, the first time by myself and then the second time to take my wife.  And we traveled from Qatar to Mecca. It was a pretty short trip, alhamdulillah.  When I thought to myself what would be the thing that I remember most,  well there's an event or a strange sort of series of events  that happened on my first hajj that I always think about.  And that is, well it started when we first came to the Masjid al-Haram.  And of course I remember that I was very excited to see the mosque in the Kaaba for the first time.  But when we came across the hill or came over a sort of rise,  there's an empty space, as soon as we could see the mosque,  what we saw in front of us were a large number of African children spread out in the open space,  many of them having some kind of deformities or injuries.  For example, I remember one holding out a sort of mangled hand.  And they were all chanting something and they have buckets hanging around their heads  and they're all kneeling on the ground.  And there was a large woman covered in niqab kind of standing to the side watching them.  So that was almost kind of like a horror movie.  I mean, we were just ready to see the sacred mosque and then we see this.  So it was the first experience, it was quite shocking.  And it left kind of an impression on me.  And specifically I saw one young girl or one very small girl  with apparently like no arms or like her arms are, you know, severed or missing from here.  And she's holding them out and waiting for people to put some money in her bucket.  So, yeah, the first thing that crossed my mind was, you know, well, how can, you know,  this place, which is a sacred city, how can it be allowed that, you know,  children and people are treated like this in this place?  How can the authorities of this country, where they're supposed to be the custodians of this place,  for example, allow this, you know?  So it's like deeply disturbed.  And of course, when we were finished, now this was the initial,  so the first sort of trip to the mosque, you start with the end of Hajj.  When we came back to our residence, you know, hajjis were discussing it and some people said,  well, you know, there are people who take these children and use them to make money.  So they think or they claimed that this girl's arms were cut off by the people who want to use her to,  you know, send her out to beg.  And then somebody else said that she really has arms, but we're hiding them behind her garment,  you know, like this.  So, yeah, so I didn't know what to think, right?  And it was deeply disturbing.  In general, it kind of went with the whole experience, whereby you're here at a place where you go inside the mosque  and everything is, you know, holy and peaceful and everybody is worshipping together.  But outside, you know, you feel that, you know, it's surrounded by, you know,  the absolute corruption of, you know, I guess, human humanity, human society, right?  And the distinction or the contrast between what we need from God and what God gives us through obedience to him  and worship and, you know, what he expects from us and what the world is actually like outside.  You know, the world is not like a paradise.  It's not a utopia.  But anyhow, these things are always going through my mind.  But the reason is because I kept seeing, well, I don't know, the reason this went along with the experience,  I kept seeing the same girl with no arms.  And in particular, during our trips to Stone the Pillars, she was always there because these kids were always,  you know, they're placed in the route wherever the pilgrims go, right?  And so I saw her a couple of more times, I guess, to make a long story short.  And in between there, I want to encourage anybody who, inshallah, if you get the chance to make Hajj,  try as hard as you can to walk during from Arafat to Mina and walk through Mosul.  I was lucky that a couple of friends of mine that I made there told me they were going to walk and leave the group  and not stay on the bus because the experience of walking was much better than sitting on the bus for hours and hours.  Actually, that seemed to me when I did it that the experience of walking,  at least in terms of the subjective experience of the Hajj, the actual walk was really one of the main things.  But during this time of going to Stone the Pillars, I saw the same girl a few more times.  And so finally, on the way back from the pillars, when I was walking back and I saw her,  I really needed to know whether somebody, whether she had arms.  And so I came in and, you know, when I passed her, I felt back in her back and I see all that.  Yes, indeed, as the pe…

My Hajj Story

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