My Hajj Story
1 / 16
A Taxi Cab Ride | #MyHajjStory
Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy recounts a beautiful story on traveling for the pilgrimage as told by an elderly cab driver.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. In 2015 was my first opportunity to perform hajj and Hajj is always special, but the first hajj always has a very unique taste, a very unique thinness in the air And I ask Allah to write for us and you At least one hajj, an accepted hajj, a pure hajj before we meet him. Allahumma ameen So it was four years after I was forced to leave my studies in the College of Hadith in Medina a very difficult decision, but my father was very ill and So I left and it was the first time back in four years and it was exactly four and change months after my father, rahimahullah Passed away and I remember being in Medina before the hajj rituals even started and I got into a taxi to make my rounds certain places that I wanted to visit or revisit and the taxi driver was a man with clearly Asian features and So I said to him Where are you from? Because he had an impeccable Saudi accent And usually those who come for the jiwar they call, they come to be in the company of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam in his city to live and die and live off of people's charity, the new-age ahlus-suffa if you will Not necessarily recommending it, but just a beautiful intention you can tell they're not from that part, but this person was an elderly man of Asian features that Had a flawless Saudi accent. So I asked him where are you from? All this is happening in Arabic, of course He said to me, I'm from Bukhara. I'm from Bukhara, the land of Imam Al-Bukhari, right of Uzbekistan And I said, how long have you been here? He said I
Was born here. This man was roughly 65 years old. I said, oh subhanAllah, how many generations? He said my grandfather and this is my hajj story for everyone and inshallah. It is all that you need to hear To decide to make hajj Every single time that you can and immediately next year if you've been putting it off he said my grandfather had all girls all his children were daughters and He said oh Allah if you give me a boy I'm going to make hajj for you and you shouldn't do that By the way, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said innama yustakhraju bihi minal bakheel You know vowing that if Allah does something for you, you're gonna do something for him It's as if you're implying he hasn't done anything for you. That's why the hadith says That's how you pull something out of a stingy person a vow, right? and So hajj is obligatory to begin with right on every capable person But he he made this vow and Allah granted him a boy Which is the father now of the brother driving me around the taxi driver He says and so when my father was about 12 years old my grandfather decided that he had to Hold true on his promise to Allah and he said we have to make hajj So he took my father and they traveled south All the way down to India and then they ran out of money He says and they did not have enough money to buy their tickets to get on the ship to cross the sea to get to Arabia He says and so they worked. Can you imagine for two years? To put together the money to get on the ship He says at the end of the second year. It was time for
the voyage and We did not have enough money for two tickets my grandfather and my father had enough money for one ticket and change and so The seamen or the captain basically Sympathized with their situation. He let them board anyway, and so they got on the boat and they traveled across the water Till they got to let's just say roughly Saudi Arabia. He says the moment we got to Saudi Arabia I think he told me Jeddah because the ports are in Jeddah and there are others as Well, he says my grandfather died. And so now my father is all alone there at 14 years old He said and he would just you know, loiter if you will in the streets and come to the masjid and They were at the time Selling citizenship to Saudi Arabia for one real one real nowadays is about 25 cents us He says and whoever couldn't afford it Was going to get apprehended arrested could get deported so after getting there he was about to get sent back or sent away or imprisoned Or may Allah forbid worse, you know get abducted into some trafficking dynamic human trafficking and So he said I was in the masjid and the officers grabbed me and I explained to them my situation My father just died and I'm here all alone. I have no money. I don't even have the one Riyadh and So Allah opened His heart the heart of the officer to this man, and he wrote my father the taxi driver is telling me He wrote my father a Saudi citizenship and He became a Saudi citizen he said and the Hajj season began and a
Hajj group from Jordan Hajj group from Jordan showed up and we interacted and We became friends the owner of the Hajj group and when he realized I had a Saudi citizenship He married me to his daughter This is the father narrating and so this 65 year old Uzbeki driver Allah bless him and protect him if he's still alive says that's my mom. That's my dad. They performed Hajj together The Uzbeki man from Bukhara and the Jordanian woman the daughter of the owner of the Hajj company and then they relocated to Medina And they've been there ever since and I was born there 60 some odd years ago So he's saying like this is an amazing story, but then he turns around to me and I'm just like crying like a baby And I'm I'm not I'm not loving it at the moment. I look back at it now and it's so beautiful but I had just lost my father and so I'm just sitting there telling him and your dad your dad. What about your dad? Did he ever go back home? Did he ever see his sisters again? And he's just like no he had no way to get home and no reason to get home and just life moves on and I said subhanAllah, this is really an amazing Hajj story because You know you read about the hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and how like Asma ibn Umais She delivered her baby as they were exiting Medina and she just wrapped herself up and kept it moving She was not gonna let go of the opportunity to make Hajj with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam And she went to Hajj carrying her newborn in her postpartum phase You know, it's a two-week journey at the very least and so you think about this story of this 14 year old father of the Uzbeki
Driver you think about the Suhaib radiallahu anhum and the difficulties of Hajj, you know years and years and years ago and then how easy it is for us nowadays and so we are not doing Allah Azza wa Jalla favor by Prioritizing this Hajj as if and I don't mean that, you know condescendingly a pillar of Islam This is absolutely serious, and I don't think many of us take it as seriously as we should We need to mobilize assets when we have them. We need to prioritize as best we can We need to make sure that we are excused in front of Allah for trying our very best To fulfill our debt to him. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said that وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى النَّاسِ حِجُّوا الْبَيْتِ And it is for Allah, a right for Allah upon the people. The people are indebted with this to make Hajj to the sacred house لِمَنْ اِسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيلَ For whomever is able to do so وَمَنْ يَتَوَلَّ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ غَنِيٌّ حَمِيدٌ And whomever turns their back, whoever feels like they have no need, Allah Azza wa Jalla has less of a need He is praiseworthy without people coming to his house from every direction left and right to praise him subhanahu wa ta'ala So may Allah write for us and you a Hajj and an accepted Hajj and make it a means for us to to get back home To get to Jannah with our fathers and our forefathers and our mothers and our ancestors And the prophets and the righteous Allahumma ameen, JazakAllah khayran everyone Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
