My Hajj Story
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The Girl With No Arms | #MyHajjStory
Dr. Edward Moad reflects on some of the harsher realities witnessed while performing Hajj.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. 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 person said, she had her hands like this. And so she did have arms. And so I was really happy because that means that she had arms and that somebody didn't cut her arms off, as I was told by some people. And there was a West African brother walking beside me. I mean, I didn't know him, but he asked me, what's wrong? What's the matter? And I was so happy, you know, and I was telling him she has arms. Right. It's very silly. And maybe he thought that I was saying that because I was angry that she was trying to fool people or something. But it was, in fact, the opposite. I was really happy. But he said, she has arms. I said, yes. And he said, well, let it be that. And then he has in his hands a bag of chips and he asked me, would you want some chips? I said, no, I was just it's just strange. So I'm walking back.
I was crying all the way back to MENA and it crossed my mind that actually, Shaytan would like you and would like us to think that the world is worse than it is. And I thought to myself that seems like that's his sort of strategy or tactic to overwhelm us with the image of the evil in the world. And, you know, the Quran says that the good outweighs the evil, even though it may appear that the evil outweighs the good. So it's very uplifting. I don't know if Allah has planned. I mean, obviously, Allah plans everything and coordinates everything. And this series of events seem to me to among many things that happened during the Hajj to be something that I'm supposed to learn from. So I took that experience. And so the closing of it was the last time that I made went to stone the pillars. There she was again with her arms sort of bound behind her back. And even though she had arms, obviously, somebody has put her arms back there. And so she can't really use them. And she's sitting there in the very hot sun. This is difficult for us, because Hajj is just to walk. And then like we have, I mean, I have my bottle of water and I can drink from the water when I want to. But, you know, here's this girl she's made to sit there, you know, for who knows how long under the hot sun. So the only thing that I had an unopened bottle of water. So the next time I passed her, I'm not sure if she recognized me as the person who harassed her before. But I thought she might be probably thirsty, obviously. So I opened up the small bottle of water and came in and poured some water down her mouth.
I was thinking she might be afraid of me, but no, she was thirsty. And she opened her mouth and put some water in her mouth. And so I was happy at least to make up for having probably scared her before. So there was the story. And I guess the take home from that is, right. There does seem to be a lot of evil in the world, but Allah is in control. And shaitan would like you to think otherwise, but it's not true. Thank you for listening to my little story. Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
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