Bismillah-hir-Rahman-nir-Raheem.


My Amazing Umrah,
ma sha Allah!

Alhamdolillah. All praise is for Allah, Who permitted His slave to travel across the earth, Who provided for him who had no means and no power of his own. May He Forgive the mistakes of His slave and reduce the harm of them. And may He be pleased with His slave, and increase the good of his good deeds. Ameen.


The Holy Masjid in Makkah, no place holier! Picture from Hajj 1426 (January, 2006)

Questions: Got pics? Hi-res pics?

bismillah. alhamdolillah, when i made the intention to write this blog, i intended to maximize the use of my smartphone.

so, i left my laptop, my digital camera, and my dv-corder at home. and i used one device -- my t-mobile dash -- to write almost every post and take every pic and vid.

alhamdolillah, it worked pretty well for me. it seriously cut down on luggage weight and volume. and i only had to worry about one piece of equipment (which could fit in my thawb-pocket easily) instead of four (laptop+camera+vid+phone).

but i did not push the limits on my dash for resolution. and the pics in this blog, that's as good as mine get.

alhamdolillah, the person who asked for hi-res pics is putting together a presentation for Hajj participants, so I have passed his request on to people I know who did take higher-quality pics. if you want me to ask them to post their pics, let me know.

one last note: so far NONE of these QUESTION posts have been written on my Dash.

Questions: Visas for travel to Jerusalem

1. Since you took the route from Jordan, when you reached the border and you gave them your pasport was it your amercan passport or any other? Because Israel does not have relations with any muslm country accept turkey. Did you take visa from the israeli consulate. I also heard that they do not allow entry for someone who is below the age of 40. If thats the case then it would be very hard to get in to Jerusalem.

Bismillah. The State of Israel insists that Jerusalem is its capital, and so to visit Jerusalem the Israelis will insist that you have their permission. You can apply for that permission from the Israeli Embassy/Consulate in your country of residence, or you might be able to get permission at the border -- but that depends on your nationality(ies).

If you are Muslim, your experience might be like mine. I met at least 15 non-Muslim travelers at the border during the two days it took for me to cross. The Americans seemed to cross easily -- at least they did not have to sit in the waiting area. The Europeans and Asians (Koreans) I met at the border were all forced to wait for at least several hours, but in the case of the Europeans, each of them had visited Syria or expressed their intention to do so.

Alhamdolillah (ala kulli haal), I only have an American passport. US-Israeli relations are such that Americans visiting Israel normally can seek permission at the border. So, that's what I did. I'm under 40, and I got in.

I did not have the problem that, for example, a Pakistani citizen would have. Pakistani friends and relatives assure me that Pakistan-Israeli relations are such that a Pakistani would be punished by Pakistan for entering Israel, and Israel might not even grant a Pakistani permission to enter even if he applied to an Israeli embassy in a third country.

I do not have a lot of information on travel requirements for people from other countries, but my understanding is that Jordanians and perhaps Egyptians are able to travel to Israel.

Here is a very resource-and-information-packed web page that I never visited before today: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1064.html Despite that ringing endorsement, I really do recommend that you read that page.

If it makes you feel better, I did visit this page: http://www.israelemb.org/consular_Visa.html , and if you want to go to Jerusalem you should visit it, too.

(Added after initial post)
Although I briefly mention the fact here, since this question was about visas, it bears repeating: if you ask the Israelis nicely, they might not stamp your passport on entry. A lot of people worry about this, and not just Muslims. Every time someone was asked about the stamp in front of me, each person replied that they did not want the stamp in the passport -- Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

As far as I know, the decision is entirely up to the Israelis. I was asked no fewer than three separate times whether I would permit the stamp. Each time I asked them to stamp a separate piece of paper. In the end, I was given a small piece of paper indicating that I had been given permission to enter Israel, and the immigration officer stamped it with my visa.

A guard at the end of the hall, asked for the piece of paper, tore it to show it had been used, and then threw it in a trash can when I did not ask for it. Apparently, I was supposed to ask for it. So you should do so if the guard does not hand it to you on her own. Because that paper was my only proof of permission to enter Jerusalem. Not having that proof made me very hesitant to travel far from al Aqsa, so alhamdolillah, it worked well for me.

No mark was put in my passport.

But my passport and luggage did have stickers placed on them by the Israelis to track them while I was at the border. I removed all of them by the time I returned to Jordan.

Questions :-)

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem -- (I begin) in the Name of Allah, the most Merciful (the One Whose Mercy transcends by far what anyone else can imagine), the always Merciful (the One Who is Merciful at all times).

Alhamdolillahi Rabbil 'aalameen -- Praise is for Allah (alone), the Lord of all the universe.

Now that I have finally uploaded all the posts, pictures, and video from my Umrah, I have started to get some questions.

At least when the questions are those which other people may ask, I intend to post the questions and answers here in the blog. If you have a question you'd like to ask, you can:

(1) e-mail me if you know my e-mail address -- but I will probably just post your question and my answer here.

(2) or click on this link "post your question."

(3) or you can use the link at the end of the post -- right now it reads "0 comments." Every post has a link like that, and you can submit your questions or comments directly to the post that interests you.

A few questions have been submitted already. So as soon as I have written answers to them, inshaAllah, I will post them.


Masjid an-Nabi in Madinah, the second holiest masjid! Also from Hajj 1426 (January, 2006)