Pilgrims' journey of faith real test of patience....

Dagestani pilgrims journey of faith real test of patience....

This is an episode that really made me realise how fortunate I am as a pilgrim from Malaysia. I and my wife had our pilgrimage preparation quite well prepared and travelled to Mecca smoothly with very much comfort. Besides the ordinary `hiccup' here and there on the part of our agency TH Travel, the hotel and the airlines...thank God, we arrived in Mecca and Medina and managed to complete my pilgrimage. Yes we did have some minor problems here and there when we were in Mecca and Medina..but it was more a human error, negligence or selfish attitude of our agency rather than the pilgrimage itself. Any way that was something that could be rectified and be corrected. I plan to write officially to TH Travel soon.

This is about a journey to Holy Land by a group of pilgrims from Dagestan of the Russian Federation. It was reported in the Arab News that Abdul Fattah Dove, a 30 year old pilgrim from the Republic of Dagestan who had to travel to Mecca with an old car. It took him one month to reach Mecca and Dove had to skip his marriage to save money for visa, transportation and accommodation. He lived in a tent in Kudai's district and had the blessings and sympathies of other Russian pilgrims during his stay in Mecca.

Another pilgrim also from Dagestan Abdul Aziz Yuv, 32, also with other seven pilgrims from Dagestan and other places in the Russian Federation had travelled to Mecca in an old mini bus. All seven of them reached Mecca after a month too. They brought with them some Russian products to sell during the Haj to help cover the cost of the pilgrimage.

These phenomenon of pilgrims going to extreme lengths to be able to perform the Haj, considering their financially inability, their insistence to come to Mecca is evidence of their strong convictions and faith. My..my..I'd really admired their commitments and their sacrifice. May they be blessed with Haj mabrool...