Departuring

Yes, I know there is no real word 'departuring', but it's a term our beloved ustad often uses as he translates from Malay to English, and one which seems to me to have a sense of gravitas. We're leaving the illuminated city, al Medinatul al Munawwara soon, to perform the actual umrah in Makkah. Fittingly there was a radiant sunset at Maghrib prayers, which I witnessed at the same spot I prayed the same prayer last Friday. That seems a long time ago now. Time seems to move with a special slowness in this special place.

If we get faster connections to the Internet at our next hotel I'll try posting some pictures. But really the only pictures that count are those in the mind's eye. I have one in mind now which I didn't have the camera for. As I approached the masjid for the Asr prayer last Friday, when I happened to be on my own, a large flock of birds came shooting low just over the heads of the crowd moving towards the main front gate of the masjid, the King Fahd gate. (There are lots of birds that gather in the big open space before the outer perimeter of the mosque, because worshippers feed them there - a bit like Trafalgar Square in London.) The flight of the birds was exhilarating in their speed and positioning, and quite frightening as they came so close to the heads of the crowd. It seemed like a sign of something; most obviously, of course, of the glory of the creation.