To Medina, part 1

The long highway to Medina is as barren as the desert one imagines when one thinks of 'Arabia'. But instead of sand dunes stretching out, mile upon steamy mile, it is a rocky, spotty land, littered with abandoned shacks and service stations, sometimes surrounded by the sudden swirl of dusty grains.




From Jeddah to Medina, about 400 kilometres of this monotonous sight stretch forth, and yet, somehow, the way seems light, and the car traverses it quickly, passing few others on the way. It is a stark contrast from the brightly-lit road to Mecca, about 100 km away from the seaport we've been calling home.

"O my people! Lo! this life of the world is but a passing enjoyment, and lo! the Hereafter, that is the enduring abode." [Quran, Chapter 40, verse 39]

Despite all there is to see on the road to Mecca - the coffee stops that mark almost every 20 minutes that have gone by and which beckon wary/weary drivers; the myriad of colourful fairs that remain inactive only because school has yet to let out; the mosques filling and emptying of men clad in white with checkered head pieces, wives invisible within the black shadows of shiny cars - it seems as though the actual city takes long to appear, longer than the moment when Medina's lush oasis absorbs us into the soil, so that once you have planted your feet into it, it is as though you have laid down roots you despair of severing.

"Remember the story about Prophet Muhammad?" I ask my eldest daughter who is snugly nestled among books and pillows in the back seat. She smiles and nods. "Allayhi al salam. Remember when I told you about how he and Abu Bakr had to escape from Mecca and traveled to Medina - on the way having to hide in a cave?"

"And the soldiers were going to get him?" she asks, her voice rising a notch.

Safeyyah starts talking to herself from her spot on the wide, faux-leather couch. "Muha-nna-mmed ," she lisps as she tries to pronounce the name of the final messenger. "Allahii wa sallem," she smiles at us, happy to partake in the conversation.

"Yes, and they were in the cave and the soldiers were just about to go in, when Abu Bakr said . . ."

‘O Messenger of God! If any of them looked beneath his feet he would certainly see us!’ Whereupon the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) said, ‘O Abu Bakr, what do you think of two [where] God is their third?’

"It was here, in this land that all of that happened," I tell her as we peer out into the vast rock and shrubbery, framed by mountains stereotypically majestic, and yet so much more: forbidding, comforting, stern, watchful.

"Really?" she asks, holding on to her door. She squints in a morning sun that is strengthened with every passing moment, while we watch the road: free of distraction, full of remembrance. It here where the Islamic calendar - the one she has recently learned by heart - began.



. . .'Be not sad (or afraid), surely Allah is with us.' (Quran, Chapter 9, verse 40)