VISITING MECCA - THE LAND OF NON-WORLD

It was an early morning. I had just recovered from an illness. I slept for 2 days straight.

My intention to travel to Saudi Arabia was two-fold: to visit the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, and to do umrah in Mecca.

The morning after my illness, I decided to travel to Mecca. I made my way to the train station, missed the first train to the holy city, and took a one hour taxi ride towards the sunrise.

The image I have of the city of Mecca is one-dimensional. Growing up, we would watch the Saudi channel where you can see millions of white specks turn around this large black and gold cube. A mesmerizing spectacle.

From the window of the car, I photographed the outskirts of Mecca. Rundown buildings and dirty alleyways, kids preparing for school, walking in their dishdashes, sandals, and prayer rugs on top of their heads wrapping their school books.

With construction chronically inhibiting the city from a clean drive, the taxi swerved around the detours to reach the closest he could get to the haram, the area of the mosque.

The quietude of the early morning still lingered in the air. A peace before the white storm. I took out my camera. I dedicated this one roll to my short time here. I gave myself the liberty of 36 exposures to tell the story of the city through my eyes. The tall buildings joined by the minarets of the mosque rose high above me, offering shade where there was no shade before.

With each step I took inside the mosque towards the Kaaba, I felt my heart building up a feeling like a volcano before it erupts.

I saw the Kaaba from afar. It was so much larger than I anticipated. This mighty big black box standing high as people walk around it in a circle.

I got even closer to where there was an open space. Emotion took over me. I could not hold my tears for one moment.

This place was previously inaccessible to me in my head. This place was far away, and yet here I am, right in front of it. My father has been here many times, and has shared all his stories with us around this holy area. Now it is me that is here, alone, with myself and a million other strangers. I have yet to process exactly why I cried. Was it an act of repentance? Was it an act of union and coming back to a source I once had? Or was it the sheer existence of this place that carried a magnitude worthy of this emotion?

I looked around and saw all these people. All these people were here with one purpose: to worship.

I realized that I was in a place that was void of any material meaning. Sunglasses were superfluous. Trademarks and logos seemed trivial in this space. There was a reason why you wore only these two garments entering the mosque. The bareness of it all shows the bareness of a human being and all the meaning we place on ourselves to separate from each other.

This place had no meaning. You weren’t there to see people. You weren’t there to check out the monument. You weren’t there to drink their well-known drink or their famous pastry. You were there for something intangible.

It was this intangibility that I felt I could access here. A place where the world didn’t exist, only heart and spirit. And because this place did not exist, everything else could exist in it. Because this place had no earthly meaning, meant that all meaning can be placed here.

Intentionality was the name of the game. How do you breathe? How do you look at others? How do walk? What words come out of your mouth? What is going on in your head? And because of that every move mattered, every thought in my head and every feeling in my heart and body mattered here. Intentionality centralized in this place.

I looked at my watch, and decided to remove my watch and put it in my backpack. Time means nothing here. Any physical object means nothing here.

I then came to think of the people.

How did people worship? What did people worship? What were they wearing? Did they come here with others? What are they thinking about and what are they saying? Do they know why they’re worshipping? Or are they only repeating what they’ve been told to say and do?

So many questions arose when I looked at all these people. I looked around, searching for those looking for eye contact and connection. I could not find many.

A young man a few years younger greeted me with peace. He asked if I could take a picture of him. With pleasure, I did. He did the same for me. A portrait.

I stood tall. Looked at the camera with confidence. I’m not sure why I didn’t smile. It did not feel fitting. My parents will see this photo. My family will see this photo.

I performed Umrah. Only being present with my thoughts, my heart, and with the place around me. I thought of the effort one gives to worship and the significance of this effort. This effort is for God, and therefore is for me. Intention is for God, and therefore is for me. Why do people worship? And how are they worshipping? This world that I was in was a non-world, a place void of the realities of life, surreal in its nature, and therefore, holy. Contradictions lie in this space for a reason.

After my Umrah, I decided to become a photographer. To be a witness to the moment, and to tell the story of this place through my eyes. I saw the high minarets, the overbearing black cube with gold shining majesty, the hands that rose up to greet the Kaaba like seals in the sea coming out for air, the uniformly colored hijabs to identify different groups coming from all around the world — Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Uzbekistan— people fighting to get their place to touch the holy rock or Maqam Ibrahim, people pushing around or being unaware of their presence. I took it all in and told the story with a removed self.

A brief trip that has given me memorable lessons about the futility of life, and what matters.