The air is filled with silence, pensiveness and love.

The air is filled with silence, pensiveness and love. Each step you take with each moment endows you with more love and fear. The weight of Allah's presence seems to get heavier and heavier. Your eyes grow wider and wider and are focused on the Qibla. It becomes difficult to catch your breath. Your heart is filled with desires while your lips are full of silence. You wonder how weak shoulders and delicate heart membranes can endure the strain.

When descending the valley you may feel that you are going to collapse. But then, the Kaaba appears! The Kaaba, toward which Muslims face when praying, is the center of existence, faith, love and life. It is the direction in which the beds of patients in agony are placed. It is also the direction in which the dead are buried. Previous…