r/hajj

Salaam everyone,

Going for Hajj inshallah and trying to sort out the practical stuff before I fly.
My phone is esim-only, so I'm deciding whether to set something up before leaving or just deal with it after landing. People in my group keep saying to sort it our with Mobily or STC at the airport, but I'm not sure I want to add another queue after a long flight.
I was looking at the redteago Saudi esim, 5GB for 30 days, $12.90. Not sure if 5GB is enough during Hajj if I'm mostly using whatsapp, Nusuk and maps, but it sounds more convenient than trying to sort out mobile data after landing.
For those who went recently, would you rather have an esim ready before arrival, or is buying a local esim in Saudi still the better option during Hajj?

Just realized our hotel is on the opposite side of the womans entrance, which will make it very difficult for my mom . She’s very old and weak and can only walk minimum Any suggestions on how to navigate to the entrance daily for prayers. I’m a man and it is just me and my mother going.

What precautions should we take as hajjis?

Assalamualaikum guys,

I’m a Canadian/Pakistani dual national and I’ve been looking into doing Hajj through the Pakistan government scheme in the next few years, mainly because the lower cost would probably let me go much earlier in life, InshaAllah.

I was wondering if anyone here has experience with it or knows roughly how much it costs these days? I’ve seen numbers around 1.1–1.3 million PKR for the government packages, but I’m not sure what the real total ends up being with flights and everything else.

Also, how does the process work for overseas nationals? Do you usually fly to Pakistan first and then go to Saudi with the Pakistani Hajj group, or can you coordinate it directly from Canada? I’ve heard different things from different people.

I’m still relatively young, so luxury amenities and 5-star hotels honestly don’t matter much to me. My main goal is just to complete Hajj properly and affordably while I’m younger and healthy enough to handle the tougher conditions.

Would really appreciate hearing people’s experiences, tips, or anything you wish you knew beforehand.

Google translate a must

Understand where you’re living / location . NAME OF ROAD AND WHICH MAIN ROAD ITS OFF. Write it down and make a mental note.

On your phone change screensaver to your nusruk id card - gets lost they will find you.

It’s hot like BBQ hot. Be prepared . Eat lots of yoghurt and keep hydrated.

The brothers who wear the flag are here to help you . Ask them for help and they speak English too.

The masjid has an extension it’s massive I mean big . People come for prays 3-4 hours early with the exception of Friday .THATS HOW BUSY .

Remember when it’s eisha prays and they finish a million people are leaving. YOU WILL NOT LEAVE the way you came. There is a bus service make sure you know your bus NUMBER / Gate.
Tawaf is busy during the day - I found 1-3 AM was quiet in comparison .

The police / military are there to protect you, simply do as you’re told. Don’t question don’t moan don’t curse just follow the brother’s sisters orders. It’s for all our benefit. The more we cooperate with them the smoother all our hajj will be.

I’d also like to thank every-single person who has made this hajj possible .i have no idea what you do in the background but from landing In Jeddah the young lady to welcomed us to the officer who told me to take a left in the new extension.

Always in my dua and may Allah reward you .

A sinful Muslim just trying to be a better person.

Asc everyone,

Will be in mecca tomorrow or so, when I land where are you guys getting the esims from , is there a play store app ?

I saw the Kabah for the first time in my life on the 9^(th) of May 2026, around 9:00pm Mecca time. I had left home at 2:30am for my flight to Jeddah, running on maybe an hour’s worth of sleep in the past 24 hours, so cut me a little slack before I say this: as I saw the Kabah for the first time, I was mesmerized for a bit, maybe at the symmetry or the squareness of it, but as I walked towards it for my first round of Tawaf, I didn’t feel a lot else. Just a weird stillness. It looked like a pretty straightforward building, if you know what I mean. The craziest thing about it is probably that Ibrahim (AS) put the foundation of it some 4000 years ago, but apart from that I couldn’t get much else. I thought that meant I was maybe an incomplete Muslim. I mean, looking at the Kabah changes lives, people tell stories of seeing it for the first time and remembering it forever, but I felt none of that. Maybe I was lacking. Maybe.

As anyone who knows me would know, I’m generally not a feel-first person anyway. I need to think through something and then I get some feelings on the side. So I started thinking. Why am I here? What am I supposed to take back from here? The Kabah didn’t give me much automatically, and I mean, it wasn’t even this Kabah at the time of the Prophet (PBUH). It was much smaller, and at the time Ibrahim (AS) made it, it was barely a building at all. Why am I circling this thing? Why are people crawling and fighting each other to touch it? I had questions, and I’ve spent the past week reading and thinking, so here are some thoughts.

Makkah makes no sense, it sits in a valley of barren rock, hemmed in by mountains that offer no shade, no river, no natural reason for a city to exist. There is no fertile plain, no strategic harbor, no ancient crossroads of trade that would explain why millions upon millions of human beings have been drawn here for over four thousand years. By every measure of geography and logic, this place should have been forgotten. And yet it is the most visited place on earth. The answer is not in the land. It is in a prayer. When Ibrahim (peace be upon him) left Hajar and his infant son Isma’il here, there was nothing. No water, no shelter, no people. He left because Allah commanded it. Hajar asked him one question: ‘Did Allah command you to do this?’ He said yes. She said: ‘Then He will not abandon us.’ That’s it. That’s the sentence this whole place was built on.

Hajar didn’t just sit and wait. She ran between Safa and Marwa seven times looking for water. She exhausted every option available to her while trusting in something she couldn’t see yet. And then Zamzam came up from under her son’s feet, and it hasn’t stopped since. That water is still here. We’re all drinking from it. I’m going to run where she ran, not as a tourist, but as someone hoping that whatever is buried beneath the surface of my own life might also find a way out.

Later, Ibrahim (AS) came back and was given the hardest thing any father has ever been asked to do: sacrifice his son. We’ve heard that all of our lives, but you don’t really understand till you have a kid and then get attached to it. You don’t really know HOW hard that is. As a father of 2 little boys, I can’t imagine trying to put myself in Ibrahim’s (AS) shoes. I know he was a prophet, but it’s unfair to say that just because he was a prophet it would be easy for him. He was also human. I mean he tied a cloth around his eyes, didn’t he? To sacrifice your son. Not symbolically. The actual boy he had prayed for his whole life. And Isma’il (AS), when his father told him, didn’t run. He said: ‘Do as you are commanded. You will find me, if Allah wills, of the steadfast.’ They walked toward it together. The knife was at his throat. And only then did the ransom come from heaven. It was never about the blood. It was about whether you’re willing. Every animal sacrificed during Eid al-Adha points back to that moment, not to death, but to the declaration that nothing I have is more important than submitting to Allah.

Together, Ibrahim and Isma’il built the Kabah and made a dua that still means something today: ‘Our Lord, accept this from us. Indeed, You are the Hearing, the Knowing.’ They were building the holiest structure on earth and still worried it might not be accepted. Almost every thing the man did, almost all of his major life decisions were centered around pleasing Allah or answering Allah’s call to rise to the occasion. He built the Kabah as a symbol of sacrifice and worship to Allah alone. Ibrahim (AS) then called humanity to come for pilgrimage, and Allah promised people would answer from every distant corner. And here we are.

Hajj takes everything away. The ihram is two pieces of unstitched white cloth and that’s the whole point. You can’t tell who flew first class and who saved for twenty years. You can’t tell the CEO from anyone else. Before Allah, the only thing that matters is taqwa, your consciousness of Him, your awareness that you’re being watched, your hope of being found worthy.

Tawaf, circling the Kabah seven times, isn’t about the Kabah. It’s just stone. It can’t hear you or help you. The circling is about asking yourself what your life actually orbits. In those seven rounds, the answer is supposed to be Allah alone. Tawheed made physical. Every circle is a chance to strip away a distraction and refocus, which is also what you see Ibrahim (AS) doing across his whole life: sacrificing his community, his family, his comfort, whenever Allah called on him to do so.

Standing at Arafat is the Hajj itself. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: ‘Hajj is Arafat.’ There’s no ritual to perform there, just standing, praying, and asking. It’s the closest thing this life has to the Day of Judgment: millions of people in white, under the open sky, with nowhere to hide and nothing to offer except your deeds and your repentance. The sun is brutal. The crowd is overwhelming. And somehow, in the middle of all of it, you end up completely alone with Allah. That’s the whole thing.

This is why Makkah exists. Not because the geography makes sense, but because Ibrahim made a dua that asked Allah to turn this barren valley into a place where hearts would come, where provision would flow, where pure monotheism would be preserved. Allah answered that prayer. The barrenness is the evidence. Nothing about this place sustains life on its own. Every drop of Zamzam, every pilgrim who arrives, every prayer answered here is proof that the dua of one man, made in full sincerity thousands of years ago, is still being fulfilled.

I didn’t come here for a vacation or photos. I came because Ibrahim walked this ground and submitted, because Hajar ran this path and trusted, because Isma’il lay down and surrendered. Because the Prophet (peace be upon him) stood at Arafat with tears on his face and said: ‘O Allah, You hear my words, You see my position, You know my secrets and my open acts. Nothing of my affairs is hidden from You.’ I came to stand where they stood and ask myself honestly: what am I still holding onto? What idols have I built in my own heart, not of stone but of ego, comfort, ambition, distraction, that need to come down? And I came because the Quran promised that whoever answers this call will find something here that can’t be found anywhere else, something that only the desert, the heat, the crowd, and the raw exposure of standing before your Creator can produce.

Labbayk Allahumma labbayk. Labbayka la shareeka laka labbayk. Innal-hamda wan-ni’mata laka wal-mulk. La shareeka lak.

Here I am, O Allah, here I am. Here I am, You have no partner, here I am. Indeed all praise, favor, and sovereignty belong to You. You have no partner.

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May Allah accept this effort and journey from all of us, Insha’Allah. If any of my thoughts helped you place yours, please remember me in your prayers. Jazakumullahu Khairan.

Aoa everyone,

My parents are going for Hajj InshAllah, and I wanted to ask if a physical sim or e sim is better? In Mina will they still have good connection with a e sim or is a physical sim on the safer side?

Many thanks in advance!

Looking for ideas for a hajj gift for the wife? Considering gold jewellery but unsure if Mecca is good value or overpriced? Are prices open to some negotiation? I’ve never purchased gold myself so do I just look at market price for gold and haggle on the labour/markup the store is adding? ie the raw market price for the gold weight is the “floor” and I can’t expect to get lower than this price. I’m assuming lots of demand for gold during this time of year so not sure how open stores would be to discounts.

Also any recommended stores or references near clock tower area? Prefer to buy on 23/24th May as we have a short hajj and won’t have time after 12th dhul hijjah.

Salam. Quick question if anyone could answer. My parents have booked their flights to Jeddah on Air Canada using their Canadian passports. But they applied for Hajj with their Pakistani passports and are part of the Pakistani quota. They have checked in online for all flights using Canadian passport. Will they be able to travel all the way from Canada to Jeddah through Athens, Greece using their Canadian passport and then use their Pakistani passport with the hajj visa to enter into Saudi Arabia? Would this cause any trouble along the way?

Should they ask the check in agents to change the itinerary to using their Pakistani passports instead before leaving?

If anyone could answer as soon as possible I would greatly appreciate it! Jazakallahu Khairan.

Going to Hajj w/ mom, she can walk a few blocks but nothing more. She will need a wheelchair. How does wheelchair work?

Assalamu alaikum

My parents are in Mecca for Hajj. I am trying to order food for them with a food delivery app. I am in the UK. I tried HungerStation, Jahez but they are not working. I can’t sign up in Jahez and hungerstation does not show me any restaurant.

Could someone please help what are other alternatives for food delivery in Mecca?

Jazakallah

Assalamu alaikum everyone,

I’m traveling for Hajj this year, and I made this simple Dua Flashcards project for my personal use so I can easily review duas during the journey.

I thought it might be useful for others going for Hajj as well, so I’m sharing it here:

Edit: all you need to do is copy the html file and use it

https://preview.redd.it/jybb3qupih1h1.jpg?width=954&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c7ba6a754f082445d84c80f46055c3112eee0e8

​https://github.com/skravoof/Dua_flashcards

May Allah accept our Hajj, duas, and good deeds. Ameen.

Asc, I should have been more prepared i leave on a flight on Monday so I have today and another day to buy all my items and also prepare all my duas. A few questions:

What are the most important items i need to buy ? I already have the ihram

What resources do you guys have for DUAS ? I can read Arabic but can I make dua in English?

If anyone has good resources to videos and things to buy please share.

Jzk allah kheyr

Few reports on news sites that as of Feb 26 hajj and Umrah visas to Saudi mandate coverage for health and it's included in the visa.

Is this correct and did you or anyone you know but health insurance? So people going for hajj have access to public health facilities in case of emergencies?

My parents are going from Denmark to Saudi for Hajj, via Pakistani quota. Turkish Airlines with transit in Istanbul. They must bring both passports.

My question is this, for online check-in which passport should be used? If Danish passport is used, would Turkish Airlines check if we have a valid Hajj visa in Denmark or Istanbul airport?

Same question during transit, when showing the passport before boarding, should it be Danish or Pakistani passport?

As the title says, I wanna know what people are spending on a decent package for hajj this year and do the prices go up or down at all?

I see people posting in online forums to reach out if you need to schedule multiple Rawda appointments. How are they doing it? I know the instant track one on Nusuk but that hasn’t turned on for me yet since my appointment is later. And I know of tawakkalna app but that hasn’t worked for me. How else are people doing it?