This is the first desire you have to relinquish: to part with your family, friends and beloved ones. You look at them as if you have never seen them before, as if you are going away for good, for this is it. This is the journey to death, the path of life.

We are flying from the “City of Destruction”*, a burden upon our back and a roll (the message of God) in our hands.

It's too hard to believe. You think you will wake up suddenly from a wonderful dream.

The sea is under your feet and your thoughts take wing among and higher than the clouds. You feel yourself dwelling between the sky and earth, yet not firmly grasping any of them for "you are independent, you are the one and only".

As we get closer and closer toward our destiny, we feel the holy words on our lips become great, greater than they had ever seemed to us before.

Allah O Akbar (God is great), La ilaha il Allah (there is no God other than Allah).

They are not just simple, reused phrases but lively, present ones that recall the eventful, myth-making and enlightened history of Islam.

This is the land of God's attention, the land of revelation from Adam to the last of the prophets, Mohammad (PBUH).

It is the land of Abraham, Hagar, Ishmael, Ali, Fatima, Hassan and Hussein and the seat of God's mercy. Behold! Stare! Why was Mohammad chosen as a Messenger here and Ali as a leader? Why is this land home of Fatima, the great wife of Ali and the charming daughter of Mohammad and Khadija, the two explicit loves of humanity?

For this land holds nothing but heat, thirst, mountains of stone, deserts and plains.

Then behold to notice the difference.

The sound of celestial angels reverberate in this wondrous sky and among the flying clouds as they call "Labbaik": “Here I am O Lord, here I am”. The Arabian Peninsula!

You have arrived to the land of light, revelation and faith, the land of Abuzar, Salman, Ammar, Summaya and Yassir, home of the enlightened and holy faces of Mohamed's companions, the friendly saints of God.

You know that praying is a new experience here and an inspiration from God.

Here resignation is deeply understood, yearning and desire felt in every single cell of your body "but only toward God".

Awaiting love and aspiration is the meaning of each breath you take.

You discover unification everywhere, you feel and see it.

And now staring at the colorful sunset, we long with all our heart the pleasure to come, the holy moment of presence in the safe mosque of Allah and his prophet. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ *City of Destruction (The). This world or rather, the world of the unconverted. The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable by E. Cobham Brewer