We reached Mecca between 8-9 am. The sun was already up, and it was starting to warm up. There were people every few steps providing water bottles to the Hajjis returning from Jamarat. It was really crowded, and many roads were closed. We had a few more steps left to complete the Hajj.
Tawaf al Ifadah is mandatory and must be done before returning to Mina. We were extremely tired and exhausted, and performing Tawaf in the afternoon would have been challenging.
When I was studying the Hajj procedure in the UK, I was told that Tawaf-al-Ifadah is better done at night when the crowd and heat are less severe. That’s what we decided to do.
After reaching Mecca, we had to wait until 10 am to get our hair cut because we were told our sacrifice of the animal would be at that time. In the meantime, we went to the Clock Tower and had our breakfast at McDonald's. Afterwards, I got my head shaved. We borrowed scissors from a salon, and I cut my wife's hair in a secluded corner. After this, we were out of Ihram, and everything was permissible except getting intimate with wife.
We went back to our hotel in Mecca, took a good shower, and washed our Ihram clothes. We couldn’t find a proper washing area near our hotel, but we decided to go to the rooftop and hang our Ihram clothes there, an idea we got from other Hajjis.
Now it was time for our much-needed sleep. We slept until noon, then prayed Zuhr, and went back to sleep again.
We had our lunch sometime in the afternoon. We found lots of Pakistani and Bangladeshi restaurants. I liked the camel meat the most, while my wife enjoyed other desi cuisines like fish and daal. It was very crowded as all the Hajjis had now returned to Mecca from Mina/Jamarat.
We took out our fresh clothes, two sets of Kurta/Punjabi. There was no need to wear Ihram clothes again. Our hotel had dinner arrangements every night (for an additional payment), which we had. After a few hours, just after 11 pm, I set out for Haram to complete the mandatory Tawaf al-Ifadah. Women are not allowed in the Masjid during certain times of their monthly cycle.
The Tawaf was not very difficult for me as I had a little bit of rest. I completed Tawaf, Sa’i, and performed Fajr prayer in Masjid Al Haram. It was already the 11th of Dhul Hijjah, and we had now entered the days of Tashreeq. Spending the night in Mina is required during these days. You need to have a valid reason to skip this. Given that we were not in the physical condition to perform Tawaf during the daytime and needed some rest to recover energy for the remaining steps, we delayed it until night. That’s why we did not spend this night in Mina. We went back to Mina the following morning. We took very few tings with us as most of our items , bags were left in Mina.
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