Assalaam Alaykum warahmatullah wabarakatuh
They say that Hajj is a spiritual journey and this much is true in every sense of the word — but nobody tells you it might also involve mistaken identities, last-minute miracles, and uncooperative butchers.
It was the year 2012 and I had made the intention to perform hajj along with my husband. It was a requirement at that time for every intending female pilgrim to have her accompanying mahram’s name printed on her visa. The Saudi authorities were so strict with this requirement that no woman would successfully pass through immigration except that the officers confirmed that her mahram was physically next to her and cross checked both their passports to confirm that the names on the visas matched.
My husband had registered us both with the Lagos State pilgrims board so of course, that meant his name would be on my visa and we would most definitely be travelling on the same flight. That’s a no brainer right? Well, that’s what happens in a normal situation. But what happens when somebody can’t be bothered with sifting through the application forms to determine who is supposed to be the lawful mahram of each woman? You get a case of randomly assigned mahrams to the female pilgrims.
This meant getting paired with a complete stranger instead of my own husband whom I had intended to travel with. Even though it was annoying to learn that a strange man’s name would appear on my visa, I decided not to give it much thought since what really mattered was that I was going to be travelling with my husband on the same flight. What’s in a name anyway?! So I thought until I saw the harsh reality of the importance that a name holds in the life of an intending female pilgrim.
It was a joyous occasion on the day it was announced to all intending pilgrims that their flights to the holy land had now been scheduled and the date for the first flight already set. Everybody who could make it to the pilgrims board office that day hurried over to confirm their itinerary. As you might have guessed by now that my story is one of many twists, we got to find out that my husband and I were scheduled to depart the country on different days. Now, that was a deal breaker for me because there was no way I was going to leave this land to perform hajj without the company of my husband! I remember being not only determined to make sure I could travel with my husband come what may, I was also positive with prayers and hope that Allah would make a way.
It wasn’t long before I got a call from my assigned mahram (let’s call him Mr. Ayinla Kazeem), summoning me to get my luggage and meet him right away at the general take off point. According to him, our flight was scheduled to depart that night. I Insisted that I wasn’t going to leave without my husband in tow and Kazeem without mincing words threatened to leave without me if I didn’t show up in an hour. He wasn’t going to allow me to be the stumbling block in his path.
As soon as I got off the call with him, I looked at my husband saying , “please get our bags, we’re travelling together today”. Of course, knowing the way things work when you’re dealing with government offices, he had a look on his face that said, “I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off but let’s hang on to this faith, optimism and determination that you’ve chosen to carry on with.“
The trip from our home to the pilgrims office which would normally take about 20 minutes to complete took us almost two hours. The traffic that afternoon was almost at a standstill but it was typical of a Friday afternoon just a few minutes to the commencement of jumu’ah prayers. There really wasn’t anything we could do about it. In the midst of the Lagos traffic chaos and emotional confusion, Mr Kazeem was calling me at regular intervals of 5 minutes all the while asking if I had almost arrived. At some point, he asked me to get off the car, hop on a commercial bike and make my way to him without delay. This was another test of patience subhanallah as I just couldn’t fathom what the urgency was about. We were in a situation that we couldn’t control but trusted that Allah wouldn’t forsake us. I had to stop taking his calls for the sake of my own sanity but all the while praying that Allah detains him there until my arrival.
Upon our arrival at the pilgrims board, we met my assigned mahram, passport in hand, luggage ready, standing on guard to get into the next available bus that was scheduled to transport the intended pilgrims to the airport. It was obvious that we didn’t have much time left on our hands yet we still hadn’t figured out how to make sure that my husband’s name was included on the flight manifest for that night.
I wasn’t going to give up just yet but there wasn’t any hope in sight or so I thought until I spotted the help that Allah sent to us in the form of my friend’s dad whom I fondly call “daddy”. He was one of their supervisors during that year’s hajj planning exercise and although he wasn’t supposed to be there on that day, Allah had brought him right on time to be our quick and effective solution to what could have turned out to be a disaster. I told him I wasn’t budging without my husband, and bless him, he listened and sprung into action.
Cue a chaotic adventure through various offices, trying to fix our flight issue except that in this case, there’s more to it than meets the eye. All we needed was to move my husband’s flight to the same day as mine right? What could potentially go wrong with just a change in flight schedule. Well here’s the answer, a lot could go wrong. Take for example, if my husband had already been assigned as a mahram to one of the several female pilgrims,then changing his flight schedule would potentially mess hers up and that’s exactly what happened. Now, here’s where Allah divinely intervened in this matter assuring us that He was with us every step of the way. How? An elderly woman to whom my husband had been assigned as a mahram had been frequenting the office of the pilgrims board two days prior wishing that they would put her on an early flight. Talk about someone who was physically present but whose heart was already in Madinah. Alhamdulillah we didn’t need to search for too long before finding her. When I explained the situation to her, she lit up like Eid morning. She was elated and couldn’t wait to get on the bus to leave for the airport. The switch benefitted us both — her prayer was answered, and I got my husband scheduled on the same flight as mine. Therefore With the help of “daddy” and a miracle or two, we headed to the Hajj camp — myself, my husband, the elderly woman, and the man assigned to me.
After joining a never ending queue that only moved at the speed of Nigerian bureaucracy, it was finally our turn. We had been in that queue for close to three hours but it was worth the wait because finally it was time to check in! In an ideal situation, this is where the conclusion should come in. Something along the lines of ALhamdulilllah, Prayers answered, Case closed! But that cannot happen when there are still more hurdles to cross.
At check-in, my assigned mahram motioned to me to hand over my passport. There were two other women who were also attached to him so he wanted to make sure that all our documents were intact. While trying to collect my passport from me, he also had his own passport slightly open in hand ready to add mine to his. It was at that moment that I caught a glimpse of his name and subhanallah I could never thank Allah enough for the blessing of keen eyes and attention to details because wait a second! Why is this man’s name Ayinla Kazeem when the name on my visa says Ayinla Kareem? One letter, massive difference. When I pointed it out to him, Kazeem blinked at the thought of a possible mistake, crosschecked the names on his passport and my visa, confirmed they were similar but not the same, muttered a sorry of some sort, shrugged, and walked off with the other two women assigned to him, leaving me standing there like a forgotten carry-on bag.
This was already past maghrib time and there was no one who could explain to us why I was in this situation. We thought we had sorted everything at the pilgrims office before leaving for the hajj camp but apparently, there was a huge communication gap and these ones had no idea how we got there or why I was summoned by the wrong person. Mr. Mahram had checked in with the other women. I had gone to the officers at the check in counter over and over again asking them to check me in solo but alas, my name was not even on the manifest for that flight. The same was the case for my husband and his “extra luggage” too. We weren’t scheduled to be on that flight. There were a few other people who were faced with the same dilemma and we all were advised to contact our group coordinators to sort out the issues for us.
This was a nerve wracking situation because now I was saddled with the responsibility of hunting down Mr. Kareem whose name appears on my visa. We needed to know Mr Kareem’s whereabouts to determine if we were to remain at the hajj camp that night or return home. The only one who had his number was our group coordinator but she was the same person who had made the initial mistake of giving Mr first Mahram the wrong information about whose mahram he is (we got to find out about this much later). We called Mrs. Coordinator many times over but she was either too busy to answer or too busy to look through her records to let us know what was going on. Eventually, she confirmed to us that Mr. actual Mahram had already been summoned by another female pilgrim (apparently he had two of us assigned to him) the night before and according to her, they’ve probably left since their flight was booked to depart earlier that day.
At this stage, anyone would be frustrated, upset and would have probably even broken down in tears because what that meant in simple terms was : “ Go back home, you can’t make hajj this year”. But there was even no time for that because we were going to do whatever we could with Allah’s help to make things work out well for us. We asked around a bit at the hajj camp and found that though he and the other woman had indeed checked in earlier that they were still in the camp masjid waiting for the news of departure. So that was some good news at least, he was still in the same premises as we were. All that was left was to convince the coordinator to get us his phone number so that we could explain the situation to him and have him come out to see us, match my name to his on the system and complete the check-in process together. Sounds easy, right? Except that after picking our first call and listening to all we had to say, he stopped answering his calls.
After a dozen missed calls, my husband managed to speak to him. He described exactly where we were, pleading with him to step out for five minutes. But Kareem suddenly developed an intense fear of exit gates. He said he couldn’t leave the lounge — that once out, he wouldn’t be allowed back in. No matter how much we explained, he refused. Then, he ghosted us entirely.
We circled back to the coordinator and learned that Kareem was a butcher who was being fully sponsored — no prior plans, no luggage, just blessings ma sha Allah. In fact he didn’t know he was to travel until the morning when he got the call. Apparently, the other woman who was assigned to him had made it clear he couldn’t step out of the waiting area. She was afraid of ‘losing’ him and jeopardising her hajj, So he obediently remained where he was. He felt the need to oblige her because if she hadn’t called him up that day too, he wouldn’t have known on time that he was traveling . He wasn’t just scared of losing his chance — he was held hostage by gratitude. Important Lesson to learn here: The one who doesn’t fully rely on Allah to set right his affairs will continue to be in a state of fear over matters that he cannot control.
The officials told us to call his next of kin who perhaps might be able to convince him that what we were requesting wasn’t going to affect him negatively — a long shot, but at this point, we were out of ideas. And then, as if on cue, “daddy” appeared again. Like a one-man rescue squad, he carefully listened to our plight (again), confirmed that truly there had been a lot of mixed up names due to the random pairing. But we were already on site and Mr Mahram was going to leave without me if something wasn’t done quickly. Alhamdulillah he spoke to the right people (again), and after even more back and forth, our names were manually adjusted onto the manifest . We finally checked in several minutes after midnight and subhanallah I was more than relieved to eventually witness the positive outcome of all that we had been through the whole day. Alhamdulillah, there was no more drama after that. We departed peacefully for Jeddah Saudi Arabia the following morning.
Whenever I recall this event, I often think about what could’ve happened if Kazeem hadn’t literally dragged me out of the house and pushed me to show up at the airport when he did. If I hadn’t gone, Kareem would’ve left without me, and I might have missed Hajj that year. But, of course that was all part of Allah’s plan from the onset, prepping us for the journey ahead. Nevertheless, I will always be grateful to him — the mahram I never actually used, but who turned out to be a divine catalyst.
And this, my friends, is why I always say: the road to pilgrimage could be rough and full of obstacles and you just never know if you will indeed be a hajji until you’ve managed to reach Arafah and spend the day there as required. You see, you may pack your bags, align your intentions, and perfect your itinerary — but you never really know what hurdles lie ahead. That’s why mental preparation and trust in Allah are just as important as your physical readiness when preparing for this journey. There may be many lessons to take away from this story but one that sticks out to me always is that while Allah may test the sincerity of our intention and our commitment to Him , He also provides for us a way out of the trials if we show beautiful patience and total reliance upon Him.
So, If you’re set to make hajj this year, please remember to take along with you an abundance of taqwa, patience and forbearance garnished with tawakkul and mental strength. Having all these packed in your suitcase beats any type of provision that you may think that you need.
May Allah count us among those who not only intend to embark on the journey, but also complete the Hajj successfully and have it accepted from us. Ameen.
Fatimah bint Shaakir
Dhul Qa’adah 1446H