The Pilgrimage

• Mirela Kadric, Grade 11, Liverpool Girls High School
• Short Story
• 2011

Excellence Award in the 'Step Write Up 2011' competition

It’s the eighth day of my journey, and my body is filled with warmth and pure instinct as I enter the main courtyard housing the Ka’bah on an overpass. I was immediately struck by the river of people walking under me between two hills that was known to have been walked by the wife of Abraham, who was in search of water. I did not expect to see such diversity and I certainly did not expect such equality amongst the people. It was beautiful and it filled my heart with serenity.

It was a tiring journey, circling the great Ka’bah, the ‘House of God’. I was expecting to be spiritually lifted but not to the point where I felt such empowerment in my soul – circling the Ka’bah felt as if I was near the epicentre of a spiritual storm. Before I came here, to perform the Pilgrimage, one essential part of my life had been missing: my spiritual self and I was eager to find it. I needed something to lift me up, to make me feel like a weightless feather, delicate even with the slightest touch.

I needed to be free.

As I pushed my way through the crowds, I felt my heart begin to beat rapidly. I was being drawn towards Ka’bah like a magnet, me being the negative and it the positive. Its force was pulling me towards it; I could not escape. As I revolved around closer to the Ka’bah, I felt like I was a small stream merging into a big river. My body became enlightened with each step I took. I became indifferent to my surroundings. All my worldly matters disappeared; vanished. With every heartbeat, my body ached to touch the walls of the Ka’bah.

I was perplexed, mesmerised.
Carried by a wave, I began to lose touch with the ground. Then, suddenly, I was floating, being carried on by the flood. I was finally becoming the weightless feather. As I approached the centre, the pressure of the crowd was enormous. So much so, that I could barely breathe and as the crowd embraced me, I felt like I was given a new life. As my fingertips swept across the Ka’bah, I felt like I was reborn into the world again, fresh and sinless.

I was finally alive.

The Ka’bah is the world’s sun whose face attracts you into its orbit. It makes you feel and become part of the universal system. You undergo this enormous transformation into a particle that is gradually melting and disappearing. I felt like a foreigner in a valley of deep emotion – emotions of awakening. I realised that my spirit had lifted; I was myself again but this time conscious. I felt closer to God, closer than I ever was.

I was a new being.

I walked away from the Ka’bah feeling complete and content. This spiritual journey is something that will forever be engraved in my heart.