Umrah

Today we finally reclaimed our deferred Umrah. Most of the day was taken up travelling to Makkah, even though we felt we left as early as we could. We actually made it to the Haram a little before Esha, but various roadblocks and policemen made it impossible for us to reach our hotel in time to attend the jamat.

The Umrah itself wasn't the least painless, but went relatively well with only the tawaf being pretty slow due to ongoing construction work. This will probably be our only Umrah this trip (despite becoming popular in recent times we don't entertain the position of Masjid Ayesha as a meeqat, nor feel a compulsion to rack up the Umrahs), and so it does feel like a bit of a burden has been lifted.

Regarding the visiting Madinah vs Makkah first, I think I prefer our old way of doing things.