Performing the Umrah

As I had mentioned in my earlier posts, Umrah is something that needs to be performed atleast one's to validate  your Hajj. One main aspect of performing an Umrah is being in the state of Ihram. Ihram is a phase where you are not allowed to do few things and need to follow few things. Here are some of the forbidden things in a state of Ihram.


- Hunting the land animal.
- Using perfume.
- For men only: wearing the sewn clothes.
- Applying kohl on the eyes.
- Looking in a mirror.
- For men only: wearing shoes or socks.
- Quarreling with others.
- Killing the insects on one’s body.
- Using cosmetics.
- Applying oil on the body.
- For men only: covering the head.
- For women: covering the face.
- For men: shading themselves from sun or rain.
- Causing blood to come out of one’s body.
- Clipping the nail.


For men only, one needs to wear a two piece on cloth without any stitches in it. Sometimes this cloth is also called the Ihram, for convenience of understanding. To perform Umrah I had to go outside the boundaries of Haram. We put on our Ihram clothes. But just wearing it does not mean you are in a state of Ihram. The state of Ihram begins when you go outside the boundaries of Haram and pray 2 rakat namaz with the niyat of doing Umrah. After wearing our clothes we set off for Ayesha Mosque.

The mosque was just outside the boundaries of Haram. It was among the most peaceful places I have been to. The gathering was not much. But still enough. The architecture was glamorous. Here are couple of more images from the mosque.

The carpet of the mosque was so soft and comfortable that I felt like sleeping. It was neither cold nor hot. The temperature was just perfect. I felt like staying there for the rest of my life. After the prayers, we left for Haram. It took 4 Rials per head to reach there, and 5 Rials per head to return back. In car it was a journey of about 20 minutes or so with traffic included. So it was kind of expensive.

After returning back I was exhausted already. But to complete the Umrah I needed to do 1 Tawaf and 1 Saee, each of which I will cover in my future posts in details.