The Best Travel Vibe for Your First Umrah

How to do Umrah From Pakistan | The No-Stress Gen Z Guide

Thinking about performing Umrah from Pakistan?

First off, congrats, and secondly, welcome to one of my favorite trips ever! Forget the VHS hand-downs from your parents- everything's pretty streamlined, efficient, and beautiful these days.

I hope this quick no-stress guide helps you complete it safely, enjoy Madinah and Makkah, and have an overall awesome journey.

The Quick Admin

Download the Nusuk app.

It is an application for reserving overnight stay at the Rawdah and downloading all the passes and necessary arrangements at an economical price to avoid the hassles of local officials. Book air tickets and accommodation (3 stars and above) for your Umrah trip 3-4 months in advance. You will definitely get surprising price deals and no need to worry about late bookings and the subsequent high prices. Remember that the Umrah kit should include a travel wallet that stores some SAR equivalent local money to enjoy the authentic cuisine of local restaurants and the rides of the taxi services.

What to Wear?

If men can, please do practice wrapping your Ihram clothes before your departure, because last minute scrambling can become a whole ordeal.

The rest – i.e. Women – will wear flowy, light-weight, cool-fabric abayas or tunics (Makkah gets scorching!). Men, considering Makkah does cool down significantly later in the night, you may wish to pack a couple of warmer socks.

Most of all, comfortable shoes are a must – you’ll definitely put many thousand steps each day in!

The Rituals

So, apart from numerous other things, Umrah comprises many ritual ceremonies, the prime purpose of which is to put all worldly cares on a vacation for a couple of days, focus on your intention and ultimately reflect and submit to Allah SWT. Trust me – this seems daunting, but mostly all these rituals are simple, fast and convenient. Here’s an overview –

• Ihram: Men need to wear it prior to Crossing Miqat (it often happens inside the plane), should avoid Wearing perfumed stuff to Ihram Clothes and perform the heart’s prayer for their Umrah purpose.
• Tawaf: A ritual of circumambulating the holy Ka’bah in Islam 7 times. Try doing it at night or in early morning, to catch those lesser-crowding-times of the day.
• Sa'i: It is Walking from hill Safa to Marwah. Each circle is approximately 3.5 kilometres. Pace Yourself in this, and most important, drink gallons upon gallons of zam zam.
• The Cut: Men trim down all the hair from their head while women trim a portion (about the size of their finger) to signify completion of the pilgrimage (ritual cut).

Survival Tips

As per the above survival guide tip: don’t fall in the trap of eating in hotel, they charge a luxury price and don’t bring amazing food.

Instead feast at your local shops and cafes.

Take the cheap bus routes or hop in to the apps rather then wasting dollars to a taxi driver whom hardly speaks any languages.

The Final word

When you finally stand before the Qibla, please take out the phone from your pocket, leave it aside for a while and disconnect yourself completely from everyday affairs, troubles, and the excessive urge to capture every single moment and post it on social media – because this is literally all that your pilgrimage is about – to detach yourself from the outside and think for a moment with your creator, submit for a bit to HIS love- and watch your troubles melt away like snow.