Muslim Pilgrim Sees Jesus While Sleeping Near the Kaaba in Mecca

…

I really did.

I started praying all five times a day.

I’d set alarms on my phone.

I went to the mosque more often, not just for Juma, but for other prayers, too.

I started reading Quran again, something I’d barely done in years.

But it felt mechanical.

I was going through the motions.

The Arabic words came out of my mouth, but they felt empty.

I wasn’t connecting to anything.

It was like making a phone call and getting no answer.

Just ringing and ringing into silence.

I graduated with decent marks.

My parents flew to London for the ceremony, and it was the first time they’d visited me in 4 years.

My mother cried happy tears.

My father embraced me and told me he was proud.

We took photos in front of the university.

I wore my cap and gown and they stood on either side of me beaming.

I felt like the biggest fraud in the world.

After graduation, I got a job with an engineering consultancy in London.

It wasn’t glamorous, but it paid well.

My father wanted me to come home to Saudi Arabia, but I convinced him I needed a few years of international experience first.

The truth was, I couldn’t imagine going back in London.

At least I had some freedom, even if I didn’t know what to do with it.

I moved into a small flat in Canary Wararf, a one-bedroom place that cost way too much.

I decorated it simply, almost like I was afraid to make it feel like home.

I had a prayer mat rolled up in the corner.

I used it sometimes, but not consistently.

My 20ies became a blur of work, occasional nights out with colleagues, and long stretches of loneliness.

I’d go to the mosque sometimes, but less and less frequently.

I’d sit in my flat on Friday evenings and think about how I should be at Juma prayer, but I’d stay home instead.

The guilt was still there, but it had become background noise, something I’d learned to live with.

I went through the motions of finding halal restaurants when I ate out.

I didn’t drink alcohol, though by this point it was more habit than conviction.

I’d sometimes download dating apps and then delete them immediately, disgusted with myself.

I was too Muslim for the Western girls I met and not Muslim enough for the Muslim girls who were actually practicing their faith.

I was stuck in the middle of nowhere.

When I was 26, I started having panic attacks.

The first one happened at work during a meeting.

My heart started racing.

I couldn’t breathe properly and I had to excuse myself and hide in the bathroom.

I thought I was having a heart attack.

I went to the doctor and after some tests they told me it was anxiety.

They offered me medication.

I took it for a while.

The attacks kept happening.

I’d wake up at 3:00 a.

m.

with my heart pounding, feeling like something terrible was about to happen.

I’d lie there in the dark in my expensive flat, successful by most measures, and feel absolutely empty.

I started thinking about death a lot.

Not suicidal thoughts, but just awareness of mortality.

I’d be on the tube going to work and suddenly think about how all these people around me were going to die someday.

I’d think about my own death, about facing Allah, about what would happen to me.

That’s when I decided to do Hajj.

I was lying in bed after another panic attack.

The sun just starting to come up and the thought came to me clearly.

You need to go to Mecca.

You need to do Hajj.

Maybe that will fix whatever is broken inside you.

In Islam, Hajj is one of the five pillars.

Every Muslim who’s physically and financially able is supposed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime.

It’s this huge intense religious experience.

Millions of Muslims from around the world all converging on Saudi Arabia.

all performing the same rituals that go back to the prophet Ibraim to the prophet Muhammad to the beginning of Islam itself.

I called my father that morning and told him I wanted to do Hajj.

He was quiet for a moment and then I heard the emotion in his voice.

He said he was so happy that this was what he’d been praying for, that this would change my life.

He said he’d help me arrange everything.

My mother got on the phone and started crying happy tears.

She said she knew I’d come back to the straight path, that Allah had been watching over me, that this was the answer to her prayers.

My siblings all sent congratulatory messages.

The family group chat lit up with celebration.

I felt like I was drowning.

But I went through with it.

I put in for time off work.

I started the paperwork.

I watched videos about how to perform Hajj properly.

All the steps and rituals I needed to know.

I bought theam, the simple white cloths pilgrims wear.

I read about the spiritual significance, about how this was supposed to strip away all worldly distinctions, about how everyone from kings to beggars wore the same thing and perform the same rituals.

I told myself this would work.

I I told myself that once I was there in the holiest place in Islam, standing before the cabba, something would finally click.

The emptiness would be filled.

The questions would be answered.

I’d finally feel the connection I was supposed to feel.

I had no idea what was actually coming.

The months before Hajj were strange.

I found myself praying more, but it felt desperate rather than devoted.

I’d pray and think, “Please, please let this work.

Please let me feel something.

Please fix me.

I didn’t even know who I was talking to anymore.

Allah felt distant, like a concept rather than a presence.

I told my co-workers I was taking a couple weeks off for a family obligation.

Only one colleague, a Muslim guy named Tariq, knew I was doing Hajj.

He congratulated me and told me to make dua for him when I was there.

I said I would.

I flew from Heathrow to Jedha in late July.

The plane was full of pilgrims, some in Iram already, some still in regular clothes.

There were old men with long beards, families with young children, women in hijab speaking a dozen different languages.

The atmosphere was excited, anticipatory.

People were talking about how blessed we all were, how this was the journey of a lifetime.

I looked out the window at the clouds and felt numb.

In Jedha, we went through processing.

Thousands of pilgrims funneling through, getting our paperwork checked, our biometrics scanned, then buses to Mecca, packed tight.

was the air conditioning barely working in the Saudi heat.

The landscape outside was brown and rocky, harsh and beautiful at the same time.

Then we arrived in Mecca and I saw it for the first time.

The masjid al- Haram, the grand mosque rising up like something from another world.

the minouetses reaching into the sky.

And in the center, the cabba, the black cube, the most sacred site in Islam, the place Muslims around the world face when they pray.

We made our way through the crowds.

There were so many people from every corner of the earth.

Black, white, brown, Asian, Arab, African, European.

All of us in simple white cloths, all equal before God.

Or at least that’s what we were supposed to be.

I entered the mosque with thousands of others.

The marble floors were cool under my bare feet.

The air smelled like incense and sweat and perfume.

I rounded a corner and there it was, the cabba.

It sat in the center of the huge open courtyard and around it like a whirlpool thousands of people were circling it counterclockwise.

This is tawaf the first ritual.

Seven circuits around the kaaba praising Allah with each step.

I joined the crowd and began to circle.

Bodies pressed against me from all sides.

The heat was overwhelming.

People were crying, calling out to Allah, their hands raised in supplication.

I saw old men weeping, women sobbing, young boys with expressions of awe.

I felt nothing.

I tried.

I really tried.

I raised my hands like everyone else.

I recited the prayers I’d memorized.

I looked at the cabba, this sacred place, and tried to feel something, anything.

But there was just emptiness.

Seven circuits took over an hour in the crushing crowd.

When I finished, I was exhausted and disappointed.

But there was more to do.

The rituals of Hajj are specific and demanding.

You go to different locations.

You perform different acts, all with precise spiritual meanings.

I’d studied before coming.

We went to Safa and Marwa, now two small hills inside the mosque complex, and walked between them seven times, commemorating Hajar’s search for water for her son, Ismael.

Back and forth, back and forth in the heat, in the crowds.

Then we traveled to Mina, a tent city where millions of pilgrims stay.

We slept on the ground in huge tents.

Thousands of us packed together.

The bathrooms were horrible.

Everyone was tired and sweaty and uncomfortable.

But this was part of it, part of the test, part of surrendering your comfort for Allah.

The next day we went to Arafat, a plain surrounded by hills.

This is the climax of Hajj.

You stand in the heat from noon until sunset, praying and making dua, asking Allah for forgiveness for all your sins.

This is where pilgrims are supposed to feel closest to God, where prayers are most likely to be answered.

I stood there for hours under the burning sun around me.

People were crying, begging, pouring out their hearts.

I tried to do the same.

I prayed for forgiveness for everything I’d done wrong, for Emily, for lying to my parents, for missing prayers, for all of it.

But it felt like my prayers were hitting a wall and falling back down.

The sun set.

We moved on to Muzdalifa, slept under the stars on rocky ground, collected pebbles for the next ritual.

In the morning, exhausted and sore, we went back to Mina and threw stones at three pillars representing Satan.

Everyone was shouting as they threw, rejecting evil, rejecting temptation.

I threw my stones mechanically.

I felt like I was performing in a play where I’d forgotten my lines.

This went on for days.

More rituals, more prayers, more crowds.

I was doing everything I was supposed to do, following every step.

But inside I was screaming with frustration.

Why wasn’t this working? Why wasn’t I feeling anything? What was wrong with me? On the fourth night of Hajj, I couldn’t sleep.

We were back near the Haram and I left our group and walked toward the mosque.

It was late, maybe 2:00 a.

m.

, but the mosque never really empties.

There are always people there praying, circumambulating the cabba.

I found a spot on the marble floor where I could sit and see the cabba, the black cloth covering it, the gold Arabic calligraphy, the pilgrims circling endlessly.

The lights of the mosque were bright, but the sky above was dark.

I sat there completely exhausted and finally let myself think the thought I’d been pushing away for years.

What if none of this is true? What if I’m performing all these rituals and it means nothing because there’s nothing there to hear them? The thought terrified me.

But once I let it in, I couldn’t push it back out.

I sat there in the holiest place in Islam, surrounded by millions of believers, and felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.

The panic was rising again.

That feeling of not being able to breathe on that feeling of drowning.

And then without really meaning to, I prayed one last prayer.

It wasn’t in Arabic.

It wasn’t formal.

I just thought it or maybe whispered it.

I don’t remember.

God, if you’re real, if you’re actually there, I need you to show me.

I can’t keep doing this.

I can’t keep pretending.

Please just show me you’re real.

I fell asleep right there on the marble floor using my arm as a pillow.

I was so tired.

I didn’t care about how uncomfortable it was.

I just wanted to disappear for a while.

And that’s when everything changed.

I need to tell you about the dream, but I’m not sure I have the words for it.

I’ve had dreams my whole life.

Normal dreams, weird dreams, stress dreams where I’m back in school taking an exam I didn’t study for.

I have had dreams that felt meaningful and dreams I forgot the moment I woke up.

This was different from all of them.

I was still in the Haram, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, but it was somehow different, empty, or at least much less crowded.

The lights were dimmer, softer.

The cabba was still there in the center, but I wasn’t focused on it.

I was focused on the person walking toward me.

He was dressed in white, but not like the iharam we pilgrims wore.

This was different.

The white seemed to glow, but not in a way that hurt to look at.

And his face, I could see his face clearly, but I couldn’t tell you now exactly what he looked like.

That sounds impossible, I know.

But in the dream, I knew him.

I recognized him, even though I’d never seen him before.

He walked straight toward me, and he said my name, not Omar.

which is what everyone calls me, but my full name.

The name my parents gave me, the name I barely use.

He said it clearly, like he’d known me forever.

I felt myself stand up even though I didn’t decide to stand.

My heart was pounding.

In dreams, usually things feel hazy, uncertain.

This didn’t Everything felt hyperreal.

More real than being awake.

He stood in front of me and when he spoke, his voice was calm, but it filled everything.

He said, “I am the way.

I have been with you your whole life.

” That was it, those words.

But the way he said them, the weight of them, it was like every question I’d ever had was being answered at once.

It was like being seen completely, every secret thing, and being loved anyway, not judged, not condemned, just loved.

I wanted to say something, to ask who he was, but I couldn’t speak.

I could only stand there as this overwhelming feeling washed over me.

It wasn’t just peace.

It was more than that.

It was like coming home after being lost for years.

It was like taking the first real breath after drowning.

It was relief so profound I wanted to weep.

He looked at me with these eyes that were kind and sad at the same time, and he said something else, but I can’t remember the exact words.

I remember the meaning though.

He was telling me that he’d been there all along through everything waiting.

That he knew me completely and had never left.

Then he reached out and touched my shoulder.

The moment he touched me, I felt this surge of something I can’t describe.

Love, but stronger than any love I’d known.

Peace that made no sense.

And underneath it all, truth, absolute certainty that this was real, more real than anything else.

And then I woke up.

I opened my eyes and I was back on the marble floor of the Haram.

There were people around me, pilgrims walking past, the sound of prayer echoing through the mosque.

The cabba was there and the lights and everything was normal.

But I was shaking.

My whole body was shaking.

There were tears on my face.

My heart was racing so fast.

I thought something was wrong with it.

I touched my shoulder where he’d touched me in the dream.

And I could still feel it.

This warmth, this presence.

I sat up quickly, looking around like I’d see him there in the crowd.

But there was just the normal flow of pilgrims.

Thousands of people going about their rituals.

Nobody was paying any attention to me.

What just happened? What was that? I tried to stand, but my legs were weak.

I leaned against one of the marble columns and tried to catch my breath.

The dream was already starting to fade the way dreams do, but those words stayed crystal clear.

I am the way.

I have been with you your whole life.

The way.

That phrase, I am the way.

Why did that sound familiar? I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and typed the words into Google.

I am the way.

The results came up immediately.

Bible verses, Christian websites, all pointing to the same passage.

John 14:6.

My hands went cold.

I clicked on one of the links and read the verse.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

” No, no, no, no.

I closed the browser and put my phone away quickly, looking around like someone might have seen what I was searching.

My heart was pounding for a different reason.

Now, this was wrong.

This was very wrong.

In Islam, we believe in Issa, in Jesus, but as a prophet only, a great prophet born of a virgin who performed miracles, but not divine, not God.

And absolutely not the only way to Allah.

That’s shik, the unforgivable sin of associating partners with God.

That’s the one thing you cannot do.

And I just had a dream where someone claiming to be Jesus told me he was the way in the middle of Hajj in Mecca, the holiest place in Islam.

I tried to rationalize it.

I was exhausted.

I’d been under enormous stress.

I’d probably heard that phrase somewhere before, maybe from one of my Christian friends in London, and my subconscious had dredged it up.

Dreams are just your brain processing things.

This meant nothing.

But even as I thought these explanations, I knew they weren’t true.

That dream hadn’t felt like my brain processing stress.

It had felt like someone speaking directly to me.

I pushed myself off the column and made my way out of the haram.

My group was staying in a hotel about 15 minutes walk away.

I needed to get back to sleep in an actual bed to wake up and have this all make sense.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling, the warmth on my shoulder, the absolute certainty I’d felt in that moment, the way he’d said my name.

The next day, we completed more of the Hajj rituals.

We did taw again, the farewell circling of the Cabba.

We prayed in the mosque.

We took pictures.

Everyone in my group was talking about how blessed they felt, how this had changed their lives, how they felt so close to Allah.

I said the right things.

I smiled for the pictures.

But inside I was somewhere else completely.

I kept thinking about that dream.

I’d try to focus on the prayers, on the meaning of what we were doing, but my mind would drift back to those words, I am the way.

And worse, the feeling I’d had.

That sense of being completely known and completely loved.

I’d never felt that in a mosque, never felt it during prayer, not once in my entire life, but I’d felt it in a dream about Jesus.

It made no sense.

It went against everything I’d been taught.

It was dangerous even to think about.

We finished Hajj and traveled back to Jedha.

I was supposed to feel renewed, transformed, full of faith and devotion.

Instead, I felt like I was carrying a secret that could destroy me.

On the flight back to London, I barely slept.

I kept replaying the dream.

examining every detail.

The way the lighthead looked, the sound of his voice, the impossible combination of authority and gentleness, that touch on my shoulder, I am the way.

I have been with you your whole life.

If it was Jesus saying that, what did he mean? With me my whole life.

I’d been a Muslim my whole life.

I’d prayed to Allah, fasted for Ramadan, he memorized Quran.

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