MAKKAH: With the pilgrimage over, shops around the Grand Mosque are bustling with the guests of God keen to buy gifts for their relatives and friends back home from the land of the Two Holy Mosques. Though the gifts are mostly symbolic and bought at reasonable prices, it means much for pilgrims to go back home with something from Islam’s holiest mosque after completing a most sacred journey.
Abdul Hameeed from Morocco was shopping for electronic goods near the Grand Mosque. He thanked God for enabling him to perform the Haj and said he wanted to buy a laptop as a souvenir.
Ahmad Muhammad from Turkey said he was keen on obtaining the most recent religious books. “I want to know more about the Prophet’s Seerah (life story) and comparative Fiqh (jurisprudence) because these books are cheap here,” he said. He added that he would give these books to mosques and religious organizations in Turkey so they too can benefit after he has read them.
Muna Ahmad, a pilgrim from Egypt, said she performed Haj in ease and comfort. “Everything was easy,” she commented. She said she was looking for gifts for her family in Egypt. “I want to buy worry beads made of precious stones for my mother, a gold ring for my daughter and a mobile phone for my son as I promised them,” she said.
Ismael Jawharji, a Saudi merchant who owns a shop near the Grand Mosque, said he has been selling worry beads, precious stones and silverworks all his life. “This is an old profession which is inherited from fathers and grandfathers. The prices vary and there is sharp competition among such shops in Makkah,” he said.
Jawharji said though there are plenty of shops, each customer is only interested in a particular commodity that only a select few shopkeepers sell.
He said some pilgrims are keen to buy valuable gifts of amber, sapphire, corundum and jewels. “During the past five or six years, most of my customers were from Turkey but before that they were from Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries,” he added.
He said Moroccan and Gulf pilgrims always prefer to buy colored bracelets, while the Malaysians buy silver rings, adding Syrians and Egyptians often buy worry beads.
Gifts bought by pilgrims include electronics, perfumes, gold, worry beads, prayer rugs and abayas. The central area around the Grand Mosque records the highest amount of sales, followed by Aziziyah district and Al-Mansour and Al-Siteen streets.
The Haj may be over but the memories of the occasion will be with pilgrims forever.
