A little over a month ago, Rifat Karic from Busovaca set off on foot to Mecca. A road nearly 5,000 kilometers long is his long-term plan, and he described how everything started.
19 years ago, back in 2005, Karic was a bus driver transporting pilgrims from Bugojno to Mecca and back. It was then that the desire and niyyah (intention) to walk that same road arose. Although he wanted to do it much earlier, this year, after many years of work, is the year when he left everything and headed for the holy place of Muslims.
“It was all a dream until I saw on Facebook that Senad Hadzicfrom Banovici set off on foot to Mecca to perform the Hajj. Given that the news surprised me, and he had already arrived in Pester, that was in 2012, when I myself decided to leave. However, the war in Syria happened and I had to postpone my departure. When I saw again on Facebook that a man had left Austria last year, I immediately thought to myself that I would leave on January 1st. But, 2024 will bring war with Gaza and because of that my departure was questionable and uncertain,” Karic stated.
He points out that no one knew about his departure for Mecca in February. He just left.
“Working as a driver, while I’m on break, I planned everything from the route of movement to the necessary things and equipment and bought a little bit all over Europe. As someone who has been a mountaineer for years, I know what I need. The most basic part of the equipment is a backpack and shoes, the rest is also bought on the way because you can’t carry everything. I had no problems there, and I’m physically fit. Googling the route, and I perfected that by doing the driver’s work, I determined the route with the total mileage, but it’s not official because there are still war effects, so I left it to be corrected as needed, and so far, thank God, there aren’t anyproblems”, adds interlocutor.
His route started in Busovaca, and then he visited Sarajevo, Sandzak, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey, while he still needs to pass through Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Medina and Mecca, ending the journey of about 5,200 kilometers.
In the meantime, he realized that he could not pass through Kosovo because he did not have a visa, which is why he was transited, and due to an unstable security situation, he would fly over Syria.
At the moment, he has traveled about 1,400 kilometers, and he travels about 40 kilometers a day, which he says will be enough to the end, in order to arrive on time.
He will end his journey in Medina, and during the journey, the month of Ramadan befalls him and he fasts from the first day.
“Upon entering Turkey, the Ramadan fast began, thank God, so far I have been fasting from the first day without any issues and I can endure it easily. Therefore, thank God, my health is stable, despite the fact that in a month and a half I will be 67 years old. I hope, with Allah’s decree, that it will be stable in the future as well. There are about 600 km left to the end of Turkey, which is half of my way,” said our interlocutor.
Wherever he went, he had the support of people who helped him on his way, and one of the imams of the Turkish mosque wrote him a message that opened many doors for him on his way through Turkey.
“I hope that the rest of the journey will go even better because the more I cross, the stronger I am, thanks to the niyyah, which is a visit to the holiest place on earth, which I look forward to, and that joy cannot be described,” Karic explained.
In the end, he pointed out that it is a great honor to experience and embark on this not-so-easy project, but that he believes that he will succeed and that the experience gained cannot be paid for.
“I was sure of myself and I decided, with the grace of Allah, to go on a journey and perform my sincere niyyah, ending at Arafatand the last Tawaf around Baitullah,” concluded Karic, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
