Ihram - When You Strip Everything Except Intention
Chapter 2 — Ihram: When You Strip Everything Except Intention
Changi Airport had a way of pretending that departures were clean.
Everything was bright. Everything was efficient. Glass walls, polished floors, signs that told you exactly where to go. Even goodbyes looked neat there—people hugging beside luggage trolleys, wiping tears quickly as if emotion was something you should not inconvenience others with.
Aleem walked beside Malek through the check-in line, passport in hand, shoulders square, face composed. He moved like a man who had trained himself to look fine.
Malek, on the other hand, looked awake in a way that was almost offensive.
“You brought a laptop?” Malek asked, eyes narrowing at Aleem’s backpack.
Aleem did not look at him. “It is called being prepared.”
“It is called being unable to rest,” Malek corrected, and grinned when Aleem shot him a warning glance. “Relax. We are going to Makkah, not a hackathon.”
Aleem’s mouth twitched, the closest thing to a smile. “Work does not stop because I am spiritual.”
Malek hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe it should.”
They moved forward with the line. Aleem’s gaze drifted, uninvited, toward a family nearby—an elderly couple holding hands, their movements slow but certain. A young father lifted his child so the little boy could see over the crowd. A woman adjusted her mother’s scarf with gentle patience.
These were not dramatic displays of love. They were simple, ordinary tenderness.
For reasons he did not want to admit, they felt heavier than any heartbreak montage.
Aleem looked away.
He told himself he was not here for this.
He was not here to chase romance, to search for some cinematic miracle.
He was here because his heart had become tired of being loud.
And he wanted silence—real silence, not the kind he manufactured by keeping people at a distance.
When they finally cleared immigration and stepped into the departure hall, Malek stretched his arms like a man who had won something.
“Alhamdulillah,” Malek said, pleased. “Now you cannot run.”
Aleem lifted an eyebrow. “I could still turn around.”
“You could,” Malek agreed easily, “but you will not. Because even you know there are some places you cannot enter while still lying to yourself.”
Aleem stared at him.
Malek smiled sweetly, then turned away as if he had not just said something that struck too close.
Aleem followed him to the gate.
He told himself to stop thinking.
But the mind was not a machine that obeyed.
It was a room with doors that opened when they wanted.
On the plane, the cabin lights dimmed until everything became softer—faces reduced to shapes, conversations reduced to murmurs. Malek fell asleep quickly, head tilted against the seat, mouth slightly open, the most peaceful he had looked in weeks.
Aleem stared ahead.
Outside the window, clouds stretched endlessly like a pale ocean. Somewhere beyond them was a place he had seen only in pictures, a place he had prayed toward his whole life.
He should have felt excitement.
Instead, he felt the strange weight of being confronted with sincerity.
When you were alone in your room, it was easy to treat faith like habit.
When you were flying toward the House of Allah, habit began to feel like accountability.
Aleem’s phone sat in his pocket, heavy as a secret.
He thought of the message from the Chinese girl—kind, final, a door closed without malice.
A clean ending that still bruised.
He thought of Almahirah years ago, not as a person but as an event—his first true heartbreak, the betrayal that had taught him what it felt like to be held in reserve.
Those two pains were different.
One was recent, softer but sharp in its own way.
The other was old, embedded, the kind of wound that became part of your personality if you were not careful.
Aleem had been careful.
Too careful.
He reached for the small dua he had not made in a long time—not the formal words he memorised, but the raw ones that came from the part of him that could not be sarcastic.
Ya Allah…
The words stayed behind his teeth, shy.
He swallowed.
Then he whispered, too quietly for anyone to hear.
“Ya Allah… I am tired.”
He looked at the clouds.
“Give me peace.”
He hated how simple it sounded.
He loved how honest it was.
When they landed, the first thing Aleem noticed was the air.
It was drier, warmer, carrying the scent of dust and something else—something faintly metallic and unfamiliar. The airport was crowded, the lines long, the voices around them a tapestry of languages he could not place.
Malek woke up cheerful, as if sleep had reset him.
“Welcome,” Malek declared, stepping forward with the confidence of a man who had been to Saudi before.
Aleem followed, dragging his luggage, letting the crowd swallow him.
There was a strange comfort in anonymity.
In Singapore, everyone had a label.
Here, he was just another pilgrim.
No one knew he was a software engineer.
No one knew he had a heartbreak still living in his ribs.
No one knew he had built a rule out of trauma and called it wisdom.
He could have been anyone.
Or perhaps, for the first time in years, he could simply be himself.
They joined their umrah group at a designated meeting point—rows of people gathered with lanyards and small backpacks, some smiling, some exhausted, some visibly emotional.
An ustaz stood at the front, holding a clipboard, calling names.
Aleem stood beside Malek, listening half-heartedly, mind focused on logistics.
Room assignments.
Buses.
Timings.
He scanned faces without meaning to.
Then he froze.
It was not dramatic.
Not the kind of freeze that made you drop your bag or gasp.
It was the kind that happened inside your chest, where your heart forgot how to beat smoothly.
Across the gathering, a woman adjusted her scarf, turning slightly as she listened to someone speak.
The angle of her face.
The familiar line of her nose.
The posture he remembered more than he wanted to.
Aleem’s throat tightened.
His mind offered denial first, desperate and immediate.
It is not her.
There were countless Malay women in the world.
Countless hijabs.
Countless faces.
But his body did not believe his logic.
Because trauma recognised what the mind tried to ignore.
The ustaz called out another name, loud enough to cut through the crowd.
“Almahirah binti—”
Aleem’s stomach dropped.
The world narrowed.
The name landed like a verdict.
Almahirah.
Here.
In the same group.
In the same journey.
As if Allah had taken the wound he was trying to outrun and placed it directly in his path.
Malek turned his head sharply.
He didn’t need to ask.
He saw Aleem’s face.
He saw the way Aleem’s eyes had gone distant, as though he had been pulled into a memory.
Malek’s voice was careful when he spoke. “Are you alright?”
Aleem forced himself to inhale. “I am fine.”
Malek did not accept that.
But he also did not expose Aleem in front of the group.
Instead, Malek leaned closer, voice low enough that it was only theirs.
“Is that… her?”
Aleem did not respond immediately.
His pride wanted to pretend.
His dignity wanted to lie.
But this was Makkah’s direction now, and it felt wrong to carry dishonesty this close to worship.
“Yes,” Aleem said finally.
One word.
Heavy.
Malek’s face shifted—surprise first, then something protective.
He placed a hand lightly on Aleem’s shoulder as if anchoring him.
“Listen to me,” Malek said, voice steady. “You do not have to talk to her.”
Aleem’s jaw tightened.
“But,” Malek continued, “you also cannot let her poison your intention.”
Aleem looked at him.
Malek’s eyes were serious now.
“You came here for Allah,” Malek said. “Do not let your past hijack your worship.”
Aleem swallowed.
It sounded simple.
It was not.
Because the past was not a file you could delete.
It was a scar that sometimes felt like it still had blood.
Aleem nodded once.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
And for a moment, Malek looked relieved.
In their hotel room later, the air-conditioning was cold enough to make the skin prickle.
The contrast to the outside heat felt almost symbolic—two climates in one day, two realities in one heart.
Malek moved around easily, laying out items, checking the umrah guide, reminding Aleem of timings.
Aleem stood near his luggage, staring at the folded white cloth on the bed.
Ihram.
Two simple pieces.
No brands.
No tailoring.
No status.
Just fabric that reduced a man to intention.
He had always dressed carefully in Singapore, not out of vanity, but out of control. A crisp shirt, a neat watch, clean shoes.
A way to tell the world he was fine.
The ihram did not care if he was fine.
The ihram asked for something more terrifying.
Honesty.
Malek glanced at him. “You are thinking too much.”
“I am preparing,” Aleem replied.
Malek snorted. “You cannot prepare your way out of this. That is the whole point.”
Aleem did not answer.
He took the cloth and held it in his hands.
It was lighter than he expected.
Plain.
Unforgiving.
He went into the bathroom, showered, let the water run over him as if washing could reach deeper than skin. When he came out, wrapped in the ihram, he felt exposed.
Not physically.
Spiritually.
As if every defence he had built was suddenly visible.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
His phone lay beside him.
He thought of Almahirah standing downstairs in the lobby, her name called out among pilgrims.
He wanted to believe it meant nothing.
He wanted to believe coincidence was coincidence.
But in his chest, the old rule stirred—warning, protecting, whispering.
This is how it begins again.
Aleem closed his eyes.
Then he opened them and did the only thing he could do without hurting himself.
He turned away from the rule.
He turned toward intention.
He lifted his hands.
“Ya Allah,” he whispered, voice tight at first. “Do not let my past be louder than You.”
The sentence felt strange in his mouth.
But it also felt right.
He exhaled.
Then, as they prepared to leave the room and join the group, Malek began the talbiyah softly, the words familiar yet suddenly alive.
“Labbayka Allahumma labbayk…”
Others outside were saying it too. A chorus of pilgrims, a river of voices moving toward one destination.
Aleem hesitated.
Then he joined, voice quiet but steady.
“Labbayka la sharika laka labbayk…”
The words warmed his throat.
They did not erase his pain.
They simply placed it in its proper size.
He stepped out with Malek into the corridor, then into the elevator, then into the lobby where the group gathered again.
And there she was.
Almahirah.
Not rushing toward him.
Not staring.
Just standing with her mother, hands clasped, expression calm.
She looked older.
Not in a way that made her less beautiful.
In a way that made her feel more real.
For a brief second, her eyes lifted.
They met his.
There was no smile.
No wave.
No confrontation.
Just recognition.
And something quieter beneath it—an emotion Aleem could not name.
The crowd shifted.
The guide spoke.
The bus doors opened.
The world kept moving.
Aleem looked forward.
He kept reciting.
Because he had come to Makkah seeking peace.
And now, it seemed, peace would not be given to him as an escape.
It would be given to him as a test.
As if Allah was saying:
You will not worship with half a heart.