The Shaykh’s account of his first pilgrimage and his meeting with some of the Shaykhs, and the facilitation of his return to Damascus through Shaykh Nasif (may Allah have mercy on him).

The Shaykh : We also met Shaykh Abd al-Razzaq Hamza there; he was the director of the House of Hadith. We benefited from his company, and he was, as Allah wills, a man of knowledge and virtue. When the time for return came, here was the divine wisdom in my acquaintance with the police officer. I boarded the plane from Madinah to Jeddah. When the captain of the plane announced that we had arrived in Madinah and prepared for landing, the passengers began to disembark. I saw the usual scene that I had been unaware of: everyone was checking their passports. As I mentioned at the beginning of the story, I did not have a passport with me. But, glory be to Allah, how was I to prove that I had entered legally? By Allah, the police officer sent for me at the top of the stairs.

The questioner: Glory be to Allah!

The Shaykh : "Welcome, welcome! I don't know if you are a Shaykh or a professor, please come in!" Without any question or answer, of course, there were two or three police officers present. There might have been, for example, a commander, and under him a deputy who was in charge of execution, and this was the one. As soon as he saw me, and since he recognized me because of my hesitation, he immediately said to me, "Please come in," and I got off. When the time came to return to Damascus, I told the story to Shaykh Nasif (may Allah have mercy on him). He took a method: he contacted the Governor of Jeddah and said to him, "The story of so-and-so is such and such, and he entered with a visa from the consulate that is not legal or official, so please facilitate his matter." The Governor, in turn, wrote an explanation on the paper from the ambassador, and thus we left Jeddah for Damascus with great ease, and praise be to Allah. And so ends the story of this pilgrimage.