Summary:

In this video, Alban Fejza explains where the Ihram should be put on before entering Mecca for Hajj and demonstrates how men and women wear it.

Video Transcript:

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. So in the previous Friday sermon titled my 2025 Hajj travel checklist, I mentioned that one of the items that I need to prepare for Hajj is theam. And in this video, I’m going to show you how to wear it. But before I do that, let me first talk about where to wear it. Theam should be worn before you enter the borders seen in this map. These are the borders of the Mecca state. And what I mean by Mecca state is that in a more advanced world, Arabia would be a democratic country like Italy is today. And then Mecca, this region of Mecca will be a religious state separate from Saudi Arabia, just like the Vatican is a religious state separate from Italy. Now, traditionally when you enter this region for Hajj or Umrah from any of these borders, you are supposed to wear the before you enter. However, one of those borders entrances extends all the way to the sea. And there was a general consensus since before, during and after Muhammad that people who come from the sea should first step on land and then wear the am because it would be uncomfortable and unreasonable to change your clothes in a moving ship where you might not even have sufficient privacy. But then the question is where should you wear the Aram if you land in this region from the air with an airplane? Well, we can reach the conclusion about this from the Quran. The Quran in verses 3512, 55:19, and 2553 mentions only two seas. The Quran does not mention five oceans, for example, like they teach you in geography courses because according to the Quran, correctly. So, the so-called oceans are just one continuous body of water that makes just one sea. But where is the other sea then? The other sea according to the Quran and the Bible is the atmosphere. It is called the upper sea which is separated from the lower sea by evaporation. The atmosphere also contains water which is why it can be considered the sea. The Bible in its first chapter also mentions this idea of the two seas. The lower sea the oceans and the upper sea the atmosphere. And once we realize that the atmosphere is one of the seas, we realize that the Quran whenever it mentions ships, it also talks about airplanes as just one of the ship versions because the airplanes float in the upper sea just like ships float in the lower sea. For example, in verse 55:24, God says that to him belong the ships which are elevated high like mountains. Obviously this also refers to airplanes because they are elevated high like mountains and they fly or float in the waters of the atmosphere. So this means that what traditionally applied to ships in in relation to it applies to airplanes as well. And this means that we should wear theam after we land on the Mecca state. Just like for centuries, the people who went to Mecca on ships were their am after they landed in Jedha. Let me use another example to explain why this makes sense. Let’s say if you travel to Moscow, Russia, for example, when the plane enters the atmosphere, the atmosphere above Russia, they do not check your passport up there in the air while still on the airplane. First, the airplane lands and then they check your passport at the airport inside Russian land. But if you travel there with a car through land, first you show your passport and then they they let you enter Russia. And the same logic applies to. If you travel with an airplane or ship, first you land and then you wear theam. But if you travel through land, first you wear theam and then you enter the Mecca state. Unfortunately, the Saudi religious authorities reached the wrong conclusion about this issue without any basis in the Quran or even in their hadith. They apply the rule of the land to the case of the airplanes instead of applying the rule of the ships to the case of the airplanes. So they actually require you to wear theam before you land there at the Jada airport. This is a requirement with no basis, but I plan to obey it regardless because it is such a small price to pay to be able to per perform such an important religious ritual like Hajj. God willing, one day this will be corrected and they will have changing rooms at the Jada airport for people to wear theirs. But for now, let’s just wear the before we land at the Jada airport. You can wear it at home before you leave or you can wear it at the last airport before you fly to Jedha. The airports have bathrooms after you pass security when you wait at the boarding gate for the airplane. So you can just use the bathroom to remove your clothes and wear the air. So here is what I plan to do. I take a shower at home and then I wear the air either at home or at the airport bathroom. So now here is how I wear my ear. I take my pants, my t-shirt, and the undershirt off. I’m not going to do it here on video, of course, because it would not be modest, but you can just imagine that I removed my clothes. By the way, I plan to leave my underwear on and wear theam on top of the underwear. Traditionally, people used to wear the aam without underwear, but this is actually not religious requirement at all. The purpose of the Aram is so that people cannot see the shape of your body. Which is why is supposed to be a simple fabric which has not been sewn together with other fabric because suing them is what enables you or the or the factories to shape them according to the shape of your body. So ultimately what makes theam a trueam is not allowing the others to see the shape of your body and whether you wear underwear underneath the iram or not that should not make a difference in revealing the shape of your body. In fact for people of the modern world it is better to have underwear underneath the aam because we do not have very sophisticated privacy protection habits. We are not as careful in how we sit in different situations for example and we wouldn’t want to flash somebody by accident while we are sitting to eat for example or maybe while we are standing up and someone accidentally steps on our aam and it falls off that would be totally embarrassing for you and for the other person. So to avoid such an accidental situation where the aam might fall off it’s better to have underwear. By the way, even Jesus wore an undergarment. And if underwear was not too unholy for Jesus, the definitely are not too unholy for us either. But bedwins at the time of Muhammad did not have underwear, but they did not have underwear even when they were not going to Hajj. And that is because they had mastered the art of not wearing underwear in the desert since their childhood. They were taught by their parents how to be mindful about how they sit and in what positions they eat when and where they eat and in what positions to sleep and so on. But for people of the modern world like us who typically wear underwear, underwear is a better method of protecting us from the unintentionally from unintentionally revealing our private parts during the whole hutch process. For women, if they wear underwear, it’s important that they do not exaggerate some certain shapes of their bodies. Now, what does the Quran tell us regarding how to wear the Before we go there, let’s first take another example with which we are familiar to understand the logic easier. For example, what does the Quran tell us about how to use a fork? Basically only one verse in the Quran advises us about this. Verse 6 141 tells us not to waste the food. So just don’t drop the food outside of your plate when you use the fork because when because then it might be unclean to eat it and it goes to waste. So basically the only rule in the Quran about how to use a fork is to simply make sure not to drop the fruit. It doesn’t matter if you hold the fork like this or like this or may or like this or with your left hand like this and so on. Just don’t drop the food. In a similar way, the only rule in the Quran about how to wear the is just don’t drop theam. Don’t let it fall off from your body. It doesn’t matter if you hold it with your hands or use this method or that method or use a belt. There are no specific rules as long as you don’t let it fall off. And this rule is given to us in verse 727. It says, “Oh children of Adam, do not let the devil dupe you as he did when he caused the eviction of your parents from paradise and the removal of their garments to expose their bodies. So just don’t let the devil expose your body in public. So which one of the many available methods of wearing the am you use is not important. As long as you do it in a way where you feel comfortable that it will not fall off. So here is one of the methods which I use. I take the aram. Here it is. I put it behind my body. I spread it like this. And then I grab with my right hand all the way to the corner. All the way to the corner. But with my left hand, I don’t need to go all the way to the corner. Just somewhere here. So, I tuck the right side underneath like this. Make sure I pull tight. And then the other side on top. And then I roll it as far as it goes. Like this. And then to make sure that it doesn’t fall, I roll it down on all sides. Like that. If it feels tight, you’re doing it well. And there we go. And then I can test it if if it’s going to fall. Look, I’m pulling really hard. It’s not going to fall. So yeah, that’s the method I use. Or God willing, this time I also plan to use a belt. So, what I can do is put a belt, an inram belt, put it like this, and then for to be extra modest, I’m actually going to cover the belt. I’ll I’ll cover the belt with the ear. There we go. So, yeah, that’s it for the lower ARM. Very simple. Now for the upper body aam there are quite a few methods basically you just do it like a shawl like a winter scarf. You put it around and then you throw one side on top of the other like that at the back of your body. And that’s it. And even though I did it like a scarf because it’s much wider than a scarf, it kind of covers all my upper body. And this method is actually useful when you are not very active. If you are in a situation so when you want to be more active, what you can do is in instead of throwing this up like this, you put your shoulder out and then you throw it. In this way, you have extra mobility or you can do the prayer or you can walk around or even run. This has extra mobility. Or if it’s really hot and sunny outside and you have no protection, no umbrella and let’s say you want to do the prayer and you cannot hold the umbrella and you need your head to be protected from the sun. What you can do is just put it like this and then just put these two sides like that and that’s it. So now you’re protect pro protected from the sun. Some people think that we shouldn’t cover our head during Hajj. However, that rule only applies to you wearing an extra hat or an extra cap. But if you use the Aram itself to cover your head, that is totally fine. You can and if it’s really really hot and and in a dry desert climate, what you can do is sprinkle some water in the it’s actually going to really keep you cool. And that’s it. The upper air and the lower Aram. Now for women, women don’t wear a by the way. women wear a modest dress. For example, my wife plans to wear this dress. It’s a very simple black dress. It can be I would recommend that it is either black or gray or white because those are neutral colors which are more modest. And then so she plans to wear this before we go to Saudi Arabia. And then on the plane when we are about to reach Saudi Arabia, before we land, she plans to wear the headscarf as well. What they call the hijab. It’s a simple it’s a simple headscarf. So she plans to put it on her head. That’s it for women. So this is all you need to know about or the models dress for women.