Tawaf is done in the Mataf, which is part of the Masjid al Haram. Mataf Area is the name for the white area around the Holy Kabah. In the Holy Quran, Allah Almighty SWT said this about this area:
“We told Prophet Ibrahim a.s. and Prophet Ismail a.s. to clean My house (the Kabah) for those who do Tawaf, stay there, bow, and prostrate.
In most of the families’ kids resists to go for umrah you should read the post “Taking a Baby to Umrah or Hajj – Things to Know”. Millions and millions of people perform one of the most important rituals of the pilgrimage in the huge area around the holy Kabah. In the Mataf area, it was hard for pilgrims to do Tawaf because the sun was in their eyes and it was hot. Guests of the Almighty who do rituals like Tawaf or pray near it probably hope to hear that the Mataf area will be shaded. This is especially true when the weather is very hot. The weather in Saudi Arabia is so hot that pilgrims sweat like water running through a lake, and some of them even pass out from sunstroke. So that this doesn’t happen and to make the pilgrims’ holy journey easier, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Saud, who is in charge of the two Holy Mosques, has given the go-ahead for big umbrellas to be put up above the Mataf area to cover it all. When these huge umbrellas are put up in the yards around the holy Grand Mosque, they will cover the area and make it easy and comfortable for pilgrims to do their holy rituals.
The project to expand was announced by the President General of the Grand Mosque, who said that the King had told him to try to provide shade for the outside yards and the areas approved in the project, which will add an area of about 275,000 square metres. The Mataf area is supposed to get more than 300 of these huge umbrellas. These flower-shaped umbrellas make visitors and pilgrims look very attractive. They are also useful because they protect people from direct sunlight in both hot and cold weather, but especially in summer.
In the briefing, it was said that the King did this as a good deed for his Muslim brothers and sisters who come from all over the world to perform Hajj and Umrah. It is the Saudi government’s moral duty to give the pilgrims the best services, facilities, and amenities so that their trip goes smoothly and they can focus on their prayers and supplications instead of things like that. The decision was made to make it easier for people to pray in the courtyard of the mosque when the sun is shining.
The 300 umbrellas that are supposed to be put up will cover an area of about 275,000 square metres around the black building in the middle of the mosque. Before that, these kinds of big umbrellas were also set up in the open area of Masjid e Nabwi SAWW. The look of the umbrellas, which are like flower petals, is also good for the eyes. The umbrellas are made so that they can be folded up and put away however the user wants. They are set up to fold and unfold very slowly so that their moving parts don’t bump into each other. Temperature-sensing instruments are also used and attached to this system. Their almost silent operation is automatically set to match changes in the daily weather. The umbrellas have a system that opens them automatically in the morning, making a clear roof, and closes them automatically in less than 3 minutes in the evening.
They are made in a way that keeps the heat from directly hitting the marble in the Mataf area. The marble gets very hot, and it will get so hot that you can’t walk on it barefoot because it will burn your skin. During the summer, these umbrellas provide shade during the day and reflect away a lot of the heat. When the umbrellas are closed at night, they let the heat that the stone floors and walls have stored escape back into the air. In the winter, on the other hand, the walls and stone floors trap the heat instead of letting it escape. This means that when pilgrims walk on the floor during the day, it doesn’t feel cold but instead warms them up. The times that umbrellas open and close also changed. At night, they were open to keep heat near the ground, and during the day, they were closed to trap heat and keep the floor warm.
Many pilgrimages face different problems in the Umrah. Problems and Solutions during Umrah knowledge is the solution which you can get from a person who has offered Umrah twice or thrice.
The temperature inside the Grand Mosque is controlled by the building itself. The mosque’s air conditioning makes the courtyards around it cooler, which reduces the need for cooling inside. This is made easier by shading the Mataf area, which also gives pilgrims and worshippers more comfortable places to go.
