From Huelva to Mecca on horseback: the three Spaniards who’ve pilgrimage to Arabia as within the instances of Al-Andalus | Culture | EUROtoday

During the spring of 1989, Rafael Hernández Mancha remembers spending the times locked in his room making ready for oppositions to baccalaureate combination trainer in Andalusia. He studied a lot that he went past the person to memorize and immersed himself in different fields: he learn the Bible, reviewed the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy and, sooner or later, he started to leaf by way of the Qur’an, which fascinated him to the purpose of changing into two oaths.

“One of those days at home, studying, I pointed two promises in a notebook, which of course I keep. I told myself: ‘If I approve the oppositions, I become Muslim’. And the second: ‘If I approve them, I make the pilgrimage to Mecca on horseback, as the ancient Andalusi did,” Hernández remembers, alluding to the natives of Muslim Spain within the Muslim.

Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, essentially the most sacred metropolis for Muslims, that each grownup who professes Islam and might achieve this should do at the very least as soon as in a life throughout concrete dates of the Islamic calendar, which this yr falls in early June. For Hernández, the suitable time to undertake the journey arrived on October 13, when, shortly after retiring, he left Almonaster La Real (Huelva) on the again of a mare and set as much as Saudi Arabia with two companions of adventures, Abdelkader Harkassi and Tarek Rodríguez.

In Andalusian instances, and even later from Iberian Christian kingdoms, most pilgrims traveled to Mecca crusing by way of North Africa to Alexandria, the nice port of Egypt. Then they went all the way down to Cairo and there they joined some caravan to undertake the second stage of their Holy Land. For Spanish riders, this route was unfeasible for safety and border restrictions, which compelled them to tour southern Europe.

From these journeys from yesteryear to the East was born even a literary style, the Rihla (The journey, in Arabic), a type of journey diary that mixes experiences with descriptions of the locations traveled. Ibn Yubair, a geographer born in Valencia within the twelfth century, is taken into account its founder, however have survived to this present day adventures from till the tip of the fifteenth century similar to Omar Patún, a Muslim from Ávila who traveled to Mecca between 1491 and 1495.

To carry out their feat, the Spanish riders, who’re already in Saudi Arabia, trusted resistance mares of an equine breed of Arab pure race in Cádiz educated for such an extended journey. In addition, they traveled with 5 horses, to ensure they may rotate and relaxation. The expedition has additionally made 5 full checks alongside the path to supervise their nicely -being and be certain that that they had vitality essential to jog.

The historical past of pilgrims has quijotic dyes. They began virtually with out sources and ran out of cash once they have been nonetheless in Spain. But in Buñuel (Navarra) there was what Hernández considers his first “miracle”: they ran right into a mosque on Friday and after telling their journey to the magnet that directed the prayer and the parishioners – the bulk Moroccan day laborers – raised simply over 1,200 euros to proceed their journey.

Although the workforce had educated for this arduous journey for 3 years, Hernández acknowledges that the hardest a part of the complete journey was the vining of the Alps, since they may not flow into by way of tunnels and needed to cross the mountain in hostile situations. Already in Italy, the pilgrims met a influencer Saudi that provided them in Verona a caravan to accompany the expedition, which already had an help automotive.

“In the Middle Ages, at the time of Don Quijote de la Mancha and perhaps until at least 100 or 150 years, there were mesons and sales where to sleep and where to leave horses to rest. But now there are gas stations and it is very difficult to find a place to spend the nights with the horses and where to feed them,” Hernández justifies.

Admiration in Muslim nations

The destiny of the Spaniards modified considerably when getting into areas and nations of Muslim majority, beginning with Bosnia and the Serbia province of Sandzak and its capital, Novi Pázar, the place Hernández says that individuals put cash within the boots, jackets and mount of horses. They additionally started to supply lodging. By then, the expedition had already grow to be well-known on social networks, the place a whole lot of hundreds of followers accumulate.

After crossing Bosnia and Serbia with horses borrowed by a Sarajevo equestrian membership and crossing Bulgaria by automotive for the restrictions in these nations, the Spaniards remembered their mares in Türkiye. There the journey was once more with snow and coincided with the month of Ramadan, throughout which Muslims quick from daybreak to sundown. But Hernández says that the place the police have been or the neighbors have been provided meals to interrupt the quick. In Türkiye the Minister of Religious Affairs even obtained them.

One of essentially the most particular nations the place they’ve crossed was the one which awaited them simply after: Syria, simply three months after the autumn of the dictator Bashar al Assad. Members of the Free Army, already from the brand new authorities, guarded their passage and the expedition additionally met there with the brand new ministers of tradition and knowledge. “We have been very excited how the Syrian people received us. They were moving, from such a destroyed country,” says Hernández.

After passing by way of the desert Jordan, the Spanish pilgrims lastly entered Saudi Arabia. But Hernández says that shortly after arriving, the police cited to shut an settlement: their journey had precipitated admiration and had allowed them to enter the nation on horseback though they may not, however from then on they might not observe the way in which with their mares besides the place they obtained permits to mount. In return, they might cowl all of the bills of the journey to the Mecca. “They didn’t want 50,000 people to come next year,” Hernández is.

Once the hajj, Around June 9, the Spaniards plan to return to Spain by aircraft. “The sad point of history,” says Hernández, is that they need to promote to the mares in Saudi Arabia, since for authorized causes it ensures that they can’t return with them. “The mares have been the true heroines of the trip,” Hernández slides. “I don’t think there’s [muchos] Horses that have been able to make a feat like this in the 21st century, “he emphasizes.” They have been the ones that have traveled more than 6,000 kilometers. “