{"id":49244,"date":"2019-07-21T23:47:16","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T22:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=49244"},"modified":"2019-07-21T23:47:16","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T22:47:16","slug":"8-british-muslims-cycling-to-hajj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/8-british-muslims-cycling-to-hajj\/","title":{"rendered":"8 British Muslims Cycling to Hajj"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-49245\" src=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Bike.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"799\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Bike.jpg 666w, https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Bike-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Bike-390x220.jpg 390w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px\" \/>A group of eight British Muslim cyclists arrived in Istanbul on Saturday for a break in their long hajj trip from London to the Muslim second-most sacred city of Madinah.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThis journey is important in many ways. We\u2019re all on the road for our faith. We meet great people along the road and we have great stories,\u201d Zain Lambat, a member of the group, said about his first journey to Hajj.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThank goodness we had a great time as we made our way to places.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The group, who call themselves the \u201cTour de Hajj\u201d, kicked off their journey on June 7 and is expected to take 60 days.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They plan to pedal through 17 different countries, with only a break to cross Syria and Iraq to reach Egypt by plane.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They aim at raising awareness and funds for needy Muslims across the world for building mosques and schools.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cOn June 7, we set off from London on our bikes. We plan to reach Medina after 4,000 kilometers [2,485 miles] and a 60-day bicycle tour,\u201d another cyclist, Junaid Afzal, said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cMeanwhile, we aim to raise \u00a3500,000 [$628,600] to help people to be used in mosques and schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Afzal also said he recommends making a pilgrimage by bike, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s about your will. \u2026 In the Holy Qur\u2019an, it says, \u2018When he [God] wishes for something to exist, he just commands it to exist, so it does.\u2019 That\u2019s how people should look at life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Lambat is thankful to the Turkish people who welcomed them warmly to the city of Istanbul.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cEverywhere we went, there were Turkish mosques, and we met our Turkish brothers. They showed us incredible hospitality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIf you have a really good intention to make a pilgrimage, God will surely make your way easier,\u201d Lambat said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe set off with a very small budget, but God introduced to wonderful people along the way and provided our sustenance.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/8-british-muslims-cycling-to-hajj\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of eight British Muslim cyclists arrived in Istanbul on Saturday for a break in their long hajj trip from London to the Muslim second-most sacred city of Madinah. \u201cThis journey is important in many ways. We\u2019re all on the road for our faith. We meet great people along the road and we have &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49246,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49244\/revisions\/49246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}