As the month of Ramadan approaches, hearts across the Muslim world instinctively turn inwards. It is a season not only of fasting, but of reordering one’s relationship with God and of seeking calm, moral clarity, and spiritual elevation.
Preparation, in this sense, is no longer confined to ritual and becomes instead a personal journey of transformation. Much like the whirling dervish who spins endlessly in devotional dance, one hand raised to the heavens, the other pointing to the earth, and allowing the body to move while the soul communes with the divine, human life itself becomes a continuous cycle of searching and striving for balance between the sacred and profane.
It is within this spiritual frame that the journey of Egyptian travel writer and adventurer Amr Selim to Mecca unfolded. His bicycle wheels, turning ceaselessly across deserts and highways, became more than simply subject to mechanical motion. Instead, they performed a kind of silent form of remembrance or moving prayer on a long road towards God rather than towards an earthly city.
At dawn on the day of his departure for Mecca, Cairo was still asleep. Its lights were dim, the winter air cold, and the city seemed to hold its breath before the arrival of a new day. Selim pushed his bicycle forwards with hesitant steps, as if stepping out of the familiar world into an unknown expanse.
He said goodbye to no one. He did not look back as this, he knew, would have been a luxury he could not afford. Every backward glance risked pulling him away from the inner calling that had settled deep within him. He understood, even before the journey had begun, that the road would change him and that he would not return as the same person.
Perhaps for this reason, he named it in his heart “the road to God” long before it became the road to Mecca.
The decision was not born out of emotional impulse. It was the culmination of a long process of physical, psychological, and spiritual preparation. Selim trained relentlessly. Before dawn, he ran through empty streets, listening to his breathing intensify and watching water form on the cold asphalt beneath his feet.
At least once a week, he ran 5 km, sometimes 10, not merely to build stamina, but to train patience, to teach his lungs endurance and his heart steadiness. Three times a week, he cycled 50 km, sometimes stretching the distance to 100. Distance itself was not the goal; tolerance was.
He imagined the vast desert ahead, no shade, no people, no mercy, and asked himself with brutal honesty, “can I really continue?” The answer came not in words, but in the rhythm of the pedals turning beneath his feet. “Keep going, as long as there is breath in you.”
Preparation became a ritual in itself. Maintenance tools were not just equipment; they were companions on the road. Spare inner and outer tyres, brake and gear cables, steering wires in case of breakage, a small air pump, and a compact repair kit were all carefully packed.
Experience had taught him that what ends long journeys is not exhaustion alone, but a small forgotten bolt or a minor malfunction ignored at the wrong moment. Extra screws, elastic straps to secure his tent and bags, and lighting equipment for night travel were all chosen with meticulous care. Selim found a quiet comfort in the beam of a bicycle lamp piercing darkness, like a thin thread of hope stretching across the desert.
His belongings were distributed across three bags, carrying an entire life on the frame of a bicycle. One bag held clothing, another tools and spare shoes, and a smaller one food and water.
Food, too, followed a strict philosophy: minimum weight, maximum value. Dates, chocolate, honey, and nuts for energy, canned cheese and tuna, halva, bread, eggs, juices, and, above all, abundant water, more precious than anything else in the desert. A small container of coffee and tea was always within reach.
Caffeine, on the road, was no habit; it was a companion of alertness, a safeguard against fatigue and drifting consciousness when night pressed heavily on the body.
CROSSING: Aboard the ferry crossing the Red Sea, Selim stood watching its immense structure, a floating city carrying buses, cars, trucks, and countless lives.
Each passenger inhabited a private world, while the vessel itself moved steadily forward, indifferent to individual stories. When his feet finally touched Saudi Arabian land, he paused in disbelief. Was he truly there? Had he crossed from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, from Africa to Asia?
Soon afterwards, he passed a road sign bearing unfamiliar numbers: Medina, 715 km; Duba, 25 km. These were not distances; they were commitments. They were maps of a dream that demanded to be fulfilled metre by metre and rotation by rotation of the bicycle wheel.
The journey did not spare him real crises. Early on, he found himself with insufficient Saudi currency, banks closed for Friday prayers, and the food he had brought from Egypt nearly gone. The journey had barely begun, yet failure loomed dangerously close. Anxiety and helplessness set in.
But in that moment, Selim clung to a simple conviction: God does not abandon those who set out towards Him. That belief alone was enough to prevent retreat.
The desert became his most demanding teacher. There, journeys are not measured in km, but in the capacity for patience, confrontation, and contemplation. True beauty revealed itself not at the destination, but in the act of moving forwards: wind brushing against the face, sun scorching the skin, stars illuminating the night sky, and a silence so complete it allowed isolation from the world’s constant noise.
In the heart of the desert, Selim learned to inhabit the present moment, to smile despite exhaustion, to cherish every drop of water and every ray of sunlight, because each hardship deepened the honesty of the journey.
Along the way, security checkpoints were unavoidable. Officers questioned him, studied his bicycle, and reacted with disbelief at the idea of crossing such distances on two wheels. In some regions, they warned him of swarms of locusts and aggressive monkeys that could appear without warning. At times, they escorted him, not out of suspicion, but concern. Their humanity revealed itself in small gestures, a blend of discipline, care, and quiet admiration for the determination of this unusual traveler.
At dawn on the sixth day, after performing the dawn prayer Selim resumed his journey, carefully preparing his modest belongings and securing provisions for the road ahead, water, dates, and light juices, convinced that a sense of reassurance on the journey begins with knowing one has enough to endure the next stretch.
Among the most significant stations on his route was the city of Badr, not as a passing stop, but as a place of deep historical and spiritual weight in Islamic consciousness.
In the quiet of the early morning, Selim explored Badr’s streets, where modest homes stood amid the soft recitation of the Quran drifting with the sunrise. A simple human encounter led him to the site where the martyrs of the Battle of Badr are buried, a major event in early Islam, when a local child pointed him towards the resting place of those who fell in this first decisive confrontation between faith and disbelief.
Standing before the marble plaque engraved with the martyrs’ names, Selim read them one by one, feeling the burdens of the road momentarily lift, as though the place itself carried a calming, restorative power.
He went on to visit the Areesh Mosque, the site where the Prophet Mohamed had established his command post during the battle. There, history felt vividly present. Badr was not recalled merely as a military victory, but as a defining moment shaped by faith, discipline, and consultation, where a small, poorly equipped group had prevailed against overwhelming odds.
For Selim, the visit was not a lesson in history alone, but a spiritual encounter that reaffirmed a core realisation of his journey: the road to God is not measured in km, but in insight, the ability to recognise traces of prophecy in the sand and meaning in every step before arrival.
There were moments when physical strain almost reached its limit, when Selim felt that the end was near, not metaphorically, but literally. An overwhelming sense suggested that his life might be slipping away.
Yet, precisely at that moment, an unspoken message arrived: “continue.” No voice, no words, just certainty. It was enough. The road itself seemed unwilling to let him stop.
MEDINA: By sunset on the seventh day, Selim was approaching the outskirts of Medina.
His heart surged ahead of his body; his legs trembled with anticipation. He thought neither of food nor rest, only of the Green Dome that marks the tomb of the Prophet Mohamed. When it finally appeared, words froze in his throat. He felt as though he was no longer walking, but floating. Time itself seemed to pause in reverence for the place, as if the earth gently lifted him to hover above it without wings.
Medina was not merely a city; it was a state of being. A deep tranquility settled in his chest, an unfamiliar calm that felt like a prolonged embrace between heart and sky. Standing before the Green Dome, he whispered inwardly, am I truly here? Here lies the prophet’s noble body. Here he walked, prayed, lived, and gathered his companions. Everything seemed to whisper, the walls, the minarets, the sunlight touching the dome, as if the entire city were engaged in silent praise.
After cleansing himself and changing clothes, Selim donned a robe prepared especially for this moment, perfumed himself, and headed towards the prophet’s mosque. When the imam proclaimed the opening takbir for Maghrib prayer, Selim felt his physical form dissolve. He was no longer a body, but a soul suspended between earth and heaven.
Later, standing before a mirror, he barely recognised his reflection. The man who had left Cairo days earlier was gone. Another had been born on the road.
As the sun rose on the day of departure, the moment came to leave Mecca, a day Selim had hoped would never arrive. The days he spent within the sacred precincts were few in number, yet profoundly etched into his heart, reviving the Prophet Mohamed’s words during the Hijra, the emigration, as he bid farewell to the city he loved most.
While preparing his belongings and bicycle, Selim found himself revisiting moments of serenity and spiritual clarity, realising that some places are never truly left behind; they linger within, growing only more cherished with distance.
The road to Jeddah, stretching nearly 65 km, unfolded gently, adorned with Quranic verses lining the way, as if offering reassurance and farewell. Passing through Mecca’s iconic gate, designed in the form of the Holy Quran, Selim felt his body moving forwards while his spirit remained tied to the Kaaba’s veiled walls.
Along the route, brief yet meaningful encounters with Egyptian expatriates added a human warmth to the journey, reinforcing the sense that shared purpose can dissolve the weight of distance and exile.
By midday, Selim had arrived in Jeddah, where he was welcomed by a friend he had met earlier in Mecca. The warmth of his hospitality offered a quiet transition from the intensity of the pilgrimage to the ordinariness of daily life. That evening, what began as a practical errand to purchase a protective case for the bicycle turned into an exploratory walk through the city, one that felt unexpectedly familiar, with streets and rhythms reminiscent of Egyptian towns.
Preparing the bicycle for shipment became a meticulous process, reflecting the deep bond between the traveler and the machine that had carried him across thousands of kilometres.
The following day, before heading to the airport, Selim wandered through Jeddah’s streets and along its seafront, then visited the fish market, where the scenes and interactions mirrored those of Cairo, gently easing his return towards home.
Yet, the airport presented one final test: the bicycle could not be loaded onto the aircraft due to size restrictions. Faced with dwindling time and difficult choices, Selim found resolution through a simple act of human solidarity, as friends intervened and a previously offered helping hand ensured the bicycle’s safe return by alternative means.
Boarding the plane at the last possible moment, Selim brought his journey on Saudi soil to a close, carrying with him memories shaped by endurance, faith, and unexpected kindness. An hour later, the aircraft landed in Cairo after nearly a month away.
As he stepped back onto Egyptian ground, a single phrase at the airport captured the essence of return and belonging: “Welcome to Egypt.” It was then that Selim understood the truth of what he had lived, not merely a journey of pilgrimage, but an experience of a lifetime, one that reshaped the spirit long before it carried the traveller home.
To preserve this journey, Selim has documented his experience in his seventh book, The Road to Mecca, published by the Atiaf Publishing House. The work goes beyond a personal pilgrimage. It captures a moment in time, a portrait of pilgrimage, roads, cities, and the human spirit as it existed during this journey.
Years from now, the book may be read as travel accounts once were, offering future generations insight into how pilgrimage was lived, how landscapes appeared, and how travelers faced the road with heart before body.
Selim’s journey to Mecca was not an act of spectacle or adventure alone. It was a deeply human and spiritual experience, where the road became an act of worship, the spinning wheel a form of continuous remembrance, and the ultimate arrival not at a destination, but within the self.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 12 February, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: