Salaam All,
Thank you for your comments and reply on this topic. I went for Umrah about 4 years ago, and when I entered Mecca, I did not feel any sense of spiritual upliftment. There was even a point I was in close proximity to the Kaaba and I felt a sense of indifference and apathy.
If anyone is looking for a specific place / location on earth that can give them a spiritual upliftment then don't bother to look and no need to go anywhere. Your specific place that you're sitting on now can also give you a spiritual upliftment.
Yet I also observe that the majority of people who went to Mecca doesn't actually looking and hoping for spiritual enlightenment or upliftment, the major driving factors are:
- To attain social status (as being those who has performed hajj shall gives them higher social standing within their own community, the status will be boosted higher if they manage to kiss the black stone)
- To attain a kind of compensation / reward (whether in this life or in the hereafter)
- just because they believe that God told them to go there.
I have been researching Dan Gibson's theory about Petra and Mecca. Could it be possible that the Mecca of today is not the Mecca of the Prophet (S) and the Mecca mentioned in the Qur'an? If Mecca was such a important and significant city, how come it doesn't appear on any maps until the 7th or 8th centuries respectively?
It could be.. but nonetheless it really doesn't matter...
That is why makka is not HOLY at all.
Reason one (only sunnis are allowed to enter).
Visa policy for non arabs.
Cost reached almost 10000$(depend on country to country).
If that's the case then just make your own place 'holy'....