In the last hours, pictures of a pilgrim who sat in the Grand Mosque sheltered in the shade of a man have spread widely, only to discover later that the man is her brother, and that the owner of the pictures is a Saudi photographer named Abdul Rahman Al-Sahli.
The photographer captured the scene from several angles as he spoke For the newspaper “Previously”Saudi Arabia, while the woman said she was trying to avoid the scorching heat of the sun at the time.
After the pictures spread, her owner went out to announce via Her Instagram account She is the intended woman, and her page says she is a nutritionist and blogger of Palestinian origin, living in Chicago.
A woman covers and protects herself from the sunshine using her husband’s shadow, in the Masjid al-Ḥarām
????: @heartmecca pic.twitter.com/9t6VX40QZl
-. (@Alhamdhulillaah) April 9, 2022
Abeer Al-Najjar explains that she was “overwhelmed with feelings of love and happiness” after the pictures spread across several platforms and that the man was her brother and they were on an Umrah trip and the weather was very hot and humid, so she took advantage of her brother’s sitting and sat behind him for a few minutes, and at that moment a local photographer took the shot from afar.
She points out that she did not know this until after the spread of the photos.
She said: “I am grateful that we have this photo to remember and that it was a source of happiness for so many.”
The owner of the photos, Abdul Rahman Al-Sahli, said that he took it at about 1 pm, and “the sun is usually hot, and the weather is hot at this time, so I came across this shot, so I wanted to document it.”
He added: “Each photographer has a certain look, style and angle that he works with. As soon as I saw the shot and the scene, I immediately tried to photograph it from several angles.”
Al-Sahli expected, from the first moment, the spread of the image, “because such situations in particular in the Grand Mosque receive a wide interaction, and it is an impressive scene, and you rarely find such situations, and therefore, as a photographer, you must prepare for such rare moments. If you are delayed for a few seconds, you will miss the shot!”.
And Saudi Arabia had closed the Grand Mosque in March 2020, then reopened it to pilgrims under strict procedures in July, before, after three months, allowing all Muslims to pray in it, but with a limited capacity and distance during prayers.
And last October, the mosque returned to receive worshipers at its full capacity and without any distancing, although the muzzle is still mandatory.
And Saudi Arabia recently announced that it will allow one million Muslims to perform the Hajj this year from inside and outside the Kingdom, in a noticeable increase after the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic two years ago forced the authorities to significantly reduce the number of pilgrims.