In a pleasant change of routine English cricketers Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid discussed Hajj on Sky Sports.
During a cricket match between England and South Africa, Sky Sports commentator Eoin Morgan interviewed them on Hajj.
“Can you tell us about Hajj please?” Morgan asked.
Ali replied Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. “As Muslims, our role models are the Prophets –. Moses, Jesus, Abraham Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon them. We follow as much as we can when it comes to fasting prayers. Like Hajj, we follow Prophet Ibrahim, his journey to Mecca. The sacrifices he went through and the challenges his family went through when he was going to Mecca, the city where Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was also born. So this place means a lot to us,” he said.
Watch Moeen Ali And Adil Rashid Talk About Hajj Here.
Elaborating, Ali said there are a lot of rituals Muslims do. “We follow Prophet Ibrahim. It is for five-six days. Quite intense things we have to do. It is very slow p[aced because of people. It is a massive deal in Islam,” he said.
Earlier, another English cricketer Adil Rashid withdraw from the one-day international series against India to perform Hajj.
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Rashid, earlier this year had said that he has “reached the right time in his life” to make the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
He was granted leave by the England and Wales Cricket Board, and his club side Yorkshire, and is expected to return in mid-July before England’s white-ball series against South Africa.
“I’ve been wanting to do it for a little while but I’ve found it pretty difficult with the timings,” Rashid had told ESPNcricinfo. “This year, I felt as though it was something that I had to do, and something I wanted to do as well.”
Asked by Morgan whether the diversity in the changing room has helped the level of acceptance and education around the group, Moeen said: “100 per cent.
“Since Rash was away, I had to answer a lot of questions about Haj, which has been great. That sort of dialogue is really important, and it works both ways obviously.
“The diversity around the group and team has been really good for a while now, anybody can come in and out of the changing room from any sort of background or differences that they have, and everyone just sort of fits like a glove almost.”
Moeen and Rashid were key players in the England squad that triumphed on home soil in the 2019 50-over World Cup. England’s team in the final was led by the Irish Morgan, and included Barbados-born fast bowler Jofra Archer, along with South-African born Jason Roy and New-Zealand born Ben Stokes.
Having returned from Hajj, Rashid praised the ECB and his county for leaving him with an “easy” decision.
“I spoke to the ECB, I spoke to yourself (Morgan) being my captain at the time – you were my go-to person – the encouragement, the backing that I got from the ECB and Yorkshire was magnificent,” Rashid said.