🌙 To the West, Where the Moon Waits

by Selene

Author’s Note
This wasn’t after Umrah. I wouldn’t have had the energy — or the heartspace — for that.
This was something else. A journey that may have happened before… or perhaps after.
I don’t remember the date. I remember the weight.
I wanted to feel Islam — not just in prayer rooms or books — but in streets, stone, scent, sky.
So I didn’t fly.

I moved slowly.
By road, by sea. Through southern Italy, across waters that carried empires and dreams.
I followed a whisper west — and it led me to Tunisia and Algeria.

🚐 The Journey Before the Journey

I left home — a quiet place between ruins and fig trees — and crossed into western Greece.
From Patras, I took the ferry across the Ionian Sea to Brindisi, Italy.
No one rushed. The sea didn't care about time.

I paused in Gravina di Puglia, a town carved into limestone and silence.
It holds an ancient bridge that once connected monks and mystics, and caves where early Christians prayed in secrecy.

I sat there one morning, in a hollow carved by faith and water, and thought:

“Maybe this too is part of the pilgrimage — the waiting, the winding.”

Then I reached Bari, a coastal city where faiths overlap like shadows at sunset.
At the Cathedral of San Sabino, I lingered longer than expected.
The crypt below holds echoes of devotion — and the body of Saint Sabinus, a bishop said to have wept at the fall of Rome.
No calls to prayer here. But still, the air felt full of prayers.

And then… I flew.
From Bari to Tunis. A short hop across the blue.
But in my chest, the distance felt holy.

🇹🇳 Tunisia: Blue Doors, Green Knowledge

Tunis met me with jasmine and calligraphy.
I checked into Dar El Jeld Hotel & Spa — lemon trees, fountains, old air.

At the Zaytuna Mosque, I sat between pillars older than printing presses.
No one looked at me. I loved that. I could just be.
Tunisia didn’t ask who I was. It just let me remember.

In Kairouan, I prayed at the Great Mosque of Uqba, one of the oldest in the world.
Its silence was loud. Its walls didn’t need to prove anything.

I ended in Sidi Bou Said — a coastal dream in blue and white.
Beauty without vanity. Calm without effort.

🇩🇿 Algeria: Stones That Whisper

Algiers greeted me with stillness. The Casbah — all cracked tile and quiet balconies — felt like a grandmother’s memory.

I stayed at Sofitel Hamma Gardens, a pause between streets and stories.

At Ketchaoua Mosque, I prayed where others once protested, sang, cried.
Algeria knows grief. But it carries it gracefully.

I moved on to Tlemcen, to the Mosque of Sidi Boumediene, where I said nothing and heard everything.

Then to Constantine, where bridges stretch like prayers between cliffs.
The Emir Abdelkader Mosque felt like sky architecture — faith made visible.

📍 Halal Travel Notes

For those asking:

• Tunis Stay: Dar El Jeld Hotel & Spa — peaceful, halal-friendly, full of charm.

• Algiers Stay: Sofitel Hamma Garden — clean, quiet, and respectful.
• Booked via HalalBooking.com — not an ad, just a tool I trust.

🌘 Final Thoughts

I didn’t go searching for answers.
I just followed the moon and trusted the silence.

From hidden crypts in Bari to calligraphic shadows in Kairouan,
from limestone bridges in Gravina to the soaring arches of Constantine,
I walked through places shaped by faith — not always my own, but always familiar.

This wasn’t a detour.
It was a return — not to a destination, but to a way of moving through the world:
slowly, sincerely, listening as I go.

– Selene 🌙

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