Dubai: All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking — Friedrich Nietzsche
Jalal Bin Thaneya has time and again proven this to be true except that in his case, he makes the time to walk because there is a cause he wishes to support. From his first walk across the seven emirates in 2007, followed by his climbing tour de force of Emirates Towers in 2008 and then in 2009, crossing the Rub Al Khali, Bin Thaneya's feet have always lent him excellent support as he powered on to raise funds for organisations supporting people with Special Needs.
This year, once again, he is all geared for his next walk, his fourth endeavour. Tomorrow Bin Thaneya is scheduled to set off from Ruwais, Abu Dhabi to Makkah, Saudi Arabia, to cover a distance of 2,000km in 35 days. He is undertaking this walk to raise awareness and funds for the Dubai Centre for Special Needs.
At the heart of this 25-year-old Emirati's campaigning is his resolute belief that people with special needs must be integrated with the mainstream at every given opportunity. He finds it unacceptable that able-bodied people should take their natural advantages for granted when there are others for whom moving a limb is an impossible dream. "People complain when they have to get up and make a cup of tea. Or walk three more steps to their car," he says. His decision to undertake the extraordinarily challenging journeys on foot is his way of drawing attention to this fact of life.
Corporate organisations and individuals wishing to donate for the cause can contribute the funds directly to the special needs centre, he says.
Why has he chosen to walk to Makkah this time? "It is a central religious place. People from all over the world go there using all modes of transport. About 100 years ago however, everyone went to Makkah on foot. So I decided to do the same."
Bin Thaneya planned the trip after researching Google maps and having extensive talks with Saudi nationals who knew the route. One part of the walk is along the 500-km Harad highway, a stretch he was told would be extremely tough. "It's just a long, empty stretch of land. There's nothing there, just nothing," he says. "They told me, ‘You are crazy [to want to do it]'." But when they said that, he knew he had to do it.
As Bin Thaneya tests his limits on foot along the 2,000-km walk through varying terrain, he will have a logistics volunteer, Yahya Al Hoot, to provide the back-up for supplies, tech gear, food and water along motorable rendezvous points.
The preparation and planning for the fourth walk has many similarities with his earlier walks — the gear is almost the same ("I always dress the same way"), his weight is the same (79 kilos) and his state of mind is also the same. "It puts a lot of pressure on me … leaving the city's comforts each time." But that's where the similarities end. Every new journey is like a new beginning. "There's nothing common between any of them," he says. "They are all unique." Each time, the approach is "like a transition from who I was before the journey to who I will be after it." And like every time, he cannot say for sure what the realisation will be. "I don't know it till I finish it."
What he does know for sure is that there is no time to be wasted in trying to see the design of life. For each one of us, the sooner we see it, the better. "For all of us, life will end at some point. And it's no use to say at that time that ‘I could've (done this or that). Each of us can undertake a journey for a purpose."
The purpose, he says, can be met with the help of just two things: "You have to have a plan. You have to have faith."
— Follow Jalal Bin Thaneya's walk with Gulf News as we cover his journey and bring you updated reports and picture every week.
