After seeing ‘Journey to Mecca’ 4 times…. first in Kuwait, San Francisco, Singapore and in UAE, I am once again ready to view this amazing movie at Meydan IMAX this weekend….the timing is perfect as we have a long weekend and the subject so relates to what most people will be celebrating as they mull over the life and times of our Holy Prophet (SAW).

Now most of you think that I must have been married to Ibn Battuta in my past life seeing how he creeps into my life in one form or another. First it was doing the PR of Ibn Battuta Mall when our octopus team pretty much lived and breathed the man’s life…I recall hunting in my car one day a modern-day Ibn Battuta who was tracing the journey of Ibn Battuta himself…..I found him near what is now DFC and dragged him for some filming on site at the mall that was named after his hero. Thereafter I had to drop him in the exact same spot so that he could stay true to the journey and the footsteps of the real Ibn Battuta.

Then I end up working for MTE, the genius company behind the concepts, designs and implementation of the Ibn Battuta Mall …having to promote the mall via PR meant that Ibn Battuta was often part of the reason I woke up late nights trying to find ways to hook the media into writing about him and the mall and within the story talk about the amazing job our team did to get the mall done on time.

Now, I am going to take little diva to see ‘Journey to Mecca’ with the hope of educating her about Ibn Battuta, the famed 14th century Moroccan traveler and the man who I keep talking about in relation to my work.

Ibn Battuta left his native Tangier in 1325 on an epic journey to Mecca, the holy city where Muslims go for pilgrimage (every time I see the movie, I realize its about time I made that journey). Returning 29 years later, Ibn Battuta had covered more ground than Marco Polo and had many adventures which he noted down in his famous travel books, The Rihla, at the instigation of the Sultan of Morocco.

Journey to Mecca is an IMAX® documentary that tells the adventurous story of Ibn Battuta and shows a close-up look at Mecca, the city that draws over three million Muslims from around the world every year who go there to perform Hajj.

On the occasion of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, IMAX at Meydan is commemorating this joyous day by bringing back Journey to Mecca, to show Ibn Battuta’s travels across the sands of time.

Join him if you are in Dubai on his adventures and find out more about the greatest traveler of pre-modern times as he embarks on a cross-cultural journey. Shows are on January 24th to 26th, exclusively at the Meydan IMAX Theatre.