Paris to Mecca: A cyclist raising awareness on climate crisis among Muslims

In recent years, Nabil Ennasri says, research on the climate crisis has evidenced the perils the planet faces, as scientists agree that “we must slow down our development model if we want to keep a habitable planet”.

The 41-year-old analyst, writer and activist, however, feels that the global Muslim community has largely “neglected” what he describes as the “most crucial issue for humanity”.

As such, Ennasri is taking action, raising awareness to safeguard the health of the planet and combining it with one of the holiest journeys that Muslims have undertaken for thousands of years.

On April 22, the French citizen of Moroccan ancestry began an epic cycle odyssey that will take him over 5900 km across 13 countries. Cycling 100 km a day, he intends to complete the journey from Paris to Mecca (Saudi Arabia) in time for the start of the hajj on June 26.

“As a Muslim, there is no place more sacred, more symbolic and more beautiful than the Kaaba, and no journey more important than the pilgrimage to Mecca,” he tells TRT World after reaching Istanbul on Tuesday.

“It is the direction to which we turn at least five times daily. It is the place of change, of improvement, and par excellence. It is the place of renewal. All this symbolism is essential to this journey,” he says.

Among Muslims, the hajj is widely considered a duty to be completed at least once in a lifetime, and Ennasri wishes to revive how it is carried out among the community.

“We must review the meaning of travel because even when it comes to pilgrimage, we tend to make it an object of consumption when it should be a walk (path) towards the sacred which must lead us to change ourselves deeply,” says Ennasri.

In the lead-up to his journey, he took to social media to promote his odyssey - under the hashtag HadjByCycle.

He has also released several vlogs on YouTube, allowing viewers to observe his challenges and his ‘fierce desire’ to complete his journey amid different terrains and adverse weather conditions.

Ennasri announced his odyssey a month ago, insisting he has been in training for the challenge for the last few years. In the YouTube videos, he said his voyage was also to honour his father and immigrants to France, who he said had sacrificed for his generation’s prosperity.

In keeping with this sentiment, Ennasri chose the first location where his father first set foot in France in August 1969 after leaving his village in Morocco alone in search of a better life.

Ennasri began his cycling odyssey at the Gare Montparnasse, retracing his father’s footsteps at one of the six large railways in France’s capital, Paris, while jubilant well-wishers applauded him.

After crossing 10 countries with a small team supporting him, on Tuesday, Ennasri reached Istanbul in Türkiye - the gateway between Europe and Asia, where young and old gathered to applaud him beside Fatih Mosque.

For the self-described “history buff” since childhood, his arrival in the historical city was something special.

“As a Muslim, I was naturally interested in our history, and it is impossible to study Islamic history without being fascinated by the period of the Ottoman state. Whether it is scientific production, architectural influence, or key dates in human history, this era is at the heart of the issues,” says Ennasri.

“In Türkiye, history speaks to us at the turn of every street, and it is both a visual and intellectual pleasure,” he adds.

Ennasri says there are two main reasons driving him forward on his journey, crossing the different landscapes of Germany, Austria and Italy, among others.

He says the first is “to propose a new way of practising our religion and thus revive the deep meaning of the journey: the one that transforms you, the one from which you return a better version of yourself, and not the one that consists simply of an additional act of consumption.”

The second reason is “to pay homage to our elders who accomplished the pilgrimage on foot or on horseback, braving all the risks in order to get to Mecca.”

So far, he has traversed different landscapes, coming into contact with different peoples and cultures in several countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

After Türkiye, he is set to cross into Jordan before eventually reaching Saudi Arabia.

He insists the aim of his trip is to focus on the issue of climate change, helping to make it a “priority” among followers of Islam.

“I humbly wish to bring the Muslims of the world to participate in this common effort to preserve the creation that Allah has given us as a deposit (Amâna),” he says.