BEFORE been blessed by making the pilgrimage to Mecca, I wrote several times in this corner urging Muslims, who had previously performed this duty, not to try making this spiritual journey to the Holy Shrines except after the passage of no less than five years. This gives a chance for other Muslims, who had never done so before, to perform the pilgrimage. In the critical economic times the country is passing through, especially after the January 25 Revolution, I have supported the fatwa (religious edict) of allocating the huge cost of the trip to the poor if one has already carried out this religious duty. An excuse made for repeat pilgrimages is that while the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) himself carried out this religious duty once in his life, he neither banned repeating it nor obliged Muslims to perform Hajj every year. Apparently, the wisdom is to leave it to the circumstances of every Muslim and to the condition of the holy shrines pertaining to their accommodation that could not by any means absorb the number of Muslims in the world today that exceed 1.5 billion. That is why the majority of Muslims realise that pilgrimage is the religious ritual that is dutiful for the Muslim once in his or her lifetime if they have the financial and physical ability to do it. However, I cannot deny the fact that these days while following up with the pilgrims' rituals, I feel a deep desire to repeat this journey more and more. It is really astonishing this longing a Muslim feels towards visiting Mecca for Hajj or Umrah (the lesser pilgrimage) despite the hardship suffered in performing this duty. During this holy journey, I remembered how I once got an offer from a Western magazine to perform Hajj at their expense in return of writing a story about the experience and the inner feelings Muslim experience while visiting these Holy sites. At the time I turned down the offer first because of not being able to accept someone paying for my costs, that are supposed to be from my own money or that of my father, husband or son. I also declined because I felt that it would b be a spontaneous journey of worship but a business trip. However, I realised from this magazine offer how the non-Muslim world has real curiosity about this annual pilgrimage that millions of Muslims are eager to accomplish every year to Mecca and Medina. Many non-Muslims, even mock the Muslims for the hardship they assume to perform Hajj to the Holy Shrines in Mecca. Some 20 years ago, while I was on a visit to India on a scholarship in journalism, a Hindu professor expressed his astonishment at the struggle Muslims take on to perform Hajj to Mecca. "Some Muslims might spend their lifetime saving money for this trip whose cost goes in pocket of the Saudi rulers," he ironically said. That man and many others ignore some important facts about this issue. First it is a religious duty that Allah imposed on all Muslims who are capable of doing it, whether financially or physically. However, Muslims' fondness of their Holy shrines and the lands that were blessed by the birth, life and burial place of the great Prophet of Allah, is the reason why some very poor Muslims spend their life enduring real shortages to save up for the cost of the Hajj. The Hindu professor also ignored the fact that the Saudi rulers spend immense funds on maintaining and expanding these holy places to accommodate as much as possible of the ever growing number of Muslims that seek to make the pilgrimage. A giant project is under-construction for expanding the Holy Shrine of Mecca to hold as many people as possible for prayer and circumambulating the Kaaba. A similar project is underway for expanding the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, in addition to the continuous development of road networks leading to Mount Arafat, Menna and Muzdalifa where pilgrims spending four to five days of their journey. Two years ago, the Islamic Kingdom even introduced the facility of a fast train to transport pilgrims between the shrines of the three locations so as to decrease the traffic jams on the roads. However, the pilgrimage would continue to be exacting, even with the development of the means of transports from a camel or horse during the days of the Prophet Mohammed to planes, ships, air-conditioned vehicles and trains today. Last year, the Kingdom suffered an unprecedented pilgrimage season due to the flood of millions of pilgrims to the shrines, culminating in a terrible traffic jam that lasted for more than 24 hours on the way from Mount Arafat to Muzdalefa (that is no more than seven kilometres!) Despite the endless expansion in the facilities in Menna where the pilgrims spend the first three days of the feast to stone the devil, one finds tens of thousands of pilgrims sleeping in the streets because there is no place for them. The cause is the Kingdom's inability to control the number of pilgrims coming from different parts of the country together with the other Gulf states, many of whom visit the kingdom without a visa and by road. This year, however, the Saudi authorities adopted stringent procedures to limit the number of the visitors to the available accommodations by preventing entrance to the holy town and shrine for any Saudi or Gulf citizens not carrying pilgrimage permit. We hope that our sisters and brothers performing the pilgrimage this year enjoy a more comfortable trip and pray to enjoy again this journey the coming year.
