Hajj 2016: More than a million Muslims head to Mecca

09 September 2016 Friday

Millions of Muslims from around the world have started arriving in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage, a central pillar of the Islamic faith that re-enacts the actions of the Prophet Muhammad from more than 1,400 years ago.

Worshipers from more than 150 countries began gathering on Friday in the city, one of the holiest sites in Islam, to prepare for the five-day pilgrimage which starts on Saturday, September 10.

A spiritual journey meant to cleanse the faithful of sin and bring them closer to God, this year's Hajj is expected to be attended by more than 1.5 million pilgrims.

To address security concerns, nearly a thousand new surveillance cameras have been installed at Mecca's Grand Mosque, which will monitor crowd numbers, and the Jamarat stoning (a symbolic stoning of the devil based on historic tradition) will be more tightly controlled than in previous years.

Also for the first time, pilgrims will be given electronic bracelets storing personal and medical information that will help authorities provide care and identify people.

Water-resistant and connected to GPS, the devices will also instruct worshipers on timings of prayers and a multilingual help desk will guide pilgrims around the various rituals.

Last year's Hajj was marred by a stampede that killed more than 750 people. However, counts carried out by countries who repatriated bodies showed that more than 2,000 people may have died in the crush, according to news agencies.

The disaster deepened tensions between Riyadh and Tehran, as many of the pilgrims killed were Iranian.

Relations between the two countries hit a new low earlier this year when they failed to reach a deal on arrangements for Iranian citizens attending this year's pilgrimage.

Source: al-Jazeera.
Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/09/hajj-2016-millions-muslims-start-arriving-mecca-160909061605825.html.

Pilgrims traumatized, asking how Mecca crane could collapse

September 14, 2015

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Jumaa Ibrahim and his wife Hasnaa Karam, a Syrian couple in their early 60s, arrived in Mecca on Friday, and headed straight to Islam's holiest site, the cube-shaped Kaaba.

It had begun to rain in the ancient desert city. Karam, who had waited a lifetime to make the pilgrimage to stand before the Kaaba, stood with her palms facing toward the sky in prayer. Ibrahim stood a few feet to her side, quietly reading verses from the Quran.

Suddenly, a loud boom echoed. Karam found herself surrounded by carnage — body parts were scattered everywhere amid pools of blood on the white marble floor of the mosque. The kingdom's Civil Defense says unusually strong winds tipped over one of the massive cranes around the Grand Mosque that houses the Kaaba. The crane crashed through part of the mosque's roof and upper floors, sending concrete slabs crashing down.

"I saw a head, legs, blood, dead people," Karam said Sunday, interviewed at her husband's bedside in Mecca's Al-Noor Specialist Hospital. "We started saying 'Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar' as the rain poured down."

She escaped injury, but her husband was among the hundreds injured, his leg broken in two parts. The death toll reached 111 on Sunday as more of the injured died. The Health Ministry on Sunday said 394 people were treated at medical facilities after the crane collapse, and 158 of the injured remain hospitalized.

Ayman Shaaban, the owner of a hajj tour company in Egypt, was praying on the ground floor of the Grand Mosque when the crane collapsed. He says he was tossed some 20 meters (66 feet). He was immediately rushed into a large room with other injured people, the right side of his face broken, bloodied and swollen, unable to open his left eye.

Saudi media reported that a committee has been established to investigate the incident. It is unclear how the kingdom's Civil Defense, which led rescue operations, was able to determine that winds caused the crane's collapse. The spokesman for Civil Defense could not be immediately reached for comment.

Shaaban has questions about the cause of the accident. "Logically speaking, for a crane to fall from wind, even if there were strong winds, something doesn't add up," Shaaban said from his hospital bed. "If there is negligence, because of these souls lost, someone must be held accountable."

Such concerns indicate the sensitivity of the incident for Saudi King Salman, whose title is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques — the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the first mosque built by the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. The king visited the Grand Mosque on Saturday and later met with some of the injured being treated at the government-run Al-Noor hospital.

The Al Saud royal family's legitimacy is rooted in part in its claim to be the protectors of Islam's two most sacred sites that are at the center of the hajj — the pilgrimage that all Muslims are required to perform at least once in their lifetime if they are able to do so.

The accident comes just over a week before this year's hajj, which is expected to start around Sept. 21 and last four to five days. It will draw between 2 to 3 million Muslims from around the world for a series of rites in Mecca and surrounding areas that are believed to trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.

Officials have not yet removed the crane. An Associated Press journalist saw the Liebherr crane on Sunday, its base tipped forward and its superstructure leaning into the mosque where it struck. The Liebherr Group, a large equipment manufacturer, makes many of its cranes at a plant in Biberach an der Riss, Germany, and has its global headquarters in Switzerland.

Liebherr spokesman Kristian Kueppers said in an email to The Associated Press that the company is doing everything in its power "to help bring the accident investigation to a speedy and logical conclusion." The company said it had issued clear instructions on how the crane was to be installed and secured to protect it from winds. The company also expressed its deep sympathy for the families of the victims.

Over the years, the Grand Mosque has undergone several expansions to accommodate the growing numbers of pilgrims, but in the last decade, the kingdom launched its most ambitious overhaul ever. Historic sites significant for Islam have been demolished to make way for hotels, causing an outcry among some Muslims. Saudi officials say the overhaul is needed as the number of pilgrims during hajj is projected to reach 7 million by 2040.

The current $60-billion Grand Mosque expansion will almost double the area for pilgrims to pray at the Kaaba. The Grand Mosque is now surrounded by dozens of cranes, part of the massive construction effort headed by the Saudi Binladin Group. The Binladin family has been close to Saudi Arabia's ruling family for decades and runs major building projects around the country. Al-Qaida's late leader Osama bin Laden was a renegade son disowned by the family in the 1990s.

The Binladin Group has not released any statements to the press about the crane collapse and its representatives have not been made available for comment. The company's chairman or a top representative is likely a member of the investigating committee, according to several Saudis familiar with the process.

On Sunday, the imam of the Grand Mosque, Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al Sudais, also visited the injured. Flanked by a team of assistants, he gave patients bags that included a copy of the Quran, a vial of traditional Arab fragrance called oud, and bottles of water from the sacred underground Zamzam well in Mecca believed to have healing properties.

He told patients that that there was great reward for them in being at the Kaaba, just before the hajj. "This is God's will," he told each patient as he passed by their bed. "The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, may God protect him, is very concerned with your well-being."

Dr. Salem Bajuifer, medical director at Al-Noor,, said his team received around 120 patients, many of them with serious injuries requiring amputations. The injured at the hospital come from a range of countries, including Germany, Canada, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Syria and Iran.

The Indian mission in Saudi Arabia says two of its citizens were killed. The Saudi government has not released details about the nationalities or ages of the dead since many are still being identified. Several children are believed to have died.

"It is a big trauma," Bajuifer said when asked about the emotional toll on patients and their relatives. "Of course everybody is traumatized, not only the patients. Even we are traumatized." Karam, whose husband has been in and out of surgery for his leg, says she's too traumatized to think about what comes next. She fled barrel bombs and the civil war in Syria to live in Turkey, never expecting to be so close to death at Islam's most sacred site.

"I am still feeling terrified," she said, as she broke into tears.

Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

Saudis: 107 dead in crane collapse at Mecca's Grand Mosque

September 12, 2015

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A towering construction crane toppled over on Friday during a violent rainstorm in the Saudi city of Mecca, Islam's holiest site, crashing into the Grand Mosque and killing at least 107 people ahead of the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage later this month.

Images posted by social media users showed a grisly scene, with police and onlookers attending to numerous bodies lying amid pools of blood on the polished mosque floors. Saudi Arabia's civil defense authority provided a series of rising casualty numbers on its official Twitter account as ambulances whisked the wounded to area hospitals. As of early Saturday, it said those injured in the disaster numbered 238.

A photo released by the authority showed police and workers in hardhats inspecting a pile of collapsed concrete slabs inside a part of the sprawling, ornately decorated mosque. Another showed the base of the toppled red-and-white crane tilted upward at a sharp angle.

Images aired on Saudi state television showed the crane's metal boom smashed through what appeared to be the roof of the mosque. Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Mansouri, the spokesman for the presidency of the Mecca and Medina mosque affairs, said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency that the accident happened late Friday afternoon during a severe storm carrying strong winds and heavy rain.

Authorities did not provide details on the victims' nationalities, but it was likely that the tragedy will touch several countries. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed his condolences and said the U.S. stands with Saudi Arabia and "all Muslims around the world in the aftermath of this dreadful incident at one of Islam's holiest sites."

The Grand Mosque and the cube-shaped Kaaba within it draw Muslims of all types from around the world throughout the year, though numbers increase significantly in the run-up to the hajj. The mosque is Islam's holiest site to which Muslims face in daily prayers and a central site among the hajj rituals.

Performing the pilgrimage once during one's lifetime is a duty for all able-bodied adult Muslims. This year's pilgrimage is expected to start around Sept. 22. Al-Mansouri said the crane, which was being used in construction work at the mosque, struck a circular area around the Kaaba and a nearby walkway.

Pan-satellite Al-Jazeera Television broadcast footage from inside the mosque compound said to be from the aftermath of the accident, showing the floor strewn with rubble and what appear to be pools of blood.

Another video, on a Twitter posting, captured the apparent moment of the red-and-white crane's collapse during a heavy rainstorm, with a loud boom, screams and confusion. The governor of the Mecca region, Prince Khalid al-Faisal, quickly called for the formation of a committee to investigate the cause of the accident. He directed all appropriate authorities to provide support for all of those injured, according to a statement from Mecca principality public affairs head Sultan al-Dosari that was carried on SPA.

Other Saudi officials could not immediately be reached or referred queries to the civil defense statements. Several cranes surround the mosque to support an ongoing expansion and other construction work that has transformed the area around the sanctuary.

Steep hills and low-rise traditional buildings that once surrounded the mosque have in recent years given way to shopping malls and luxury hotels — among them the world's third-tallest building, a giant clock tower that is the centerpiece of the Abraj al-Bait complex.

The construction giant Saudi Binladin Group is leading the mosque expansion and also built the Abraj al-Bait project. The Binladin family has been close to the ruling Al Saud family for decades and oversees major building projects around the country. The Binladen family disowned one of its many members, late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in the 1990s.

It was not immediately clear who owned the crane that collapsed. During the week of the hajj, Muslims converge on Mecca to perform a series of rituals, including the circling of the cube-shaped Kaaba, praying and holding vigil at Mount Arafat and perform the symbolic stoning of the devil by throwing pebbles at the three pillars in Mina.

Prayers on and around the mount are a climactic emotional and spiritual moment in the hajj. The faithful believe that on that day the gates of heaven are open, prayers are answered and past sins are forgiven.

All male pilgrims, regardless of wealth or status, wear seamless terry white cloths to symbolize equality before God during the hajj. Women cover their hair and wear long loose clothing, forgoing makeup and other adornments to help them detach from worldly pleasures and outward appearances.

It was on Mount Arafat, marked by a white pillar, where Islam's Prophet Muhammad is believed to have delivered his last sermon to tens of thousands of followers some 1,400 years ago, calling on Muslims to unite.

While following a route that the prophet once walked, the rites are believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.

The millions of pilgrims who visit the country's holy sites each year pose a considerable security and logistical challenge for the Saudi government, and large-scale deadly accidents have occurred on a number of occasions in years past.

In 2006, more than 360 pilgrims died in a stampede at the desert plain of Mina, near Mecca. A crush of pilgrims two years earlier left 244 dead. The worst hajj-related tragedy was in 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.

Schreck reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai and Katarina Kratovac in Cairo contributed to this report.

Health requirements for Mecca pilgrimage

AMMAN, Jordan, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The Saudi Ministry of Health published its health requirements for travelers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the pilgrimage to Mecca -- Hajj.

The ministry says the annual pilgrimage, which occurs during a five-day period during "Dhul-Hijjah," the final month of the Islamic calendar, is the world's largest annual mass gathering, attracting 2 million to 3 million pilgrims every year.

Travelers are urged to read the guidelines in their entirety in the Journal of Infection and Public Health, which include:

-- All travelers arriving from countries or areas at risk of yellow fever must present a valid yellow fever vaccination certificate showing that the person was vaccinated at least 10 days previously and not more than 10 years before arrival at the border.

-- Visitors arriving for the purpose of Umra or pilgrimage or for seasonal work are required to produce a certificate of vaccination with the quadrivalent (ACYW135) vaccine against meningitis issued not more than 3 years previously and not less than 10 days before arrival in to Saudi Arabia.

-- All travelers arriving from polio-endemic countries and re-established transmission countries should receive one dose of the oral polio vaccine.

-- International pilgrims should be vaccinated against seasonal influenza before arrival in Saudi Arabia, with World Health Organization approved strains specific to the northern or southern hemispheres.

-- Hajj and Umra performers are not allowed to bring fresh food in to Saudi Arabia, only properly canned or sealed food or food stored in containers with easy access for inspection.

-- Updating immunization against vaccine-preventable diseases is strongly recommended.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/08/25/Health-requirements-for-Mecca-pilgrimage/UPI-68201314252183/.

End of Hajj: Algerian Hajjis prepare to return home

19 November, 2010

Algiers- The direction of programming at Air Algeria Company has scheduled 17 flights to transport 63,000 Hadjis from Jeddah airport, Saudi Arabia to five airports in Algeria.

The first group of Algerian Hadjis will arrive tonight at the airport of Constantine, the second at Oran airport and the third at Houari Boumediene International Airport.

According to the director of programming at Air Algeria, Rabah Midou, in an interview with Ennahar, the transaction involves the transport of 63,000 Hadjis for the 2010 season, spread over 17 flights and this, during 12 days, beginning Saturday November 20.

The first group of Hadjis will arrive early Saturday evening at 9 pm at the airport of Constantine where the last group will arrive on December 10th at 4:51 p.m.

Houari Boumediene International Airport will host the largest number of flights from the airport of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with 92 flights, followed by Oran airport with 81 flights, then Constantine 41 flights, Annaba and Ouargla with five flights each.

According to our interlocutor, the scenario of the month of Ramadhan will not be repeated because Air Algeria has increased its staff with sending 100 staff in the Holy Land in order to ensure a smooth return of Hadjis. Material resources have also been established and dozens of aircraft, including five Airbus 330 with 250 seats and three Boeings 767, with 250 seats are made available. Two planes, including one from Portugal, were leased; a Boeing 767 and an Airbus 340.

Ennahar / Habiba Mahmoudi

Source: Ennahar.
Link: http://www.ennaharonline.com/en/news/5222.html.

Saudi faces daunting task of post-hajj cleanup

by Staff Writers
Mina, Saudi Arabia (AFP) Nov 18, 2010

As the hajj pilgrimage nears its end, Saudi authorities in Mecca face the daunting task of cleaning up after pilgrims who have turned the streets of Muslim holy sites into a garbage dump.

During the short hajj season, it has become almost impossible to walk in the streets of the tent city of Mina, outside Mecca, without a mask due to an overwhelming stench which has pervaded every open space.

Islamic teaching stresses cleanliness, with Muslims taught from an early age that "cleanliness is half of faith" in the words of the prophet.

But as male pilgrims performed the rite of shaving heads on Tuesday, the streets of Mina and the neighborhood of the Grand Mosque in Mecca were strewn with hair and used razors.

The mess appeared to be mostly the work of "unauthorized" pilgrims, without the official permits, who flooded the valley.

Some 2.8 million pilgrims are estimated to have taken part in this year's hajj, almost 800,000 more than expected based on the number of permits issued, according to Saudi authorities.

Those pilgrims with no places reserved in equipped camps or hotel rooms in Mecca have squatted on pavements, under bridges and on rocky terraces. And where police turned a blind eye, they camped in the street.

Colorful bedsheets and blankets were stretched between walls and lamp-posts for shade. Those who were better prepared erected beach tents.

Many of the illegal pilgrims, who flouted the strict rule of "No permit, No hajj," were foreigners who live in Saudi Arabia, although some were Saudi nationals.

"I work in Mecca, so I decided to perform the hajj," said an Egyptian who declined to give his name as he sat on a mat spread under the elevated track of the new Mashair Railway.

These pilgrims, many of them in families with young children, ate and drank in the same place. As their litter grew around them, some admitted that they were at fault.

"We are the reason behind this mess," said Adnan Naji, 26, sitting with two fellow Egyptians on a straw mat on the road in Mina, while trash flowed out of a bin three meters (yards) away.

He explained that some people could not afford to pay for a legal hajj through a licensed group that would charge for decent accommodation, so they "sacrifice for hajj."

"We came to answer Allah's call for hajj," said Al-Sayyed Ali Jad, 24, who works in construction, like Naji.

The small mat they shared was clearly not enough to seat three of them. Their legs were stretched on the dirty tarmac, not far from a stream of stinking water flowing on the road surface.

But their partner on the mat, Nada Qassem, 35, said the surroundings did not shock him as his situation back home was not much different.

"My standard of living is not high so I am not shocked by this," said Qassem, who came from Egypt to work as a bus driver during the hajj, a chance to do the pilgrimage for free.

"Most of us do not have the means to pay for hajj," he said.

Meanwhile, binmen in yellow overalls toiled non-stop, pushing overflowing orange bins, sweeping the streets and loading large garbage containers onto lorries.

The situation in the Arafat plain, where pilgrims spent the hajj peak day on Monday, and in Mecca itself was not better. Streets around the Grand Mosque were awash with litter.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Saudi_faces_daunting_task_of_post-hajj_cleanup_999.html.

Muslims on hajj in Saudi start ascent of holy site

By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press

MOUNT ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia – Nearly 3 million Muslims performing the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia began making their way up the rocky desert Mount Arafat on Monday, chanting that they have come to answer God's call.

The white-robed pilgrims began their ascent at the crack of dawn, covering the Mountain of Mercy at Arafat in an endless sea of white as their chants "Labyek Allah," or "Here I am, God, answering your calling," reverberated overhead.

The climb at Arafat is one of the cornerstones of the pilgrimage, which is required from every able-bodied Muslim at least once in their life time. It's the site where Islam's Prophet Muhammad delivered his farewell sermon and Muslims believe on this day the doors of heavens open to answer prayers and grant forgiveness.

As they began their climb from the tent-city in the valley, many of the pilgrims looked tired from lack of sleep, having spent the entire night praying. Charities and vendors along the way handed out food packages and umbrellas to shield the climbers from the harsh sun.

One of the pilgrims, Wassim Ahmad, from Mumbai, India, said this was his first hajj and that he felt like a child, reborn.

"Today is like judgment day," said the 29-year-old. "We have come to pray to God ... a new child has been born."

Alone and obviously on her first hajj, 46-year-old Egyptian, Um Sayed, kept asking people for directions.

"There is nothing greater than feeling that you are going to meet God," she said. "The whole body shivers."

Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifa are the three stops on the pilgrims' journey during the hajj, as worshipers trace the steps of Prophet Muhammad.

The hajj draws millions of worshipers each year, the sheer numbers a challenge in preventing stampedes at holy sites, fires in pilgrim encampments and the spread of disease.

This year Saudi authorities have taken new measures to improve crowd management, including launching a new light-rail system to transport pilgrims between the shrines.

Al-Qaeda denies plot to target Muslim pilgrims in Saudi Arabia

WARNING: Article contains propaganda!

* * * * *

Sun, 14 Nov 2010

Cairo - A branch of al-Qaeda denied on Sunday that it was seeking to attack Muslims conducting the hajj pilgrimage, after a Saudi Arabian minister warned that he could not rule out the possibility of such operations.

"We are keen not to spill the blood of Muslims, wherever they are. Mecca is more sacred than any other place," al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said in a statement.

The message was posted to Islamist websites on the first day of hajj, the annual sacred Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Some 2.5 million people are expected to take part in the ritual.

Riyadh's interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abul Aziz, said last week that officials are on alert for a possible al-Qaeda attack.

"We don't rule out any attempt of action that disturbs the security of pilgrims. But we are ready for any possibility," he said.

But AQAP, a Yemen-based group believed to be behind a recent attempt to send parcel bombs to the United States, slammed Saudi Arabia for making the suggestion and for cooperating with the West to defeat the militant organization.

The discovery of the parcel bombs in Britain and Dubai, officials say, came after a tip-off from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia was engaging in "desperate attempts" to eliminate the group, AQAP charged, saying there was never a plan to target the pilgrims.

The group, affiliated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, is also alleged to have been involved in last year's Christmas Day attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit and a shooting spree that left 13 dead at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas.

AQAP was formed in January 2009 from the merger of al-Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi branches.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/353471,muslim-pilgrims-saudi-arabia.html.

Muslim pilgrims begin annual rituals without incident

14/11/2010

By Ali Khalil

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AFP) -- Hundreds of thousands of Muslims began the main rituals of the annual pilgrimage on Sunday, heading from Mecca to the camp of Mina with no major incidents reported since they descended on the holy city.

There are no official figures yet for the total number of pilgrims but some estimates put the number as high as 2.5 million this year.

Authorities say permits have been granted to 1.7 million foreign pilgrims, with a further 200,000 or so issued to pilgrims from within Saudi Arabia and from neighboring Gulf states.

This year has seen a crackdown on pilgrims who do not have the requisite papers as authorities attempt to prevent numbers getting out of hand.

A driver caught transporting unauthorized pilgrims faces a fine of 10,000 riyals ($2,667) for each individual.

The passage to Mina marks the official launch of the hajj on the eighth day of the Muslim calendar month of Dhul Hijja.

The day is known as Tarwiah (Watering) as pilgrims in the past stopped at Mina to water their animals and stock up for the following day's trip to Mount Arafat.

The vast plain of Mina was a canvas of huge white tents. It comes to life for just five days a year.

On Monday, the pilgrims move on to Mount Arafat and its surrounding plain, some 10 kilometers (six miles) to the southeast, where they spend the day in prayer and reflection.

After sunset, they move to Muzdalifah, halfway between Mount Arafat and Mina, where they spend the night.

On Tuesday, the first day of Eid Al-Adha or the Feast of the Sacrifice, the pilgrims head back to Mina after dawn prayers.

They then perform the first stage of the symbolic "stoning of the devil" and make the ritual sacrifice of an animal, usually a lamb.

During the remaining three days of the hajj, the pilgrims continue the ritual stoning before performing the circumambulation of the Kaaba shrine in Mecca and heading home.

No major incidents have been reported this year since the pilgrims began gathering in Mecca. The city's Grand Mosque has been flooded with the faithful, with an estimated 1.7 million taking part in the main weekly Muslim prayers on Friday.

The movement of pilgrims between the holy sites is a major headache for Saudi authorities who have had to deal with deadly stampedes in the past.

In recent years, the kingdom has used its huge oil revenues for massive spending on new infrastructure to ease the flow of people.

This year, the first phase of the new Mashair Railway -- or Mecca metro -- will transport pilgrims between Mina and Mount Arafat through Muzdalifah.

The Jamarat Bridge, where pilgrims perform the ritual stoning, has also been expanded to three levels with movement channeled in one direction.

Security remains a concern. Last Wednesday, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said he could not rule out the possibility of a sabotage attempt by Al-Qaeda.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=333680.

Egyptians protest in Saudi Arabia over hajj management

Mina, Saudi Arabia (Earth Times / dpa) - Around 500 Egyptians demonstrated Saturday outside Egypt's hajj headquarters in Mina, Saudi Arabia over the alleged mismanagement of pilgrims. Witnesses said the protesters chanted slogans against Egypt, which they said has refused to change the situation.

The main grievance appeared to be related to housing, with the protesters saying they had been left without accommodation in the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina during the hajj. Some said they were forced to sleep on the streets.

This year, an estimated 75,000 Egyptians are undertaking the pilgrimage that is one of the basic tenants of Islam.

Just five kilometers from Mecca, the desert town of Mina becomes a tent city during the hajj, to allow for more pilgrims to attend the event.

Saudi Arabia- Zamzam will be served to pilgrims right from arrival

(MENAFN - Arab News) Zamzam will be served to pilgrims from the point of their arrival in the Kingdom until departure, said Suleiman Abu Ghaliyah, chairman of the board of directors of the Zamzam United Office.

Ghaliyah said pilgrims would be able to drink Zamzam wherever they may be in Jeddah, Makkah, and Madinah under a three-fold plan. He added that since Oct. 20, the first phase of the program has begun, which includes supplying pilgrims with 300ml bottles of Zamzam.

"Before arriving at the grouping center, the pilgrims will receive their quota of 300ml of Zamzam water inside the bus," he said.

Ghaliyah said that under the second program, containers of 20 liters of Zamzam would be given to pilgrims at their places of accommodation in Makkah starting Nov. 3.

This program will continue until Nov. 25 when pilgrims will leave Makkah for Mina. He added that the third program in the plan would start on Nov. 30 when the pilgrims would be given containers of 1.5 liters of Zamzam water to take home. "This arrangement would continue till the end of December when all pilgrims have departed for their respective homes," he said.

By Badea Abu Al-Naja

Source: Middle East North Africa Financial News (MENAFN).
Link: http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093278901.

Makkah gears up for Haj

(MENAFN - Arab News) The Presidency of the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques has begun preparations to implement its plan for this year's Haj season, which will begin on Nov. 3 until Dec. 18.

A total of 6,058 persons - including 1,756 regular staff members, 1,800 temporary employees and 2,502 male and female laborers - will be working under the presidency. Presidency staff will also be guiding pilgrims to enable them to perform Haj rituals correctly. The presidency's plans also include increasing the number of muftis and study circles in the Grand Mosque, and completing the expansion of the Masa (the chamber between Safa and Marwah).

The presidency is also working on completing the bridge that leads from the Masa to the bus terminal, preparing the eastern courtyard to accommodate more worshipers, setting up more drinking water points, keeping up with cleanliness, completing studies to determine the hydraulic specifications of the well of Zamzam in collaboration with the Geological Survey Department, and developing the sterilization system of Zamzam water.

Under the rules made by the presidency, no food, drinks or bags will be allowed into the Grand Mosque. It also called on pilgrims not to use Zamzam water for ablution, not to sleep inside the Grand Mosque and to dispose of garbage in bins. The presidency asked pilgrims to send their observations, complaints or suggestions by fax no: 02 573 9992 or via its website: www.gph.gov.sa

By Badea Abu Al-Naja

Source: Middle East North Africa Financial News (MENAFN).
Link: http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093278906.

Another batch of 400 hajis from Jammu and Kashmir leaves for Jeddah

Srinagar, Oct 22 : Another batch of 400 pilgrims from Jammu and Kashmir today left for Jeddah to perform Hajj 2009.

Official sources said the pilgrims, including women and children, in Ahram (white dress) were taken in special buses to Srinagar International Airport from Haj house at Bemina where their documents were checked by the authorities.

The pilgrims were also checked for swine flu, they said, adding later the pilgrims left for Jeddah in two flights.

With this, 1198 pilgrims from Jammu and Kashmir left for Jeddah since October 20.

Source: New Kerala.
Link: http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-135943.html.

Hajj Pilgrims leave for Hijaz from Lahore, Quetta

22-10-2009

LAHORE (Pakistan Link): PIA has launched its Hajj flights in advance.

First PIA flights from Lahore to Jeddah carried 466 pilgrims, as 322 pilgrims from Quetta have also left for Hijaz.

Sources at PIA informed that pre-Hajj operations will continue till November 21st, whereas post-Hajj operations will commence from December 2nd till 1st January 2010.

PIA will commute 111,000 Hajj pilgrims in 259 special flights to Jeddah, while 15,000 pilgrims will travel in 32 direct flights to Madina.