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Hajj pilgrimage to return to pre Covid levels

by Salaamedia Intern
Hajj allocations are set to be returned to normal for the first time in three years Photo Pexels

South Africa – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced the annual Hajj will return to pre Covid-19 levels. This ends three years of  a reduction in Hajj accreditations in an effort to stop the spread of the Coronavirus among pilgrims and Saudi citizens.

The Kingdom also announced there will no longer be an age restriction and females under the age of 45 will be permitted to perform Hajj and Umrah without a mahram provided they attend with a group . In recent years, only those between 18 to 65 could perform Hajj. 

The Hajj allocation has returned to pre Covid levels but this does not mean it will necessarily increase, explained Shaheen Essop, SAHUC president.

“If we have unlimited quotas or have significantly increased quotas it means that there’s got to be a lot of work that needs to be done in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia specifically around Mina and Arafat … When they talk about the numbers going back to pre-covered levels, it means that the base quota numbers for each country will basically be regiven. In other words South Africa [gets] 2 500. Other countries like India a little bit less than the 200 000 that they normally received, 175 000. So the base quota is done according to the number of Muslims that are currently residing in the country of origin.”

SAHUC has made a request to increase the quota to 5 000 to try and alleviate the backlog and allow people to go for Hajj as soon as possible.

 

Reducing the price of Hajj

Over the years the cost of Hajj has increased exponentially. Transport, food and accommodation is one of the main expenses pilgrims have to face when going for Hajj. It is one of the issues that Essop and his team have been trying to negotiate while in Saudi at the conference.

“Well there’s still ongoing discussions around that but you know the situation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is quite dire from the cost point of view. They’re an importer of all their foods and their processing of foods in this country so as a result of that the cost increases are quite astronomical. We not only find that the cost but the downstream chain in terms of service delivery, in terms of transportation and electricity costs etc. are all quite exorbitant. We’re still negotiating. We think that we can possibly get some discounts in different ways and I’m hoping that we will be able to achieve that prior to coming home.”

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Having Halaal food while performing Hajj

An issue that has been raised by many is where they can purchase Halaal food  in Makkah and Medina. It is an issue Essop is all too familiar with. Essop explained he has had to deal with such question many times during the Hajj season and he feels people should place more trust in the Saudi government as it is a Muslim country.

“At the end of the day you’re coming to a Muslim country. You come into a country where you’ve got the Haramain. I do not believe for one minute that they’re going to be serving you Haram food. We’ve been asked this question many a time during the Hajj periods in the past. Some years back I had a situation on Mina where a person came up to us and said to us can we guarantee that the food is Halaal. We said we’ve gone to such an extent that we’ve actually prepared 100 vegetarian meals a day. So if you don’t want to eat the meat or the chicken, please eat the vegetarian meals but you have to eat something. You can’t stay without food. So it’s a very, very disturbing situation where we find that it is only our community that actually delves into those questions.”

Essop has met with different Hajj mission from across the world including Europe, the Far East and even Asia but none of them have posed this question.

Saudi Arabia is expected to hosts more than 2.5 million pilgrims for this years Hajj just like it did back in 2019 before Covid restrictions were placed. Essop and his team will try to get an increase on the Hajj allocation for South Africa but as it stands, 2 500 places has been allocated for South Africa. 

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