Every year, millions of Muslims from all over the world go to Holy Kabah to fulfil the religious duty of Hajj. From the Holy Quran:
"Asking your Lord for food doesn't make you less flexible. When you leave Arafat, you must show respect to God at the Holy Site (of Muzdalifah). You will honor Him because He led you where you needed to go. Before that, you were lost. You and the other people who file will ask God for forgiveness at the same time. GOD is Forgiving and Most Kind. Most of the people are stuck with their financial issues but they can book luxury Umrah tour Packages at very cheap costs with Islamic Travel.
Why Muslims finding it harder to complete Hajj
After you finish your rites, you must continue to respect GOD as much as you respect your own parents, or even more. Some people would say, "Our Lord, give us of this world," even though they had nothing to do with the Hereafter. Others would say, "Our Lord, make us righteous in this world and in the next, and spare us from Hell's punishment."
The Holy Quran says that Muslims who are healthy, have enough money, and don't have any other problems should make a pilgrimage to Makkah, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, at least once in their lives. For Hajj, millions of pilgrims from all over the world go to Makkah to do a set of rituals that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) told their followers to do (AS). As part of the Hajj rituals, people walk around the Kaabah seven times. The Kaabah is the black cube that Muslims face when they pray, no matter where they are in the world. This is called Qiblah. Other rituals include drinking water from the ZamZam Well, which started when Prophet Ibrahim's wife, Bibi Hajra, was desperate to find water for her son, Ismail, who was thirsty.
The question is why this year many of you who had the hope to make the Hajj have been disappointed?
In many ways, the Hajj is much easier to do now than it was in the past. Today, pilgrims from all over the world can fly to Makkah in a few hours instead of taking days to walk there. This makes the Hajj almost impossible for Muslims who live in faraway places. Today, we can stay anywhere we want, from simple apartments to five-star hotels. Restaurants are all over. During the hot summer months, if Hajj falls on a hot day, the air conditioning makes things bearable, even if it's 45 degrees Celsius outside. Pilgrims can find anything they want with the help of smart phones and many mobile apps. But the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are getting more and more people, and cheaper international travel has brought its own problems. In 2004, about 2.2 million Muslims did Hajj, and last year, 3.2 million Muslims did Hajj, which was the most ever.
This year, the Saudi government gives each country a certain number of Hajj visas based on how many Muslims live there. It has also cut the number of visas for foreign pilgrims by 20% so that the Grand Mosque can hold more people. Many countries have asked that the visa not be given to Muslims who are sick or old. Umrah is a smaller pilgrimage that Muslims can go on if they are not eligible for Hajj or don't get the visa. Umrah is almost the same as Hajj, but it isn't done in the last month of the Islamic year, which is called Zil-Hajj. Inshallah, the renovations will be done by next year, and there will be more visas for pilgrims once again. But the number of Muslims is growing, and many Muslim countries are getting richer. This means that the backlog is likely to get bigger. South Africa just said that people on the waiting list might have to wait another six years to get a spot.
Some major Difficulties pilgrims face during Hajj
The major difficulties that pilgrims face during Hajj may be summed up as follows:
- First of all, as we've already talked about, the renovations at the Grand Mosque have cut down on the number of Visas, making it hard for every Muslim to get one. There are a lot of people who want Visas but not enough Visas to go around.
- If you are lucky enough to get a visa, the other hard part of Hajj is Tawaf, which is when you walk around the Holy Kabah seven times. Tawaf is the most important part of both Hajj and Umrah. During Tawaf, there are a lot of people, especially at the Black Stone, and they push and shove to get to it.
- Pilgrims have to run between the two hills of Safa and Marwah as part of another important Hajj ritual called Sa'ey. Here, huge crowds can be as hard to deal with as they are during Tawaf.
- In Arafat, all of the pilgrims meet at the same time, and then they all move on together. People have the most trouble standing or moving when there are a lot of people around at the same time.
- Some people may have trouble at Muzdalifah because the most important services, like toilets, are not there. To avoid problems, people in Arafat and Muzdalifah are told to eat less.
- When people push and shove each other during the stoning of the Jamarat, it shows how ignorant they are. This is why it is thought to be the hardest ritual in terms of crowding.
- During the farewell Tawaf, when every pilgrim wants to leave early to get back to their families, almost all of them gather at the same time, which is hard and can hurt them, whether they are going to the sanctuary or leaving Makkah.
