Post-Hajj Debrief Meeting 2015
Dr. Mozammel Haque
Hajj is a spiritual act; it is an act of worship. It is a relation
between the pilgrim and his Creator, Allah the Almighty. Hajj is the fifth
pillar of Islam. So, besides other factors and aspects of Hajj, the most
important aspect is that it is worship; it is an act of worship. Once the
pilgrim puts Ihram and leaves for the Hajj, it is, religiously speaking, he
started his spiritual journey and as soon as he reaches Makkah, the Masjid
al-Haram, he declares and announces Labbaika Allahuma Labbaik which means; I am
here, I am here and I am declaring that You are One and You have no partner. So Hajj is basically an act of worship wherein there is no
country, no politics is involved; it is a relationship between pilgrim and his
Creator, Allah the Almighty.
Even Allah the Almighty said in the Holy Qur’an the basic
rules of Hajj. Allah says, “The pilgrimage is in the appointed months. Whoever
intends to perform it during them must abstain from indecent speech, from all
wicked conduct, and from quarrelling while on the pilgrimage. Whatever good you
may do, God is aware of it.” (Al-Qur’an, 2:197). Allah also says, “Help one
another in goodness and in piety. Do not help one another in sin and transgression.
Fear God! God is severe in punishment” (Al-Qur’an, 5:2)
The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia every year before the Hajj
called on the pilgrims to keep away from partisan and politics. The Grand Mufti
of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz Alsheikh called on pilgrims to perform Hajj
in a proper way, observe tranquillity and calm and avoid chaos and obscenity.
Al-Asheikh also urged Hajjis to keep away from partisan and sectarian slogans.
As I
mentioned Hajj is a religious act, politics should not be brought into it. Whatever
happened in Mina, the Saudi authorities have already set up an enquiry
commission to investigate the causes and find out the real issue behind the
incident. Meanwhile, spreading rumours, speculate all sorts of wrong or
misinformation will create more problems rather than help to resolve issues.
Please
think positively and intelligently and ponder upon the positive aspects: improvement
of the Holy sites and the Hajj facilities since 1976. I had the opportunity this
year, 2015, to meet and talk to those celebrities who performed Hajj in the
70s, 80s and this year in 2015 and according to them revolutionary changes took
place in the Holy sites, such as in Mataf, Masaa, Mina, Arafat and Jamarat.
(please see http://islamicmonitor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/tremendous-changes-in-hajj-facilities.html;
http://islamicmonitor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/revolutionary-changes-in-holy-sites-1.html
and http://islamicmonitor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/revolutionary-changes-in-holy-sites-and.html
)
Haramain
expanded; increasing the capacity of pilgrims; Masaa is doubled and wider;
Mataf is expanded. Permanent fire-proof tent in Mina; toilet facilities and
other public services. Jamarat is made the safest place by making it fifth
floor linked with roads to each floor.
Hajj Debrief Meeting 2015
Recently,
there are two meetings took place on the Hajj issue after the Hajj. One was
Hajj Debriefing 2015, organised by the Council of British Hajjis (CBH) UK in
partnership with the Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC), London, was held at the
Committee Room no. 12 of the House of Commons, on Wednesday, 28 October, 2015.
It was sponsored by the Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi, Member of Parliament from
Bolton. It was attended by pilgrims, Hajj & Umrah tour operators,
academics, MPs and Peers from both the Houses of Parliament. Besides Yasmin
Qureshi, Labour MP, the sponsor of the meeting, there were Baroness Uddin, Ms.
Shabana Mahmood, Labour MP from Birmingham Ladywood among others.
Yasmin Qureshi, MP
While
introducing the meeting, Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi said, “I think everyone here
knows the importance of Hajj for the Muslims. All Muslims want to make it in
their lifetime at least once. I am sure everybody in this room must be struck
by the sadness of what happened recently not only those who died or injured
therefore this meeting is really becomes in a very crucial time. We know there
are many people going to Hajj from this country. I think about thousands
British people travelling to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage.”
Speaking
about the facilities during Hajj, Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi said, “Whenever you
are going around Masjid al-Haram there was always plenty of cold water to
drink. They never run out. It is a matter of how many hundreds and thousands
people go to the Masjid al-Haram, the water never run out. If you think about
the water, the water is not run out. And secondly, recently because of what
happened in Mina few constituents was worried.”
Labour
MP Yasmin Qureshi who sponsored the event thanked the Ambassador of the Saudi
Embassy in the United Kingdom for their hard work in swiftly processing pilgrim
visas especially during the tragic incidents which took place at Hajj this
year. She also thanked Saudi Arabia to set up and facilitate inquiry quickly
and immediately.
Labour
MP Yasmin Qureshi also mentioned about her experience of Hajj which she
performed in 1994.
Besides,
Yasmin Qureshi, Labour MP, the meeting was addressed by Lord Adam Patel, the
leader of the British Hajj Delegation, Ms. Shabana Mahmood, Labour MP from Birmingham
Ladywood, Dr. Ahmed al-Dubayan, the Director General of the Islamic Cultural
Centre, London and Rashid Mogradia, the Chief Executive of the Council of
British Hujjaj (CBH) UK.
Lord Adam Patel
Lord
Adam Patel has been involved in Hajj pilgrimage in some way or the other for over
forty years now; his first Hajj was in 1971. Lord Patel said, “In those days
there was very little help and advice available. We relied entirely on the
person arranging the Hajj with very few details available in advance.”
British
Hajj Delegation (BHD), of which Lord Adam Patel is the chairman. Speaking about
the work of the BHD, Lord Patel mentioned, “The core official work of the
British Hajj Delegation is in the provision of medical support to British and other
Hujjaj in Makkah and Mina whilst they have travelled out there to perform their
Hajj. In addition to the nine doctors, including female doctors with their Mahrams,
who give their services for free as well.”
Lord
Patel said, “British Hajj Delegation is a unique project. There are many
countries with much larger Muslim populations, such as the United States,
France and Germany, yet they do not provide their citizens with this same level
of free support.”
Speaking
about the Holy sites and Hajj facilities, Lord Patel mentioned, “About
two/three million people come to perform Hajj and Saudi government is doing the
excellent job providing the medical care. In Mina with so many people around now
the Saudi Ministry of Hajj gave the British Hajj Delegation four tents to look
after the patients.”
Lord
Patel also said, “Looking after the estimated 20,000 Pilgrims from the UK and
the estimated 3 million from around the world is no easy task. No other country
in the world has to do anything similar on an annual basis. If you cast your
mind back to a few years ago our Great City of London proudly hosted the Olympic
and Paralympics games. So much planning went into that and the disruption to daily
routine that was caused for laying on such an event.”
Lord
Patel also mentioned, “I was always impressed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in
how it constantly meets challenges that the Hajj presents. Not only that, but how
eager it is to serve the Guests of Almighty Allah, by continuously improving
the infrastructure for Hajjis. To name a few examples recently; there is the
work to expand the Haramain area, the work to increase capacity at both Jeddah
and Madinah Airports and the building of a new train line serving Mina and also
soon Makkah to Madinah.”
Lord
Patel paid tributes and praised personally His Excellency His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz
Al-Saud, the Ambassador and his officials in the Embassy of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia in London for their unrelenting support to the British Hujjaj over
the years. He requested the representative of the Royal Saudi Embassy to please
convey his message to His Excellency the Saudi Ambassador.
Commanding
the works and activities of the Islamic Cultural Centre, Lord Patel said, “The
outstanding organisations I have met like the Council of British Hujjaj and the
Islamic Cultural Centre all share one key characteristic: an absolute passion
to raise standards for those performing Hajj. They have been restless for
improvements, and they are always looking for the next challenge. They rarely
accept the status quo and they have taken on entrenched attitudes in areas such
as Hajj fraud, where it was deemed too complex to take on, and given it a good
seeing to.”
Dr. Ahmed Al-Dubayan
Speaking
about the meeting on Hajj and the gathering, Dr. Ahmed al-Dubayan, Director
General of the Islamic Cultural Centre and the Regents Park London Central
Mosque, said, “I think it is very important here to get together to talk about
Hajj. Hajj is very important; it reminds you something about; it is not only a
matter of industry or business; it is, first of all, it is worship. As we all
know it is the fifth pillar of Islam. It’s very important and it is a duty for
every Muslim once in his lifetime. At the same time, of course, tour operators
have their right of business sending people and facilitating this chance for
Muslims to do this worship. At the same time, there is also a social factor of
Hajj; there is a social side of it for the Muslim community.”
Dr.
Al-Dubayan also said, “We watch this from the Islamic Cultural Centre and
Regents Park London Central Mosque. It
is enough to say that all these years we have 95,000 who went for Hajj and we
have 65,000 who went for Umrah from the United Kingdom and also many families
linked together; they go together or they celebrate before or after. Of course;
it is not only a worship; it is also more social occasion where people come
together and really they celebrate and there are, of course, lots of traditions
based on which community they belong to.”
“In
the beginning, I would like to express my thanks to right honourable Lord Patel
really who served all these years, took the Hajj delegation. We are really so
proud about the services they have done for more than 10 years and the Islamic
Cultural Centre was, for sometime, secretary of the British Hajj Delegation; till of course, 2010 it was stopped from the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office and then Lord Patel of course insisted on continuing this service
because Muslim community really needs it. And needed and it is working till
today. Alhamdo lillah. I am really, on behalf of myself and I am sure
everybody here, would like to say thank you to him, to the Hajj Delegation and to
the doctors who always accompanied him in this journey,” mentioned Dr.
al-Dubayan.
Then
Dr. Al-Dubayan addressed the issue of tour operators, agencies and firms. He
said, “Let me take advantage of this occasion to talk to the tour operators and
to the agencies: we are here, I believe today, I really to be united and really
to address the problems together and not to be scattered. We, at the Islamic
Cultural Centre, Centre, Muslims and Mosques; we are not actually going to take
the place of the tour operators or something but really we are helping you to
make this journey safe, and to make it even better in your performance.”
Speaking
about the role of the Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC) vis-à-vis the Muslim
Community and the Hajj related matters, Dr. Al-Dubayan mentioned, “One thing
which is very important, i.e. Islamic
Cultural Centre is for the whole community as a place where people come to it.
We are too much linked to Hajj in many ways. First of all, we are making awareness
programme about the Hajj itself; secondly that is all those problems sometimes
with agencies, with tour operators; come to us, to the ICC and even some complications
come from the Hajj itself; they come also to the mosque, to us to solve them.
So we are here all the time behind the scene but we are having our role. Why; because Saudi Arabian embassy itself is a
member, one of the trustees of the Islamic Cultural Centre Board of Trustees. We
have direct link with the authorities so we use it always to facilitate this
business for everybody. We ourselves also sent some guests sometimes.”
Addressing
directly to the tour operators, Dr. al-Dubayan said, “I really urge the tour
operators, the agencies and the firms; please remember always above all the
commitment that you have to show in this business. The commander just talked
about the fraud and he said 138,000 this year. Commitment is really the success
of this business. The problem he just said not fraud in the business but it is
also related to the worship, to Islam. It is also related to Islam, worship; someone
really tricked it something like this something it is really painful; not
painful, it is very very painful; not because of the money but because of
psychological effect, his heart, because it is a worship itself; imagining you
are going to a mosque and someone is going to prevent you; stopping you on the
way and try to stop. So it is really important.”
Dr.
al-Dubayan also mentioned, “We know also one of the thing we are really doing
you know unfortunately the Muslim community always with every season there are
always a season for rumours and wrong information for really spreading all
these sometimes by the community, by the individuals by some individuals by
some even companies wrong information; they come to us we investigated and found
it is wrong information, these things are really very very dangerous, commitment
to your clients, meeting their expectations actually. When you promise
something, dear tour operators really committed to it. First of all, this is
our ethics as Muslims; this is actually real thing of the business itself,
Muslims or not Muslims. It is very important.”
While
concluding his speech at the meeting, Dr. al-Dubayan said, “In this context, I
have to pay my sympathy and condolence, of course, for the families of the
victims who fell in the last season and we admire so much the role that the Saudi
authorities are doing by expansion and doing really the services and all the
services they are paying. I hope, from this point, from today, we can; we can
have a new start for a new service, and better performance from the agencies,
from the Islamic centres who are involved in this kind of worship. It is really very
important to remember the spiritual side of it, not the business side of it.
That’s very important.”
Commander
Chris Greany
Commander
Chris Greany from the City of London Police reaffirmed his forces commitment in
tackling Hajj Fraud.
Shabana Mahmood, MP
Ms.
Shabana Mahmood, Labour MP from Birmingham Ladywood, said, her father was a
civil engineer in Saudi Arabia and she performed Hajj along with her father
when she was just three years old. She mentioned, “I have a very personal
emotional connection with all Hajjis. Hajj
is central tenet of Islam.”
Rashid
Mogradia
Rashid
Mogradia, Chief Executive of the Council of British Hajjis said, “the Council
will work tirelessly this season to ensure contingencies are in place for
British Pilgrims by lobbying our Government to support British nationals during
Hajj as in previous years and just as other nationalities do the same for their
citizens.”
“Whilst
the Saudi Authorities are doing an excellent job, we must ensure British
pilgrims and tour operators alike play their part and be aware of their own
responsibilities, this is why the Council of British Hajjis will focus further
in educating pilgrims prior to departure,” he said.
Mogradia also thanked HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf, the
Consul Mr. Bandar Al-Zaid at the Saudi Embassy in London and the Custodian of
the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz for services offered to the
thousands of British pilgrims.
Mogradia mentioned, “We have witnessed first hand the
dedication and services provided to pilgrims and these have improved year on
year and we look forward to seeing further improvements namely the grand
expansion of Masjid Al-Haram in Makkah and Masjid Al-Nabawi in Madina, all of
which looks to increase pilgrim numbers.”
Post-Hajj Meeting 2015
There was another meeting entitled Post-Hajj event,
organised by the Association of British Hujjaj (ABH), a national charity
organisation, was held at the Committee Room no. 3A of the House of Lords on
Monday, the 26th of October 2015. It was sponsored by Lord Ahmed of
Rotherham.
Lord Ahmed
While introducing the event, Lord Ahmed said, “Normally the
ABH has always organised meetings of Hujjaj before they leave for Hajj and also
when they come back. On this particular occasion because of the accident in
Mina it is important to look back, have report and also to see how we can
improve and also do something about that.”
Besides Lord Ahmed, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, OBE; Nusrat Ghani, Conservative
MP for Wealden and Khaled Parvez, Secretary of the Association of British
Hujjaj (ABH) also spoke on this occasion.
The Association of British Hujjaj (Pilgrims) UK [ABH], a
national charity working for welfare and wellbeing of British Hajj Umrah
pilgrims expresses its deepest sorrow and sadness for the incident which took
place in Mina during this year’s Hajj.
Lawyer Farhan Khaled, on behalf of ABH, said, The incident
occurred “despite of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spending millions of dollars on
improving infrastructure to facilitate Hajj arrangements and to ensure the
safety and comfort of millions of pilgrims from around the World.”
He mentioned, one of the major contributory factors which
emerged out of this incident “was ignorance and lack of awareness of health and
safety risks amongst pilgrims. Pilgrims did not have the understanding of
precautionary measures that should have been taken to avoid creating this type
of accident.”
Q & A Session
Immediately after the presentation of the Report, there was
a Q&A session. In the Q&A session, this writer, Dr. Mozammel Haque,
took the floor and mentioned his experience of Hajj this year. He said, Hajj is
a spiritual act; it is a spiritual journey. Hajj is a relationship between the
pilgrim and his Creator, Allah the Almighty. Hajj is a worship; it is the fifth
pillar of Islam. As Hajj is a religious matter, a spiritual one; it should not
be mixed up with politics, partisan and sectarian things.
He also mentioned, Hajj is a unique world assemblage, world
congress of people believed in one religion, Islam and the pilgrims are
gathered together with the same dress only for the pleasure of their Creator
and with no other purpose and objective. There is no comparison in the world of
this nature of gathering. It should be looked at from that perspective and not
from the worldly perspective, from the political motive or political angle.
Dr. Haque also pointed out that it is too early to say
anything about the incident or make any suggestions or speculations about the
causes. He said, I was present there in Mina, near the Masjid al-Khaif, near
the Mina Emergency Hospital. People should not speculate; should not belief in
wrong information or spread rumours. He pointed out that the government of
Saudi Arabia has set up an inquiry commission to investigate the whole thing
and they should wait till the report is published.
Maulana Sher Khan Jamil from Birmingham who recited the
Qur’an at the beginning of the event pointed out that nothing happened for the
last ten years because of the development and improvement of the facilities in
the Holy sites.
After the Q&A session, the main discussion on other
topics took place.
UK Legislation and Pilgrims Plight
Farhan Khaled mentioned about the violation of UK
Legislation and British Hajj/Umrah Pilgrims Plight. He said, “Hajj/ Umrah
pilgrimage is very close to the heart of nearly 3 million people in the UK and
travelling to perform pilgrimage holds extremely high significance - it is
considered as a journey of a lifetime for Pilgrims. However corruption and
malpractice by travel operators has caused extreme devastation; mental anguish
and trauma, not only to the pilgrims themselves but to their extended and close
family network.”
Farhan Khaled said, “According to report issued by the
Chairman of National Trading Standards Board, Lord Toby Harris, last year 182
business premises were inspected by Trading Standards and Police Officials
nationally, out of which 147 of Hajj/Umrah package tour operators were found to
be non-compliant with relevant legislation (Over 80%). This report has shocked
a large number of people in the community but not ABH. We were fully aware of
the deteriorating situation of the violation of the UK legislation in the Hajj
and Umrah Tour industry and have been campaigning tirelessly to persuade the
authorities to address the issue of widespread violation by unscrupulous tour
and travel operators.”
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