(RNS) — Hajj is too expensive. Hajj is too crowded. Hajj isn’t regulated well enough. The Saudi government isn’t measuring up as the custodian of the Hajj.
Ask North American Muslims who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca since the Saudis took over the travel-booking process for pilgrims coming from the Western world, and chances are they’ve cautiously voiced one or more of these complaints.
Cautiously because, as Muslims, we are encouraged in the Quran and by Islamic scholarship to be patient and uncomplaining about the inevitable challenges and hardships of performing the Hajj pilgrimage. “Sabr,” or patience, is one of the most important aspects of the Hajj, which is required of every adult Muslim who is physically and financially able once in their lives. It’s an awe-inspiring and joyous experience and, in a way, is meant to be mentally, emotionally and physically challenging to break down a Muslim’s nafs (ego) and help them re-center their spiritual self.
But Saudi Arabia has been tightening rules on who will be admitted to the country, including younger people, and continues to roll out its new system for booking pilgrims’ trips ahead of Hajj 2025, which takes place in early June. The changes, while confusing at first, make improvements that are not only sensible but, after last year’s massive loss of life at the Hajj, necessary.
After COVID-19 had thrown Hajj planning into disarray for almost three years, American Muslims expected a return to business as usual in 2022. But the Saudis instead launched a new online platform for the use of European, Australian and North American pilgrims that promised to streamline the process of applying to attend Hajj. It initially served as a centralized travel-planning tool as well.
Though the 2024 deaths were mostly caused by extreme heat, the danger was compounded by overcrowding, partly due to a wave of pilgrims who came to Hajj without permits. Responding to outcries from Muslims, the Saudi government is now curbing the number of pilgrims with a new rule restricting visitors from 14 Asian and Middle Eastern countries to 30-day stays instead of issuing yearlong visas that allowed them to come and go.
Muslim pilgrims use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun as they arrive to cast stones at pillars in the symbolic stoning of the devil, the last rite of the annual Hajj, in Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
“Previously, many visitors entered Saudi Arabia using multiple-entry visas but stayed illegally to perform Hajj, the Saudi visa office said in early February. “As a result, this led to overcrowding and safety risks.”
Another new rule this year restricts the Hajj to Muslims 12 years old and older. The ban on younger children is billed as a measure to prevent overcrowding and to keep children from a setting where immense crowds must perform various rituals in a certain order.
The new Hajj regime has been frustrating at times. Saba Tariq, a Muslim who lives in Virginia, said she has struggled the past few years to book a Hajj package through Nusuk. Last year, she ended up flying to Pakistan, where she is also a citizen, and obtaining a visa to attend Hajj with her Pakistani passport. She eventually made the Hajj with her husband and both their sisters as a group.
But Tariq left her adolescent children home. “Hajj is very hard on kids and on the aged,” she told me. “In my group, there was a family with grandparents and kids, maybe 8 to 10 years old, and in Muzdalifah (one of the sacred sites of Hajj), the grandfather passed away. The extreme heat was so hard on the aged and children.”
And not just the heat. When my husband and I performed the pilgrimage 20 years ago, we left our (then) four-year-old and 18-month-old with their grandparents in the U.S. Two couples in our group brought their young children, which made me miss my own, but as is inevitable, numerous members of our party got sick, a common occurrence as people from all over the world crowd together, and a 2-year-old in our group developed a high fever.
Not everyone who wants to go for Hajj has someone to watch their children while they are gone for weeks. Some want to experience the pilgrimage as a family. But I was grateful we had made the decision to leave our children at home.
Nusuk continues to evolve as the Saudi Ministry of Hajj continues to tweak how pilgrims book their travel. Amir Saeed, owner of Amax Travel Services in the U.S., had facilitated numerous Hajj trips before the Nusuk system took over in 2022 and independent travel agencies in North America, Europe, and Australia were barred from running Hajj groups.
Now, Saeed said, once they go through Nusuk’s lottery, pilgrims can reach out to various travel agencies to see if they are organizing groups in Saudi Arabia. But Saeed warned that there are no guarantees that you’ll be put in a group with people you know.
One feature of Hajj that no one seems to have addressed is the exorbitant cost. And managing the logistics of an annual pilgrimage of some 1.8 million people, all traveling through tight spaces and performing various rituals on a particular timetable, continues to be daunting. Tariq recalled her experience as wonderful from a spiritual perspective, but also frequently trying. “The government, they are very arrogant people,” she said. “Traffic was awful, the police were awful, especially to women,” she said.
But, Tariq acknowledged, “there are good and bad people everywhere, and I know it’s very difficult to be in charge of the Hajj.”
Confusing? Absolutely. Nothing about performing the Hajj pilgrimage is usually easy. But the Saudi government seems to be continuously working on logistical improvements to all parts of the pilgrimage and continues to issue rules as they somehow incorporate more ease and safety into what is one of the most beautiful, spiritually fulfilling, unforgettable, exhausting and difficult pillars for a Muslim to fulfill.
