We are reaching maximum capacity. The present Hajj is about ten times the 1945 version. The present government has spent billions on making things better. There have been at least two layers of balconies around the Cube. There are now trains to supplement the buses that carry people hither and yon. The camping arrangements have been hugely improved after a series of horrid fires.
But you have to wonder if circling the cub on the Third Balcony and then waiting in line for a bus to take you to a huge building were you cast pebbles at what seems to be concrete bridge abutments and then being herded like cattle…
Is this a religious, spiritual experience? So far yes, people tell me, but it is hard to see how we can go much further. Look at the huge hotels that circle the Grand Mosque.
On the other hand, perhaps I am geezing out. Isn’t it nice that so many people can do this? Isn’t it good that prices to make Hajj have never been lower?
Isn’t the requirement just at least once in your life, and isn’t it considered a good thing to do it multiple times if you can? It seems to me that, if you’re already living there, the cost should be fairly low, so why not just go once when you’re young, and then again once you’re married?
Islam has always placed a major emphasis on the community. So I would guess many Muslims on Hajj find it a religious experience because they are physically sharing it with millions of their fellow Muslims. The overwhelming crowd itself becomes part of the experience.
Well, my students are basically college kids. You have to pay for the Hajj yourself, and I suppose at this stage in their lives they simply cannot afford it, or they have other priorities.
Just by the way, the various Ministries have sent everyone (including me) scary text messages telling us not to try to make an unlicensed Hajj. They are cracking down.
The travel writer Ibn Jubayr in the 12th century compared Mecca, in a little valley “a bowshot or less in width,” with a woman’s womb when she becomes pregnant as it expands to accommodate fetal growth.
Also, lately, the Saudi overlords have been demolishing whatever remains of the historic old city and replacing it with high rises and hotels.
I read about the destruction of historic sites in Mecca in an article a couple of years ago. The house owned by the family of Muhammad’s first wife was destroyed as were other historic sites, some a thousand years old. Seems a shame.
I used the term “overlords” for the Saudi establishment advisedly. Nowadays they pride themselves as “servants” of the two sacred places. Mecca and Medina are part of al-Hijaz, an important historical region whose name has been removed by the Saudi regime.
The Saudis would prefer to obscure the history that they came to the two holy places (Mecca and Medina) as invaders, murderers, and Hajj-stoppers. Twice—in 1802 and 1924. The first time, al-Hijaz was a province of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottoman suzerainty of Egypt kicked the Saudi Wahhabis out in 1812. The second time, al-Hijaz was an independent kingdom that the Saudi Wahhabis simply obliterated.
The Saudis are the products of Najd, historically, culturally, and geographically a very different region and one with a bad reputation. The Prophet is quoted as warning that trouble comes out of Najd.
We’ve discussed this before on the SDMB. If you look up the total number of Moslems and the total number of people who can fit into the area where a hajj has to be during the time of the year that a Moslem has to be there for it to be a hajj, it’s clearly impossible for more than about a fifth of all Moslems to ever do a hajj, even if every Moslem was able to afford it and lived an average lifespan. It may be even a smaller proportion than that, perhaps as small as one-twentieth of all Moslems. You should be able to find these previous discussions by searching for the threads about them. My apologies for not searching myself, but I’m on vacation and only have a limited amount of Internet time until I get back home.
I had a UPS driver who was called “Hadji” and so i remarked, “does that mean you made the pilgrimage?” And he was gratified and surprised that I knew that. I got extra good service for a while, until they transferred him.
The Saudi government has gone back & forth quite a lot over the last couple of years as to whether to offer tourist visas. They announced a limited tourist visa program in 2013,suspended it in 2014, and then recently announced plans to start issuing tourist visas again. (That last article also mentions another limited tourist visa program that ran from 2006–2010.) There’s an ongoing struggle in Saudi Arabia between those who would like to bring in the money of foreign tourists, and those who fear that the tourists would bring “Western values” into the country with them.
You have to apply for a special visa to enter Mecca that’s distinct from the one needed to enter Saudi Arabia. The application for this visa requires you to submit a statement from a recognized Muslim clergyman that you are a Muslim. There are checkpoints around Mecca that you have to pass through and police officers inside Mecca who will ask to see your special visa.
“Recognized Muslim clergyman”? We’ve been told in previous threads that there is no such thing, that anyone can read the Quran and hold himself out to be a Muslim clergyman.
Obviously “clergyman” was a poor choice of words unbefitting Islam, but still, a technical difference. They just meant mosque officials—administrators or imams. Lack of ordained clergy does not mean lack of organized Islamic communities who can certify a person’s religious affiliation. In practice, in Muslim and non-Muslim-majority countries alike, people going to Hajj join a group tour organized by their local mosque or Islamic center, with religious officials who handle the administrative arrangements for the group like visas and everything. All the average hajji has to do is pay the tour organizer and follow along. If an individual or family goes without a tour group, then they’re on the hook for arranging their religious certification and Hajj visas themselves. You can either buy a package deal or DIY.
They admit it themselves!