MAKKAH, 21 February — Hundreds of thousands of Muslims who began their “journey of faith” yesterday spend the night in Mina under tents which bring all the comforts of modern life to the ancient pilgrimage tradition.
Almost every facility is on offer, including a private small tent for a couple, open buffets, refrigerators, computers, Internet and more. It all depends on how much you pay.
Staying at least two nights at Mina, an arid valley just outside the holy city of Makkah, is an essential part of the Haj, the fifth pillar of Islam.
Pilgrims could in the past lay claim to some hardship, sleeping in basic tents or in the open air, cooking their own meals and carrying water.
However, after several disasters, the last of which was in 1997 when 318 pilgrims died in a huge fire sparked by a gas stove, the authorities built the new tent city.
“It’s the most practical way to accommodate the pilgrims in humane conditions and also prevent disasters,” said engineer Ahmad, who personally supervised the construction of some 10,000 tents in Mina.
Some 44,000 tents of various sizes have been put up with a capacity to house up to 1.5 million pilgrims.
The government hires the tents every year to private contractors called the Tawafa organizations, who in turn rent to foreign contractors organizing Haj trips.
“The tents are designed in such a way that each can take from four people to 16,” said Ahmad, who works for a company that installed 18,000 of the tents.
But due to pressure of numbers, some tents now hold to 50 people.
Services are divided into six grades, from VIP down. A standard tent must have electricity, air-coolers and nearby toilets. There are more than 60,000 toilets and showers in the city.
VIP tents are hired out to couples who wish to remain together, at a cost well in excess of SR40,000. Additional facilities include television, mobile telephones, beds, all of five-star quality.
Almost all Tawafa organizations build a number of luxury class tents in the land allocated to them in Mina and Arafat.
The food for pilgrims using the tents is being supplied by five-star hotels, according to Abdul Rahman Bahader, an official at the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He said the luxury tents will be pulled down at the end of the Haj season because the Tawafa organizations were not allotted tents on a permanent basis.
In the lower grades, however, a 20 meter (66 feet) by 10 meter (33 feet) tent accommodates up to 50 pilgrims, all sleeping on mattresses on the ground. They still have access to showers, three meals of packed food daily, a constant supply of hot drinks and ice creams.
This costs SR2,000 per person from outside, and around SR1,500 for people living in the Kingdom.
Pilgrims who can not afford such expense, sleep and cook on the streets.
The faithful sleep in Mina for one night before moving to Arafat, the climax of the Haj, and then return for at least two more nights.
Mina suffers from its limited size, hemmed in by hills, and the fact that all pilgrims must be together at the same time in the same place to fulfil the established rituals.
This has prompted officials to plan high-rise concrete buildings on the small hills surrounding the valley.
Several 20-story buildings are due to go up in the next few years, boosting bed capacity by tens of thousands.
