JEDDAH, 1 February 2003 — The number of pilgrims coming for this year’s Haj from the United States is estimated at just 7,000, according to the US Consulate in Jeddah.
That figure is 3,000 lower than last year, according to official statistics.
However, a representative from Dar El Salam travel agents, one of the biggest Haj and Umra travel agents in the US which works closely with US diplomats in Saudi Arabia, told Arab News by telephone that they were sending 1,900 pilgrims this year. “That’s a thousand more than last year,” he added. The mechanics of obtaining a visa in the US has not changed since last year, he added.
Some are questioning whether the reason for the decrease in the number of US pilgrims this year is that this may be a bad time for Muslims to openly declare their faith in America.
In December 2002, a program devised by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to register, fingerprint and question thousands of male foreign nationals from countries identified by the Bush administration as “terrorist harbors”, was heavily criticized. It came under fire from Arab-American, Muslim and civil rights groups across the US.
The INS program resulted in the detention of hundreds of Muslims in the US.
The matter of whether US pilgrims who have decided to come on Haj would be fingerprinted on their arrival was dealt with last week when authorities here postponed the procedures for fingerprinting all pilgrims.
The government introduced this procedure at Saudi airports last year on a trial basis as part of efforts to ensure the safety of pilgrims. The Passports Department announced that the reason for the postponement this year was the lack of trained personnel able to operate the computers and carry out maintenance.
“No fingerprinting registration or anything else was going to stop me from attending Haj this year,” Mohammed Saleh, an Egyptian-born US Muslim who recently arrived in the Kingdom, told Arab News yesterday.
“I’ve been saving for the last couple of years and no obstacle is going to hinder my goal in fulfilling my religious duty.”
When asked if being a Muslim in America had now become a stigma, Mohammed declared: “A lot of people believe so, but I can counter every horror story with a positive one.”
