MADINAH, 1 December 2006 — The Madinah branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has made adequate arrangements to help Haj pilgrims, Suleiman Al-Towaijeri, director of the branch said.
The commission has recruited a number of language experts to help the field staff who will visit various places in Madinah, particularly the locations that attract a large number of pilgrims.
The commission’s emphasis will be to guide and instruct pilgrims about proper conduct and prayers while visiting religious sites.
The programs of the commission, which will be implemented in collaboration with the related government departments, will continue through Feb. 2.
The commission has trained its field workers to speak English so that they can interact with most of the pilgrims.
An important duty of the commission’s workers will be to instruct the pilgrims about what they are allowed to do while visiting graveyards. They will also advise the pilgrims not to violate instructions and to strictly follow Shariah.
Another strategy adopted by the commission to overcome the language barrier, the director said, is to enlist the help of 140 students belonging to various nationalities studying at universities in the Kingdom. A weeklong training course was organized to train the students how to interact with the pilgrims.
Students will be accompanied by members of the commission’s field teams. They will mainly visit locations where the pilgrims usually gather in large numbers.
The locations are the Baqi Graveyards, site of the Battle of the Trench, seven mosques, the area surrounding the Prophet’s Mosque and at the pilgrims’ arrival points. More than one million brochures in 38 languages will be distributed at these points. The director said that his men would try to prudently handle all difficult situations.
