MAKKAH, 22 December 2007 — With this year’s Haj winding down, some pilgrims interviewed by Arab News expressed their dissatisfaction with the services provided by their Tawafa organizations, the licensed Haj tour operators all pilgrims coming from abroad are required to use.
Pilgrims pay Tawafa organizations for room and board in Mina and many are given promises of an ideal location near the Jamrat Bridge. When many pilgrims arrive, however, they discover that in all-too-many cases these are hollow promises and the agreement they signed up to are worth less than ink and paper. Or sometimes these Haj operators leave their delegations in a lurch, waiting for transportation or insufficiently supplied with amenities.
The chairman of the South Asian Pilgrims’ Establishment, Adnan Katib, told Arab News about one Tawafa organization belonging to the Establishment that did not provide sufficient blankets and pillows to its contingent of Pakistani pilgrims. Katib didn’t want to name this Tawafa group, but he said that he didn’t comply with that group’s requests (signing official documents) until it provided what was promised to its group of pilgrims.
In another incident, 50 Egyptian pilgrims were stranded in Muzdalifah waiting for its Tawafa group to supply buses to transport them to Mina. According to one of the pilgrims in the group, Ali Abdulal, when the Tawafa organization’s representative finally showed up with buses there wasn’t enough space for everyone. A number of elderly pilgrims and families with children couldn’t travel to Mina in time for the Jamrat stoning.
“They couldn’t do their stoning ritual simply because of the carelessness of this Tawafa organization,” said Abdulal, who also said that about 200 pilgrims in this delegation ended up sleeping on the sidewalk of Mina. (This is particularly annoying for pilgrims with Haj permits because most officials — as well as the local media — label everyone sleeping on sidewalks during Haj as “illegal” pilgrims, or even illegal residents.)
Some pilgrims that have been provided tents end up crammed inside them like sardines. “We clustered inside the tents at Mina; it was miserable,” said Zainhum, adding that the Tawafa guide that was supposed to greet the delegation at the tent city never showed up.
Another pilgrim, who didn’t want his name mentioned, said some Tawafa guides “stray away” from their groups because they don’t want to listen to complaints.
A group of Moroccan pilgrims, mostly elderly people, also found their Tawafa group abandoning its responsibility to provide bus transportation from Muzdalifah to Mina, a distance of about three kilometers. (The total distance from Arafat to Mina is about nine miles, or 14.5 kilometers, a distance that can be harrowing for the elderly families with young children.) Authorities eventually intervened and provided transport after a group of angry pilgrims blocked a street in protest.
Abdul Karim Al-Dukali, a Moroccan pilgrim, said that after a tough journey from Arafat to Mina, he could not even find drinkable water at his base. “When I went to complain I could not find the pilgrim guide to complain to,” he said.
Pilgrim Abdul Razik said that after waiting for a long time he and his wife took a minibus for SR100 each in order to get to Muzdalifah though the organizers promised them free buses.
“Not only that but we had also to walk from Muzdalifah to Mina,” he said. “By the time we reached our tent we were exhausted. When I arrived to our camp I was shocked to see many people crying because they had lost their relatives while moving from Arafat to Muzdalifah. If we were moved in an organized manner this would not have happened.”
Wasiuldin, an Indonesian pilgrim, complained about the meals provided at their camp and added that they received only one meal in Arafat while they were served nothing at Muzdalifah. “Many of us go out to buy food from the street,” he said.
Yunus, a Moroccan, said he experienced the same thing. “We go out to buy us some food and bottles of water,” he said.
Another pilgrim complained about the lack of cleanness in his camp toilets. “This is not what we have been told when we were coming here. They told us that they would provide us with everything we need. This is so far from reality,” he said.
Rashid Al-Kailani, Moroccan pilgrim, put it plainly: These Tawafa organizations are for-profit institutions seeking to cut corners wherever they can get away with it to increase their margins of profit. Because coming to Haj through these groups is compulsory, and because they seem to be able to do what they please without effective regulation and enforcement, the pilgrims often get the short shrift.
“Unfortunately these companies have turned Haj into a business,” said Kailani, pointing out that using Tawafa organizations actually cost more than what pilgrims would be spending if they made their own arrangements.
Humaid Ibraheem, an Algerian pilgrim, said that in many cases the Tawafa organization seems pointless. “In the end we have to do everything by ourselves anyway,” he said.
Many pilgrims of various nationalities had to pay for their own transportation. This has caused a serious traffic jam at all roads between Makkah and Mina.
Though pilgrims from some countries would take the risk and go on their own, other pilgrims, such as Malaysians, Iranians and Turks, would go only in groups.
The head of the Egyptian field group and a senior pilgrim guide, Khalil Bahadir, told Arab News that pilgrim guides who abandon pilgrims and do not attend to their problems are few and they are not genuine pilgrim guides.
“Serving pilgrims is an honorable job rather than a business,” said Bahadir.
Bahadir talked about the bad services that the official Haj caravans offer and added that such services cause pilgrims to look for food to buy and vehicles to pick them up. What is worst is that pilgrims had also to sleep on sidewalks due to the heavy crowding in their tents, he said.
Another pilgrim guide, Asad Muhdar, said that it was normal that the problems increase as the numbers of pilgrims increase. “In the past the pilgrims were few and therefore the problems were few. The problems mainly appear in Arafat and Muzdalifah, while you can hardly find a pilgrim complaining when sitting at his hotel in Makkah,” he said.
