MAKKAH: Mutawifeen are people who guide pilgrims during their Tawaf (circumambulation of the Holy Kaaba) and when they perform the Saie between Safa and Marwah.
Mutawifeen have evolved and set up comprehensive service companies with ample and diversified resources to provide pilgrims with accommodation, transport and food. Guides are always available in the Grand Mosque and will help on request during the Tawaf.
In the past, a mutawif used to welcome pilgrims, accommodate them at his humble home and accompany them to Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifah to perform their Haj rites.
The pilgrims would go directly to their mutawif on arrival in Saudi Arabia. They would have been corresponding with him long before they start their Haj journey.
Older mutawifeen remember those days with both bitter and sweet memories. They reminisce about the glories of their fathers and grandfathers and feel proud about their dedication to serve the guests of God.
Amina Zawwawi, a Mutawif working with the Tawafa Establishment for Southeast Asian Pilgrims, remembers the old days when she used to work with her father in helping the pilgrims.
“In those bygone days, we used to prepare for the arrival of the pilgrims three months in advance,” she said.
“The guests of God would start arriving for the Haj during Ramadan, which precedes the pilgrimage by a little over two months. They used to come by ships in a voyage that would take them about a month and a half.”
She said a guide would receive them at the Jeddah seaport to finalize their arrival before contacting the mutawif to collect them. He would take them to his home in Makkah where his family would welcome them and provide accommodation and food during their entire stay.
The mutawif would then accompany male pilgrims to the Grand Mosque while female members of his family would look after the women. They would also accompany their guests to Madinah. Zawwawi said Indonesian pilgrims used to bring with them a large wooden box where they kept their clothes, food and other belongings.
They would also bring clothes as gifts for the mutawif and his family. She said she learned various languages because of their close contact with the pilgrims. As a result, Zawwawi became fluent in Indonesian and her role at the Tawafa Establishment attaches her regularly to pilgrims from the country. “I used to erect tents in Mina with my father every year,” she said.
“We would also supply the pilgrims with Zamzam water wherever they were. Women pilgrims would go to the holy sites on camels inside a hawdaj (a wooden box made in the shape of a room with curtains to cover them) while men would walk all the way from Makkah to Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifah.”
Latifah Jamallail, another female mutawif now employed by the Tawafa Establishment for South Asian Pilgrims, said her family has been in the business for over 80 years. “The pilgrims’ choice of mutawif depended on his personal initiative and his reputation, which would spread through word of mouth,” she said.
“My father used to travel to the pilgrims’ homes and ask them to choose him. When the pilgrims used to arrive, we all, including my father, lived at the top of the building leaving all the other rooms for the pilgrims.”
Jamallail said they would look after them and cook food. The family would often receive gifts from the Indian pilgrims and they were all eventually able to speak Hindi. The female members of her family would teach the women the correct way to perform Haj and guide them. Her father would do the same with the male pilgrims.
“I will never forget the journeys to Arafat where we used to go in the last bus which was old and cracking. There were no proper toilets in Mina but rather holes where we answered the call of nature. There were no safety rules.
The pilgrims used to cook inside their tents. This caused many outbreaks of fire. The night before the standing on Arafat was called the ‘orphan night.’”
Female pilgrims would sometimes be left alone in Makkah when the men went to the holy sites. They would go out into the streets to play games, including one called gazal.
A woman was put in a hawdaj on a camel and the others would follow her singing special songs. Everyone would be fasting on the Day of Arafat and then go to Grand Mosque for iftar, before doing their shopping in anticipation of the joyous occasion of Eid Al-Adha.
