A British diplomat could barely hold back his tears as he recounted praying for his recently departed father on the plains of Arafat on Monday.

Mohammed Shokat, the British consul general, and his family are among 18,400 pilgrims from the United Kingdom at the annual pilgrimage this year.

During an interview with Arab News on Tuesday inside his tent in Mina, Shokat said his father, Salahuddin, died four weeks ago.

“The first and foremost person in my prayers on the plains of Arafat on Monday was my father,” said Shokat, his voice quivering. “May Allah Almighty grant him the best place in Paradise.”

Shokat has already completed two years as the British consul general in Jeddah, but this is his first Haj. “I've always wanted to perform the Haj with my wife and children,” he said.

When he first came to Jeddah to take up the diplomatic assignment, he could not undertake the pilgrimage because his wife was pregnant. Last year, his youngest son, Ahmad, was only seven months old, so Shokat put off the Haj one more time.

“This year, everything went according to our intention and plan,” he said. “My wife, 7-year-old son Taha, 9-and-a-half-year-old daughter Ayesha, and youngest one who is now 18 months old are all here for Haj.”

Shokat said parents' main responsibility is to teach their children about Islam. “To me, the best way to teach them about Islam is to bring them here,” he said. “At the Haj, they see Islam in action; let them see it, feel it, touch it.”

The British diplomat thanked Allah for the opportunity to perform the pilgrimage. “People dream and pray for this opportunity to perform the Haj, and I had this opportunity, not just to perform it myself but with my children,” he said. “I pray to Allah to grant all those Muslims who wish to come here to get an opportunity (to do so).”

He also prayed for peace in Syria and elsewhere. “We switch on our television sets and see people being killed in Syria,” he said. “They were also in my prayers; I prayed for peace to reign everywhere.”

Shokat praised the government of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for organizing the event. “I say to everybody that the Saudis take this responsibility of serving the guests of God very seriously,” he said. “For the Saudi government, the Haj is not a profit-making process.”

As a child growing up in the UK, he used to hear about the problems and deaths at the Jamarat where the symbolic stoning of Satan takes place. “We are beyond that now because of this massive multi-storey Jamarat complex,” he said.

The massive expansion projects are further evidence of the Saudi government’s commitment to pilgrims.

“Look at the new airport in Jeddah, the expansion of the mosque in Makkah, the expansion of the mataf (the circumambulation area), the expansion of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, the Haramain High Speed Railway, the transportation projects in Makkah,” he said. “We can't calculate the billions of riyals that have been and are being poured into these projects.”

He said the Saudi government wants to make the Haj easy. “Not just easy, the government wants to make it safe ... This is a very big responsibility, and they are doing whatever it takes to make the Haj better, easier and safer,” he said. “All we can do is thank them.”

Shokat criticized those who hurt others in the name of Islam.

“I say, you hear about people who pretend to be there in the name of Islam, who undertake violence in the name of Islam, but if you want to see the real Islam, look at this — young and old, rich and poor, Asian and American, all wearing the same clothes. This is the real Islam and these are the real Muslims,” he said. “Not those people who claim to blow up and kill innocent people in the name of Islam, not those who commit violence in the name of Islam.”