Tips and technology lessons for Mumbai pilgrims on Haj

At a community hall in Dongri, through visuals, Quranic verses and the Prophetic traditions, Mufti Rafiq Purkar takes the pilgrims down the path to pilgrimage. An hour at the session and the pilgrims know how to perform Haj before they approach the cube-shaped Kaaba draped in black at Mecca, chanting in Arabic Labaik Allahumma Labaik (Here I am, O Lord, here I am).

Mufti Purkar guided a bunch of pilgrims at the Alvi Tours and Travels-held training session last week. Several such training sessions have been organised across the city before the pilgrims leave for Saudi Arabia for the Haj (this August). "Training is important because it empowers pilgrims on dos and don'ts during the route they take and the rituals they perform," says Imran Alvi, Alvi Tours and Travels' owner.

Haj training also discusses the precautions, physical and mental endurance required, things to pack, places to visit and to avoid during the journey. It also tells the pilgrims that their pilgrimage will not be complete before they do Tawaf-e-Widah or Farewell Tawaf, circumambulations of the Kaaba seven times in counter-clockwise direction.

Yusuf Ahmed Kherada of Al Khalid Tours and Travels invited his group of pilgrims at Islam Gymkhana on Friday night before he accompanied the pilgrims aboard a flight to Jeddah. "I tell my pilgrims to carry two sets of prescribed medicine, each in hand baggage as well as in checked in luggage. They will not be distressed in case one set is lost," says the bearded Kherada whose experience of three decades in the trade makes him almost a walking encyclopaedia on Haj and Umrah (mini-Haj).

Perhaps training is as old as the Haj itself. To understand it better we visit the 108-year-old Mohammed Haji Saboo Siddick Musafirkhana at Crawford Market. At the Musafirkhana's Trust office sits the Trust's chairman and former MLA Bashir Musa Patel, keeping a hawk's eyes on all comers and ensures that 'Allah ke mehman (guests of Allah as the Haj pilgrims are called)" are not inconvenienced. "Here the trainers give training voluntarily as every service done to the pilgrims receives divine blessings. This year we are hosting around 700 pilgrims," says Patel.

Since the Haj Committee of India, headquartered at the Haj House, also near Crawford Market, is the nodal agency for Haj operations--out of 1, 75000 Indian Haj pilgrims, 1, 30,000 are going through Haj Committee while 45000 have chosen the Private Tour Operators--training is a critical. Not to get crushed under sea of feet in excitement to stone the doomed pillars is what every trainer tells, says Haj Committee's CEO MA Khan.