Umrah, Hajj and tourism

Medina.

In recent years an extraordinary increase has been recorded in demand for the Hajj. Because the Diyanet cannot meet the demand owing to the quota Saudi Arabia applies to Turkish pilgrim candidates, it can only draw up its list of pilgrim candidates by screening out, through a lottery system, applications several times the size of the quota. There are people who put their names down several years in a row and wait each year for the draw to come out in their favor.

The quota applied on this matter is not only for Turkey; applied to all countries in proportion to their populations, it is increased by some amount every year, but it is not of a kind that can ever be removed entirely. Because organizing the millions of people who flock to Mecca during the Hajj days is not as easy as supposed.

In fact, all the activities in Mecca and Medina in recent years are efforts directed at increasing visitor capacity. For this, even setting aside the slightest sensitivity to any historical feature of the two cities is too much of a luxury. Between the present state of the two Mosques and their state even ten years ago, there is an expansion approaching double. For this reason both blessed cities, outside the places of worship, look like a complete construction site... The Aqaba Jamarat, where the devil is stoned, have been turned into a five-story structure; whatever obstructed the flow in the tawaf area has been cleared away and the area enlarged; the Sa'y area between the hills of Safa and Marwa, where the greatest crowds form, has been raised to a total of five levels, outbound and return. In this way, while the current pilgrims are enabled to perform their worship more safely and comfortably, capacity is increased at the same time.

Despite all these efforts, because capacity cannot fully meet demand, the quota cannot be dispensed with. Although it is said that this year, in Ramadan, when a crowd almost like that of the Hajj days forms, it was relatively quiet because the pilgrims of many countries, Iranians above all, did not turn out for fear of swine flu, the prayer times at the Masjid al-Haram were packed to the brim despite its capacity having been increased to the utmost.

This growing demand for the Hajj and Umrah, which is observed to be increasing with each passing day in Turkey as well, undoubtedly has many sociological causes and consequences. Umrahs, to which the quota does not apply and which can be performed at any time of the year, are increasingly being performed with crowds approaching those of the Hajj season. The enthusiasm of the tawaf around the Kaaba never subsides; it is as if all the Muslims of the world were rushing to take their shift to maintain the continuity of this tawaf.

Behind the increasing interest in Umrah there is undoubtedly, besides increasing religiosity, a very important share of the rise in Muslims' living standards in general. Thanks to the new possibilities of developing and increasingly accessible means of transport, acts of worship that also have a financial side, such as Umrah or Hajj, have become relatively easier to perform. A middle-income civil servant who has quit smoking says that he came for Umrah this year simply by saving the money for the cigarettes he did not smoke last year.

If the economic situation and population growth of today's 1.5 billion Muslims continue at this pace, one does not need to be a soothsayer to predict that in the very near future demand for Umrah trips outside the Hajj period will reach several times today's level. It is clear that in order to meet these demands, the Haram area will need a greater expansion in terms of the arrangement of its present lodging and worship places.

A social dynamic of change caused by the demand for worship is also driving Mecca and Medina to leave no trace of their historical fabric. So what does this tell us? Industrialization and modernization are not the only dynamic of change that destroys history or traditions. The increasing demand for worship itself can constitute the most powerful dynamic of the change that razes these traditional patterns.

Could there have been an alternative to this? That is, would it have been possible both to meet this demand for worship and to preserve the traditional fabric, the city, the historical values? There is no way to confront this question without going on Hajj or Umrah and experiencing that crush…

Meanwhile, to understand how misplaced it is to question, as has been done very frequently of late, what quality this increase in Umrah trips corresponds to, one probably needs to make an Umrah trip. Even in the most touristic of Umrah journeys, it is impossible for the experience unavoidably lived through the rites that must be performed not to affect a person, whoever he is. No one who takes part in this representation can remain indifferent to the tremendously rich symbolism that Umrah or the Hajj contains, to the harmony displayed by millions of people's participation in this symbolic representation in extraordinary discipline, and to the awe-inspiring meeting of the divine and the worldly.

For that reason one should not dwell too much on the fact that Umrah trips have recently become the object of tourist interest and are therefore subject to exploitation or degeneration. Such a mass representation establishes its great meaning sufficiently on its own, so that whoever wishes may take part in this representation for touristic or other purposes as well. In any case, there is no way to leave this representation without drinking zamzam and sweating.