When is umrah 2018

Since around 3 million pilgrims undertake this pilgrimage every year, there is a conscious need to moderate the flow of Haji's in and out of the country. The first batch to arrive is also the first one to leave after Eid ul Adha. Hajj travel tips: from visa dates to scams and a handy app. For many pilgrims, the journey to Makkah is the first time they will leave their countries or board planes.

More than half of those performing Hajj visit from low-income countries, and 18 per cent come from conflict-ridden states. According to Sunnah, or the way of the Prophet, Hajj Al Tamattu is the most preferred method of performing the pilgrimage. Along with Hajj Al Qiran, it differs from Hajj Al Ifrad in that the latter entails performing only Hajj, while the other two require performing Umrah, or minor pilgrimage, before.

Hajj begins on the eighth day of Dhu Al Hijjah, which falls on August 19 this year. It will end on August It requires a sequence of rituals, prayers and a certain state of body and mind to perform properly. The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah announced it will work with the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission to set up 16, communication towers and more than 3, Wi-Fi hotspots.

The towers will provide pilgrims with undisrupted 4G mobile internet to maintain contact with their families and make use of the ministry's online services. The authorities also launched the "Smart Hajj" initiative, providing pilgrims with smartphone apps to help them through the pilgrimage.

The app Asefny allows users to send health reports through their phones and request medical care in emergencies. The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah also launched the new version of the Manasikana app meant to guide pilgrims through every step of Hajj, from signing up for the pilgrimage to their return home.

Available in eight different languages, it provides information that includes prayer times and flight schedules, the weather forecast for Makkah, Madinah and Jeddah, emergency numbers, the location of the nearest emergency centre and currency exchange rates. Muslim pilgrims pass around the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Makkah on September 3 during last year's annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Those accompanying the Prophet observed his every move and these steps are performed in the same sequence today. Before beginning Hajj, pilgrims must enter what is known as a state of Ihram, whereby they prepare their bodies and mind for the rituals ahead. This requires them to recite an intention and adhere to a certain dress code. Men must wear garments without stitching and cannot cover their heads, while women can wear stitched garments but cannot cover their face.

After entering Ihram, pilgrims begin their Hajj from the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam as it holds the Masjid Al Haram, a structure in the middle of the Kaaba that Muslims believe was placed by prophet Ibrahim thousands of years ago. Muslim pilgrims gather on Mount Arafat during the annual haj pilgrimage, outside the holy city of Makkah.

As they approach the Kaabah, pilgrims must circumambulate in a counter-clockwise direction, meant to express the devotion of Muslims praying to one God. They must then perform Sa'ey, whereby Muslims re-enact the journey by Hagar, the prophet Ibrahim's wife, as she went between two small hills in Makkah, Al Safa and Al Marwa, looking for water for her son Ismail.

Muslims pace between the two points, in remembrance of the miracle whereby God caused a spring to well up from underneath an exhausted Hagar. Abdulfattah Suliman Mashat, says the Umrah season to open next week, about a month earlier this year.

Vice Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Dr. Abdulfattah Suliman Mashat, said the new Umrah season will begin next Tuesday, which is the 1 st of the Islamic month of Muharram, and marks the start of the new Hijri year, Umrah — the minor pilgrimage which is undertaken by Muslims outside of the official Hajj pilgrimage — traditionally began during the following Islamic month, Safar.

Today it is encased in a beautifully ornate golden glass-and-metal structure. There is a famous story in Islam about Mohammed and the Black Stone. The story goes that when construction was finished and it came time to place the Black Stone back in the eastern corner, the final step, the tribes of Mecca argued fiercely over who would get to do the honors. They decided to ask the next man who walked by to decide for them, and that man happened to be Mohammed.

His solution was to put the stone on a large cloth and have each of the leaders of the four tribes hold a corner of the cloth and carry the stone to its place. Mohammed himself then placed the stone into its final position. This was back before Mohammed had received his first revelation from God. The next time Mohammed was involved with the Kaaba, though, would prove to be much less One particularly popular idol was a figure of Hubal, a moon deity worshipped by many in Mecca at the time.

Access to the Kaaba and thus the idol was controlled by the powerful Quraysh tribe, of which Mohammed was a member, and they basically capitalized on this to get rich, charging fees and selling wares to pilgrims coming to worship the idol. When Mohammed began receiving revelations from God he received his first one about five years after the incident with the Black Stone and preaching his message of monotheism, the rich Qurayshi merchants started getting a little antsy.

Worried that the growing popularity of his decidedly anti-idol worshiping message could potentially hurt business, they ran Mohammed and his small band of followers out of town.

Ten years later, Mohammed and his now much larger and more powerful army of followers defeated the Quraysh tribe and took control of Mecca. Today, the Kaaba is kept closed during the hajj because of the overwhelming number of people, but those who visit the Kaaba during other times of the year are sometimes allowed to go inside.

There is very little inside it, though — just three tall stone pillars, a small table, some hanging lamp—looking things, and a staircase to the roof.

Seven is also a prominent number associated with the divine in many religions, including Christianity and Judaism. Other rituals include a ceremony where pilgrims throw small pebbles at three large stone walls, called jamarat, to symbolize the stoning the devil that tempted Abraham to defy God, and the slaughtering of an animal usually a sheep to honor the animal Abraham slaughtered instead of his son.

The meat is then given to feed the poor and needy. These days, pilgrims frequently elect to purchase tokens to have an animal slaughtered for them. Today, both hills are enclosed within the Masjid al-Haram Sacred Mosque complex which also houses the Kaaba , and the path between the hills is a long, beautiful indoor gallery with marble floors and air conditioning. Many also drink from the Zamzam well located there. The only ritual that is solely related to Mohammed is the climbing of Mount Arafat, which is where Mohammed preached his last sermon.

On the second day of hajj, pilgrims wake at dawn and walk a short distance to Mount Arafat, where they spend the remainder of the day on or near the mountain in quiet worship and contemplation of God.

Although Christians and Jews believe in the God of Abraham, they are not allowed to perform the hajj. Indeed, the government of Saudi Arabia forbids all non-Muslims from entering the holy city of Mecca at all.

The Saudi government takes this very seriously, so the odds that a non-Muslim would be able to slip in unnoticed among the throngs of pilgrims undetected or pretend to be Muslim and get in that way are extremely small.

Legal entry into the country is extremely tightly controlled, and the paperwork required to get a hajj visa is incredibly detailed. Pilgrims must book their hajj trip through a Saudi government—approved hajj travel agent. For a Western Muslim convert to be allowed to go on hajj, he or she must present documentation from an imam Muslim religious leader.

The imam must testify in writing that he knows the person in question and that the person is a true convert. Trying to come in on a regular tourist visa and then stealthily making your way to Mecca is also a nonstarter. Getting a tourist visa as a Westerner is notoriously hard, and the likelihood of you being able to just slip away from your Saudi government minder and travel undetected all the way from the capital Riyadh to Mecca — more than miles away, on the other side of a vast desert — is basically laughable.

That has happened before: In , WND published a three-part series written pseudonymously by someone who claimed to be a white British non-Muslim man who successfully fake-converted to Islam and went on hajj. Women are also allowed — indeed, required, just like every other physically and financially able Muslim is — to perform the hajj. However, they have to be accompanied by an appropriate male guardian called a mahram.

Here are the rules, per the US State Department:. Women must be met by their sponsor upon arrival. Women who are traveling alone and not met by sponsors have experienced delays before being allowed to enter the country or to continue on other flights.

Women over 45 may travel without a mahram in an organized group, provided they submit a notarized letter of no objection from the husband, son, or brother, authorizing travel for Hajj with the named group. Violators face deportation. This is likely because Shia scholars have, unlike Sunni scholars, ruled that a woman may travel alone on hajj if she feels that she will be safe.

Some have also come up with rather creative workarounds, such as wearing large, darkly tinted sunglasses and those paper face masks doctors wear.