Jeddah: Minister of Haj Bandar Hajjar held a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador Mustafa Yang Djibo at his office on Sunday to discuss the arrangements for Haj pilgrims from China.
This year, an estimated 14,000 Chinese pilgrims will be performing the annual pilgrimage.
Haj Ministry sources said that the Chinese envoy shared the operation plan with Hajjar and also thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for extending Haj services to the pilgrims.
Additionally, Djibo hailed the ministry’s efforts in ensuring the comfort of the pilgrims, ministry sources added.
For the first time, Chinese pilgrims from Ningxia, an autonomous region will be performing the Haj this year. The first flight with 297 pilgrims from Ningxia arrived in Jeddah on Saturday.
A total of 2,833 pilgrims are scheduled to arrive from this part of China.
Some pilgrims expressed joy at being able to perform the pilgrimage noting that their parents had been unable to do so owing to the restrictions in the past, Chinese media said.
Around half of China’s 20 million Muslims live in Ningxia, where the people identify their ethnic group as Hui, a recognized minority in China.
Unlike the Uighur Muslims in the autonomous region of Xinjiang, otherwise known as East Turkestan, where the Muslims are largely of a Turkic ethnic background, the Hui population is a Sinitic race that has accepted Islam.
Comments
| Quick linksNews
National
International
Regional
Politics
Education & Career
Business
Science & Technology
Health
Views & Analysis
The Funny Side
© 2012 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.
The elections were necessitated as BJP legislators Sanwar Lal Jat from Nasirabad, Om Birla from Kota South, Santosh Ahlawat from Surajgarh, and Bahadur Singh Koli from Weir got elected to the Lok Sabha in the April-May general elections. .... More
Also Read: Pravat Chowdhury of CPI-M wins Tripura seat with record margin
Ewan Wilson, head of Kiwi Airlines, believes Zaharie Ahmad Shah planned mass murder -- locking his co-pilot out of the cockpit, depressurising the cabin and shutting down all communication links before turning the plane around, Daily Mail reported Monday..... More
Irrespective of the fact that in such a propaganda few cases of marriage-conversion, the girls changing their version the boundary line between love and imposition being regularly breached, have been picked up as an example of Muslim men on a path to Jihad for conversion to Islam.... More
British Muslim women who wear a hijab (headscarf) generally have a more positive body image, are less reliant on media messages about beauty ideals and place less importance on appearance than those who do not wear a hijab, says. ... More