With just over weeks to go for annual Haj, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has reduced the number of Haj quota allocated to United Kingdom (UK) muslim from 25,000 to 3,600.
This means that British Muslims may now have to wait up to ten years to perform the haj.
Several haj applicants have shared their frustrations on Twitter. They assert that as a result of the cuts, it will be considerably harder for them to satisfy their religious commitments. Many of them have been waiting for years to perform the Haj, and quota cuts may make them wait even longer.
Concerns over the quota surfaced after the Ministry of Haj and Umrah implemented Nusuk, a new reservation system that replaces the previous system that let local travel agents to plan Haj journeys for Western pilgrims.
Taking to Twitter, British pilgrims wrote that they could not book the packages due to messages which claimed that the “country capacity is full” for the UK.
One of the Twitter user wrote, “Please can you reinstate the original quota for the UK. Over 40,000 joined Nusuk from the UK yet there is 3,600 places available. This is unfair, you promised that numbers will revert to pre-covid (2019). That’s not happened for UK, the situation is much worse than last year.”
In this regard, Rashid Makradiya, head of the Council of British Pilgrims, told Middle East Eye, “MP Yasmine Qureshi will meet with the Saudi authorities; To speak about the issues faced by British Muslims through the new booking platform, and to demand that the number of places available for pilgrims be increased to what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.”
For the second year in a row, due to technical issues with the Saudi government’s new online booking system— Nusuk, Muslims throughout the western countries are disappointed and fustrated.
Many people have complained on social media platforms about software glitches and customer service. Some pilgrims claimed they paid for Haj packages but afterwards received word from Nusuk officials that their reservations had fallen through.
In 2022, Saudi Arabia ended the use of travel agencies that organized the Haj and introduced a new system where Western pilgrims had to book the Haj through a company called Motawif— similar to Nusuk.
But Motawif has also faced criticism, with pilgrims complaining about errors on the site, receiving payments without confirmation and customers not receiving the services they paid for.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 25,000 Muslims from the UK were designated to perform the Haj each year.
What is Haj?
The Haj pilgrimage to Makkah is a mandatory religious duty that must be performed by those Muslims who are physically and financially able to perform it, at least once in a lifetime.
The Kingdom expects to receive two million pilgrims during this season.
The number of pilgrims during the 2022 season reached 899,353, including 779,919 from outside the Kingdom, while the 2021 season was limited to 60,000, compared to only 10,000 in 2020.
This year, the Haj is expected to start on June 26 and will take place without COVID-19 restrictions, allowing a large number of pilgrims to participate.
