Page 46 - saudisg19

PILGRIMAGE

Haji Mohammad The President of MUIS, Singapore, Haji
Mohammad Alami Musa, has travelled to Saudi
Alami Musa Arabia four times, and was pleased and satisfied
MUIS Making a to note the latest upgrading of all the facilities provided by
Difference on Many the Saudi authorities for a successful Hajj for the streams
of pilgrims who arrive in the Kingdom from all over the
Levels world, to visit the Holy Sites of Mecca and Medina.

MUIS plays a pivotal and multipronged role at During his last Hajj, the President of MUIS had many
many levels of Singapore’s Muslim community, opportunities to move around amongst the Hajj pilgrims
from Singapore to talk to them about their experience and
be it religious, social, educational, economic noted they were quite satisfied by all the arrangements made
or cultural - all within the framework of the for them, not just in the Kingdom, but even in Singapore
principles and traditions of Islam as enshrined in itself before they left home, thanks to the excellent inputs of
MUIS in collaboration with the official authorities of the
the Holy Quran and Sunnah Saudi embassy and the Singapore government.

Close links: Saudi Arabian Ambassador HE Saad Saleh Al-Saleh on a visit to The President remarked on his personal experience and how
MUIS headquarters on 12th July 2019 good it felt to have a calm and satisfying spiritual experience.
“The whole Hajj journey experience today has changed for
44 44 the better, compared to previous years. The improvements
have been made by leaps and bounds; not only did I see
those changes in the methodology, the infrastructure and
the services, I also felt the positive impact, spiritually, of the
changes. Many good things have been done by the Saudi
authorities to make the Hajj experience meaningful and
memorable” he shared.

He is all praise for the Ambassador and his staff at the Saudi
embassy in Singapore and the Singaporean government,
who extended so much help to MUIS in co-coordinating
all the Hajj arrangements for Singaporean Muslims. He is
also very grateful that the Saudi authorities were agreeable
to up the quota of pilgrims from Singapore from 680 to
about 900, in the light of the rising Muslim population in
the island state, which is now about 850,000.

Upgrades
The upgrades he noted began from Singapore itself, where a
lot of the preparatory paperwork and pre-processing for the
pilgrims was done online, saving a lot of time and hassle—
and even at the airport in the Kingdom, where clearances
(immigration,customs,baggage retrieval etc) were swift and
smoothly carried out to have the pilgrims on the road to the
Holy Sites, without any unnecessary delays. En route and in
the Holy Cities themselves, the traffic was well managed,
speeding up their arrival at the Holy Sites. Technology has
clearly played a pivotal role in helping smooth things along
the way at every step. It went a long way in helping the
pilgrims focus upon the spiritual experience they had come
for. MUIS has played a large role in helping streamline the
process, given its excellent relations with the Saudi embassy
and the Singaporean government, to make this happen.

In terms of the Muslim population’s exposure to a better
understanding of Islam, the President of MUIS believes
that the best platform for them was the Hajj where they
visit the holy sites. They also get to see so many Muslims,
and all manner of them from all over the world— and when