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14 December 2007
American Muslims Travel to Mecca for Annual Pilgrimage

By Carolee Walker
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- Young American Muslims, many professionals in their 20s, are traveling to the Middle East to perform the Hajj, according to travel industry experts in the United States.

This is a new trend, said Rita Zawaideh, a tour operator based in Seattle who specializes in educational travel to Jordan and other parts of the Middle East. Although Zawaideh handles airline reservations for her clients performing the Hajj, she refers land packages to Muslim tour operators in the United States. “You need to be Muslim to understand the many aspects of booking this kind of trip,” Zawaideh said.

The Hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, which all able Muslims are expected to perform at least once in their lifetime. Because the journey is expensive and the logistics can be complicated, traditionally many Muslims wait until they are married and their children are grown to perform the ritual.

For American Muslims, however, it makes sense to make the journey when they are still young because they have the economic means and flexibility that may be more difficult to muster as they become married and need to balance their professional and family lives, said American documentary filmmaker Anisa Mehdi.

Mehdi is an Emmy Award-winning journalist whose National Geographic film Inside Mecca follows three Muslims from very different backgrounds as they embark on the five-day quest for salvation.

All Muslims have to factor the Hajj into their long-term plans because the trip may cost several thousand dollars, Mehdi said. Depending on a person’s economic situation, people may need to save money up to 10 years before they are able to afford the trip, she said.

“The Hajj is an arduous undertaking that requires physical strength, endurance and stamina,” Mehdi said. “Traditionally, older people do it because there is great motivation to complete the transcendental journey, but it is easier for people in good health and strong.”

Logistical reasons require countries to impose quotas on visas during the Hajj, so people also need to be flexible in their plans.

Nearly 1.4 million pilgrims already have arrived in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj, which this year begins on or around December 18, depending on moon sightings, and lasts for five days, according to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington. In 2006, more than 15,000 Americans were among the 2.5 million people making the annual pilgrimage, according to the embassy.

American mosques offer instructions for the Hajj, using PowerPoint presentations to explain the ritual steps of the pilgrimage and the requirements for making a successful Hajj.

Today, people usually spend between two weeks and three weeks making the journey, Mehdi said. “Back in the days when people didn’t fly on airplanes, they would spend the better part of a year walking to Mecca or taking a boat or riding in a caravan.”

The culmination of the Hajj, which occurs on the eighth to the 12th day of Dhu’l-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar, takes place outside the city of Mecca. Mehdi said Muslims visit Mecca throughout the year, but the only time that Hajj takes place is during the last month of the year.

As elsewhere in the world, American Muslims not going on Hajj often mark the days leading up to the pilgrimage with acts of generosity. In the state of Maryland, for example, the Montgomery County Muslim Council distributes food baskets to needy families and toys to children before Christmas. The council also coordinates with the county to donate hundreds of kilograms of meat to the needy in December.

For more information, see Muslim Life in America.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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