Legislator Urges Minister To Regulate Repeat Hajj Pilgrimage

Banda Aceh ( Berita ) :  The religious minister should immediately issue a regulation which bans repeated hajj pilgrimage and to give first-time pilgrims a chance to pay their obligation in the Holy Land, a legislator said.

“I think the religious affairs minister should issue the regulation  soon so that first-time hajj pilgrims would not wait for their turn too long,” Sayed Fuad Zakaria of the Commission 8 of the House of Representatives (DPR), said here on Saturday.

He made the remarks in response the discourse on how to overcome the problem of waiting lists of would-be hajj pilgrims. Zakaria said that with the hajj registration that could be done any time, the number of prospective hajj pilgrims had continued to swell in a number of provinces, including Aceh.

“So, those who have paid a hajj pilgrimage should be banned from paying hajj again, or be given a time restriction for example five or ten years after which they could be allowed to go to the Holy Land again,” the legislator said.

For this year’s hajj pilgrimage season, Indonesian hajj pilgrimage groups have begun leaving for the Holy Land on Friday. Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali on Friday morning at the Soekarno-Hatta international airport saw off the first batch of the country’s would-be hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.

The first batch of  would-be hajj pilgrims flown by Garuda Indonesia airplanes on Friday morning was part of the 192,835 people in this year hajj season. ( ant )