MALAYSIA PRAISES SAUDI GOVT FOR IMPOSING HAJ QUOTA ON OWN PEOPLE

From Zulkefli Salleh

JEDDAH, Nov 19 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has praised the Saudi Arabian government for imposing a quota on its own people so that muslims from other countries could perform the haj, Islam's fifth pillar.

"The Saudi government had shown examplary responsibility by allowing
muslims
the opportunity to perform haj. With the quota, even its own people cannot
perform the haj at will," the Malaysian consul general in Jeddah, Hidayat Abdul
Hamid said here Wednesday.

Jeddah had imposed a haj quota on countries where one percent of the
population were given visas to control the crowd so that the pilgrimage could
proceed smoothly.

He told Malaysian reporters here that it also planned to build a rail
system
linking Mekkah-Jeddah-Madinah to overcome traffic congestion caused by thousands
of buses used to transport pilgrims when performing the rituals.

"The Saudi government will also implement a computerised system for haj
agencies handling travel documents, including introducing the biometric system
for pilgrims in future," he said.

Hidayat said with increasing pilgrims annually, the Saudi government was
expanding the Al Haram Mosque by putting in more space for rituals like 'sai'e'
(running between Safa and Marwah) to three floors and increasing the stoning
area at Mina to four floors.

The Al Nabawi Mosque in Madinah, the second destination for haj pilgrims
was
also being expanded to accommodate more pilgrims.

Some three million muslims perform the haj annually, increasing to four
million during haji Akhbar ( great haj) when wukuf (the standing) falls on a
Friday.

On the visa problem, Hidayat said the number of Malaysians who flout the
Saudi ruling was small.

With 18 days to wukuf, the Saudi government had deployed 3,000 workers to
pump 290,000 cubic metres of water from the Shuhaiba desalination plant and
10,000 cubic metres from Malakan Valley into tanks for the benefit of pilgrims
in the holy city which houses the Al Haram Mosque.

Water directorate general Muhammad Ahmad Baghdadi told the Saudi Gazette
daily newspaper it was monitoring the water quality to ensure that it met the
standard required.