Jakarta, October 31: The Indonesian government has decided to go ahead with sending its citizens to the annual spiritual journey of hajj, braving fears about a possible swine flu epidemic.
“Indonesia is one of the biggest numbers of pilgrims,” Professor Dr Nazaruddin Umar, Deputy Religious Minister for People Guidance Affairs, told IslamOnline.net.
“You can imagine what will happen if we canceled more than 200 thousands people from going to hajj.”
The first batch of 207,000 Indonesian pilgrims left the country for Saudi Arabia from eleven airports nationwide last Friday.
Indonesia is the biggest Muslim population nation in the world with 235 million people and eighty five percent of them are Muslims.
No Hajj Delay Over Swine Flu: Qaradawi
Every able-bodied adult Muslim — who can financially afford the trip — must perform hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, once in their lifetime.
Hajj consists of several ceremonies, which are meant to commemorate the trials of Prophet Abraham and his family.
Around three million pilgrims from over 160 countries are heading toward the holy city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia each year in one of the world’s biggest religious gathering.
It is expected to climax this year on November 26 when the faithful descend the Mount `Arafat.
Indonesian pilgrims are expected to fly back home starting from December 2.
Precautions
But the authorities assert they have taken all necessary health precautions against swine flu.
“We have been intensively in touch with the Religious Ministry on this matter to make everything goes smoothly,” Chandra Yoga Aditama, Deputy Health Minister for Controlling Infectious Deceases and Healthy Environment Affairs, told IOL.
“We did excellent health preparation by providing them with anti-virus Tamiflu,” he explained.
“I believe that Saudi Arabian government has also special ways to anticipate it.”
According to Chandra, H1N1 virus is less danger than its origin virus H5N1 of bird flu, which make it more unproblematic to be handled.
“All Indonesian pilgrims are been given flu immunization as the Saudi government requested to protect them from infection during performing the hajj.”
The swine flu (H1N1), a mixture of various swine, bird and human viruses, first emerged in Mexico in April.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the virus is moving around the globe at “unprecedented speed.”
The virus has so far killed more than 3,917 people in 191 countries.
“But it doesn’t mean that we must be afraid of going for hajj,” insisted Chandra.
“Those countries that have canceled pilgrimage are small numbers.”
Tunisian authorities have decided to cancel the hajj season this year because of swine flu fears.
Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the head of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, has said that the swine flu virus does not justify postponing the spiritual journey of hajj.
–Agencies