Throughout the Muslim world the trend to perform Umrah in Ramazan has grown by leaps and bounds. Airlines and travel agencies are as busy in this month as during the Hajj season. The hotels in Makkah are fully booked, and by the last week of the month of fasting there is not a room available, say people who have been to Umrah in Ramazan in previous years.
Umrah can be performed any time in the year, except during the Hajj. Ramazan, however, is the preferred month, because of the fact that the Holy Quran was revealed in this month. Thousands of Pakistanis will perform the lesser pilgrimage or Umrah this Ramazan. They will be from all walks of life, I am certain, considering what my housemaid related. She arrived one day with red eyes and a swollen nose from crying. Oh, Oh, domestic violence, I thought. But with tears flowing down, she said her sister rang from their village to say goodbye as she and her husband were setting off to Makkah for Umrah.
The housemaid wept because she had saved three times to perform Umrah but each time the money got used up for some family crisis, such as the illness of her son, her husband's accident, her brother's death in Karachi and the body had to be taken to the village for burial. "I will never do Umrah," she moaned in the most heart-rending way.
If the poor ever save money it is either for the marriage of a son or daughter or for Hajj or Umrah. I suggested to the housemaid she should take a loan, perform Umrah and pay off the loan later. I told her it was just saving in reverse, but the idea did not please her. She believes, like probably they all do, that money earned has to be saved only then it is halal.
Our bankers and financial pundits need to think about how to help these people. A package like qarz-i-hasna may be the answer. I don't know. A mind-set has to be created for such a loan, just as it was created for interest free Islamic banking. But please do something.
The popularity of Umrah in Ramazan is commercially exploited by some mobile phone companies who are offering Umrah tickets to their customers. Its a lottery, a gamble, because only a lucky few will ever win those tickets, but thousands will purchase extra time on their phones hoping to be the lucky ones. This is playing with public sentiment and worse, to think a visit to Makkah should be through a lottery or gamble.
As a rule, the cleric rightly exhorts people not to gamble, but mobile phone companies employ bearded fellows to project their spiel on TV. It is disgusting. They are distorting values. People like my housemaid who will not perform Umrah financed through a loan would think there is no harm in trying for an Umrah ticket by spending a few hundred rupees to re-charge their mobile phone.
Nearly everyone in the working class has a mobile phone these days. So I asked some of them if they were trying for the Umrah ticket on re-charge of their phone account. Most smiled and said yes. So there you are, these people do not think they are participating in a gamble.
I also asked some of my colleagues and was shocked to learn all of them are participating in the gamble. When told they were participating in a jua (gamble in Urdu), they merely smiled and said, "It is not really a gamble." In other words, they are in denial. Among the affluent class the mobile phone lottery has taken off too. But most of them are participating just to try their luck. "If I get a ticket, I will give it to my driver," said one setsahab. In short this is just an enjoyable game and the moral issue is not considered at all. Exploiting Muslim desire to visit Makkah has been going on for a long time. Before mobile phones appeared, petrol pumps used to offer tickets to Umrah and even Hajj.
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