Haj pilgrimage quota -- how relevant is it?

Haj pilgrimage quota -- how relevant is it?

By Santi WE Soekanto & Wisnu Pramudya

JAKARTA (JP): "It's just shocking!" was the way Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher recently described the increase in the number of people registering to go on this year's haj pilgrimage.

As of early this month, the number of Indonesians taking part in the pilgrimage has reached a record high of 240,000, or 50,000 over the quota of 190,000 set by the Saudi Arabian government.

Some 40,000 have now been put on the waiting-list, pending the outcome of Tarmizi's mission to Riyadh this weekend to negotiate for a higher quota from the Saudi authorities.

"We predicted an increase when we opened the books for registration. But a forty percent increase is just way beyond expectations," Tarmizi said, throwing his hands up in disbelief.

Shocking it may be, but the trend is hardly surprising.

The number of Indonesian haj pilgrims has been jumping by leaps in recent years, a trend officials proudly attribute to the increasing prosperity and religious awareness of the nation's Moslem community.

Last year saw 165,000 people take part in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, up from 125,000 in 1993 and 105,000 in 1992.

Every year the pilgrimage is a big headache for the minister of religious affairs, whose office coordinates all of the haj arrangements, from the pilgrims' travel and accommodation to their guidance and counseling prior to and during the pilgrimage.

Last year, a controversy was sparked by reports that thousands of would-be pilgrims were making their own arrangements and thereby taking up the quota allocated to pilgrims traveling under the official scheme. Eventually, however, everyone was accommodated.

This year, Tarmizi faces a different problem: how to accommodate 40,000 pilgrims who exceed the Indonesian quota. "Pray for me that I will succeed in convincing the Saudi government to raise the quota for Indonesia, so that more of our Moslems can go on the pilgrimage," he said recently.

Since the minister's departure, many Moslem experts and laymen have been questioning the wisdom of imposing a quota on the number of people permitted to perform one of their religious duties.

Many people believe that Mecca is big enough to accommodate millions of people for the annual ritual at the holy site of Haram Mosque.

"The Saudi Arabian government doesn't need to impose a quota at all," one Moslem, who has made the trip to Mecca, said.

To its credit however, the Saudi kingdom, which sees itself as the custodian of the Moslems' holy places, has managed to provide the logistic arrangements for some two million Moslems, who flock there for the haj pilgrimage each year.

Some restraints are necessary, and one of them is the imposition of a quota on each country. Generally, the quota is set at 0.1 percent of a country's Moslem population. In practice, the quota remains open to negotiation.

In Indonesia, meanwhile, the government and Moslem leaders are considering ways of stemming the growth of the number of haj pilgrims.

One alternative being considered is that of giving priority to "first-time pilgrims" ahead of "repeat pilgrims", whose number is swelling each year.

So far, the government has refrained from implementing such a policy, but it is appealing to would-be "repeat pilgrims" to reconsider their decision in order to make way for those who have never made the journey before.

The government cannot prohibit people from going. "That would amount to a violation of people's rights," Tarmizi said.

Muhammadiyah, a mass Moslem organization, has also appealed to those of its members who have already made the pilgrimage to make way for the first-timers.

The government has also suggested that those who want to perform the haj pilgrimage for a second time could join the umrah, a pilgrimage which is performed outside the haj season.

Another way of coping with the problem would be to impose a progressively higher tax on second-timers, third-timers, and so on, a step which has been taken in Malaysia.

Islam requires its followers to go make the haj pilgrimage "at least once, if they can well afford it." For many Moslems, once is not enough.

It is rather too late to deal with this problem this year. But certainly something must be done next year.

The government, in the mean time, should also improve the services it provides to the haj pilgrims, each of whom pays Rp 7 million ($3,200) for the trip.

More and more pilgrims are becoming critical about the arrangements made by the government.

No less a national figure than President Soeharto himself has reminded the government's haj authority that its task will become more complicated each year. Last December he said that, not only are more people going to Mecca, but many of them are better educated and, therefore, more critical and probably more demanding.

If in past years many old people went to Mecca in the hope of dying there and "going to heaven" during the ritual, there are now more and more young people making the pilgrimage.

"This has influenced the level of independence of the jemaah (pilgrims)," Soeharto said. "Serving these people will become more complicated".

One contribution to the current debate came from Neno Warisman, the Moslem singer who has made the haj pilgrimage twice.

"I don't think setting quotas is necessary," Neno told The Jakarta Post. "It is a matter of management, that's all."

"The government increases the fares every year, something which would not be necessary if everything was managed better," she said.

She is also critical of the government of Saudi Arabia. "The Kingdom, as Khadim Al Haramain (the Servant of Two Holy Sites -- the cities of Mecca and Medina) -- should provide better facilities, too," she said.

The Indonesian government should cut the red-tape, she said. "I don't know why, but there is a strong sense that registering and going on the pilgrimage is very difficult," she said.