ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A record 6,000 pilgrims from the Kurdistan Region went for Umrah rituals to Mecca last month, authorities say, while travel agents say many were on their second or third visits and some clerics advise the faithful to help the poor rather than spending on repeated trips.
Sayid Abdullah, owner of a travel agency that organizes Hajj and Umrah packages, say there was no let-up in demand last month, even though some government employees were not paid their salaries due to a budget row between Erbil and Baghdad.
“Twenty percent of the people who come to me to buy Umrah packages go twice a year. For some, it is their third trip,” he explains.
Authorities say they have noticed the number of people going for Umrah has been on the rise every year. Over the past eight years, there has been a 30-fold increase in the number of travelers, according to official data.
While the Hajj pilgrimage can be performed during a designated season only once a year, there is no such restriction for Umrah rituals.
Idris Karim, a Friday preacher in Erbil, says that people cannot be stopped from performing the religious ritual, but that they should at times switch to helping the poor instead.
“Because Umrah is part of worship, we cannot prevent people from doing it,” he told Rudaw. “But someone who goes on the trip for the second time should help others instead.”
A cleric in Erbil says that giving the money to the needy and poor in Kurdistan is more of a good deed than making the journey more than once.
Travel agents in Erbil say that the whole trip to Saudi Arabia costs around $950, and that half of that amount is spent on buying presents and souvenirs for relatives.
The ministry of religious affairs says that in 2013 alone people in Kurdistan spent around $100 million on trips to Saudi Arabia.
According to a travel agent in Erbil, more than half of the Umrah pilgrims every year are women.
Abdullah says that he feels some of his clients go on Umrah only to prove themselves to their relatives and friends, who have already made the trip.
“To most people it is part of worshiping God, but to some others it is imitating their own relatives,” Abdullah believes.
Karim, the cleric in Erbil, says that going for Umrah is about maintaining a connection with God “But helping out the poor can serve the same purpose, too.”
