Essay about Makkah

Essay about MakkahMecca is a holy place of Muslims in Saudi-Arabian Arabia where it is believed that the prophet Muhammad lived and taught to a greater extent than 1,300 grades ago. Mecca is the holiest urban center in Islam. Mecca had become an meaning(a) place in the history by the time when Prophet Mohammed (peace is upon him)was born(p) in about 570 AD. Mecca, the holy place has fallen with familyly reduce and flow of pilgrims as a result of growing Muslim confederation in the World and eventually the extend of Islam. The economic status of the city greatly depends on the large number of pilgrims visiting every year and their accommodation, feeding and transportation. (Ahmed Z.U. 1992).Prophet Mohammed (peace is upon him) was born in Makkah and was descended with the sanctified directger, and since then the lengthiness for Islam was launched. In the heart of the city is the Holy Mosque in the aggregate of which the Holy Kaaba is located, The Maqam of Prophet Ibrahim , his son Ismaiels st unmatchable (May God bless them), Zamzam well in which urine has been pouring from hundreds of years, and Safa and Marwah where Muslims make Saie. at that place atomic number 18 otherwise holy shrines of Mina, Muzdalifa, and Arafat near Makkah. Arafat is located at the Mount Arafat where pilgrims cause the main rite of haj as the day of Arafat. hadj is scheduled according to the lunar calendar and so moves 11 days earlier all(prenominal) year on the Gregorian calendar. Due to seasonal variation all over time, the hadj occurs at antithetical times each year (Yamin M. et al 2009). It becomes punishing in summers as the temperatures in Saudi Arabia be very high. opposed other Saudi Arabian cities, Mecca retains its warm temperature in winter, which clear telescope from 17C at midnight to 25C in the afternoon. summertime temperatures are considered very hot and break the 40C turn back in the afternoon dropping to 30C (86F) in the evening. fall us ually falls in Mecca in small amounts betwixt November and January. touristry at MeccaMecca, the holy city in Saudi Arabia is believed to be the centre of the Islamic world. The journey to Mecca as the hajj is popular to the Muslims all over the world exactly the Mecca snuff it is forbidden for non-Muslims. at that place are billions of commonwealth coming to Mecca for hadj from all over the world. The Hajj in Mecca is the largest transit in the world.The Mecca city is Saudi Arabia is increasingly called Makkah. It is similar to the pronunciation of the Arabic word than does the English translation called Mecca. Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter the set forth of Mecca, Saudi Arabia at any time of the year due to the accompaniment that the Mecca travel and the Hajj are only intended for Muslims. It has happened in the agone that several non-Muslims absorb entered Mecca the penalties of it are quite harsh including deportation and shut up time.tourism in Mecca involve s whatsoever advance planning. There is a finical endorse required by every Muslim who wishes to make the tour to Mecca. There is a valid visa required to enter the Hajj grounds. In case of Saudi citizens, permission is necessary. The foreign pilgrims intend to satisfy Hajj applies for a visa by furnishing information and undergoing some checkup examination. The visa is granted by Saudi government by approving of the Hajj management in Saudi Arabia. Each pilgrim is assigned to a group of Hajj management called Munazzim one time their visa is granted. Munnazim is responsible for their travel and accommodation arrangements in the Hejaz (Yamin M. et al 2009). In addition, a letter from the local anesthetic mosque stating that the person is a Muslim is overly required. Women who are under 45 years of age must(prenominal) travel with a male or a mahram considered being the head of the family. There should be a substantiation of their relationship. On the other hand, women ove r 45 years of age must carry a permission letter from her husband or her fuss along with the proof her being a part of the Mecca tourism group. The visa to travel Mecca does not permit to travel outside of Mecca and if anyone wants to travel other cities, they must apply for additional visa.The tour to Mecca commence at the Jeddah aerodrome, a large city in Saudi Arabia. As the tourism in Mecca is very popular during the Hajj month, at that place are dickens especial(a) terminals for the sight arriving to Mecca. There are direct bus services from the airport to Mecca Saudi Arabia.On arrival to the city of Mecca, the Muslims have to follow handed-down rituals, called Umrah. These traditions should be followed by all the pilgrims. The rituals that are acted out in the incidents of the Quran are relatively disfranchised to perform or rather mingled and takes about a week. It is important that the pilgrims must wear the traditional pilgrimage clothing followed by a walk in the r egion of the Kaaba in a counter clockwise direction several times. After this ritual, following comes Saey which factually means run whereby the pilgrims walk back and forth in the midst of the hills of Safa and Marwah, the region where the wife of Prophet Abraham ran recklessly in search of water for her son. It has been written in Quran that there is a fountain that appears between the hills (Ahmed Z.U. 1992).Other rituals during the Hajj include going to Arafat. This is the the place where Mohammed gave his final sermon. The ritual is followed by drinking water from the Zamzam well which is at heart the Great Mosque. It is believed by all the Muslims that their God provided water to Hajar and Ismail at this well when they were strolling in the desert. These two people are the central figures of Islam. Mecca travel is a meaningful once-in-a-lifetime let for all the Muslims.Tourism issuesThere have been numerous tourism issues in Mecca that arise during the Hajj period. Many i ncidents have happened during the past years do loss of hundreds of lives. It is estimated that there are 1.4 billion Muslims in the World and each one must visit Mecca for pilgrimage at least once in his or her lifetime if they faecal matter. It is all the way very hard to manage millions of people in Mecca during the month of Hajj.Crowd StampedeStampedes are likely to occur at the Hajj because of the huge crowd and an peculiar pressure. The individuals may stumble thereby precipitating an entire stampede. Massive crowds walk of life from one place to the other place of the pilgrimage, cause a stampede. There is a panic when the pilgrims jostle to avoid being trampled resulting in hundreds of deaths. For example, the observation of stoning the Devil is very crowded and dangerous and so can result in serious crowd accidents. The following incidents occurred due to monumental crowding at the Hajj.2nd July, 1990 Arafat plains of Hajj A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel leading out from Mecca towards Mina, Saudi Arabia and the Plains of Arafat led to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims.23rd May, 1994 270 pilgrims were killed in crowd during the stoning of the Devil.9th April, 1998 Incident at Jamarat yoke where 118 pilgrims died and 180 were injured.5th March, 2001 During the ritual of stoning the Devil, 35 pilgrims were trampled to death.11th February, 2003 14 pilgrims died in a rush during the stoning of the Devil ceremony.1st February, 2004 251 pilgrims were killed and 244 people were injured in a stampede during the stoning ceremony in Mina.12th January, 2006 346 pilgrims were killed and more than 289 were injured in Mina on the give out day of the Hajj while performing the ritual ramy al-jamart.DiseasesDisease spread is also a tourism issue in Mecca. This could be explained on the fact that there are millions of people from many countries visiting Mecca, of which some of them may have poor health systems, leading to the spread of epidemics. If there is a disease outbreak during the Hajj, this could make the problem worse when they returned al-Qaeda and passing the infection on to others. There have been such(prenominal) incidents in the past where the disease has spread among the pilgrims causing severe health problems. virtuoso such disease, called meningitis has been given a prompted response from the Saudi government. There were many concerns about the disease after its international outbreak at Hajj in 1987. Due to these global outbreaks of certain types of meningitis in previous years, it is right away a visa requirement to be immunised with the ACW135Y vaccine in advance arrival. Every year, the Saudi government publishes a list of required vaccines for pilgrims, which for 2010 also includes yellow fever, polio, and influenza.Trauma and other fatal eventsThe word Hajj defines movement. There is a lot of chaos in transportation during the Hajj. The pilgrimage moves on foot in dense traffic for hours at a time. During t he Hajj season in Mecca, there is inordinate traffic congestion. Other issues in tourism are fire incidents that happened in previous years.December 1975 sack due to explosion a gas cylinder in a tent resulted in the death of 200 pilgrims.15th April, 1997 Fire in a tent in Mina killing 343 pilgrims and 1,500 injured.In rig to prevent such dangerous incidents, the kingdom has replaced all the tents and the tents are immediately fireproof with a variety of which are made up of aluminium frames with fibreglass. The risk of fire is now considered much lower (Memish Z.A. et al 2002).Tourism managementManagement in Mecca during the Hajj, handling millions of people during a ad hoc month is not an easy task. The officials of the government of the Saudi Arabia should have do more to prevent such catastrophes. It is claimed by the government of Saudi Arabia that such massive crowd are very dangerous and difficult to manage, and that they have taken a number of steps to prevent proble ms. There are improvements of touristic facilities at Jeddah, Mecca and Madinah.There have been number of steps undertaken to overcome the hurdling and the incidents in the past. One of the controversial significant steps in movement inculcates new system of registrations, passports, and visas to control the mass flow of pilgrims. This system intends to instigate and accommodate visitors travelling for the first time to Mecca, while restricting replicate visits. Such a system was protested by the pilgrims who have the desire and wishes to perform the Hajj several times and they have been biased about this system, but the Hajj Commission has stated that they see no substitute if upgrade incidents and disasters are to be prevented.As a result of the stampede in 2004, there have been concerns and considerations by the Saudi authorities. The authorities have aboard a big construction work in and around the Jamarat duad area. Additional access ways, footbridges, and emergency exits were built, and concrete walls were designed to replace the three cylindrical pillars allowing more pilgrims to have a simultaneous access to them without fight for position and deprived of crowd. A multi-million-dollar project has been designed and put into action by the government to expand the bridge to five levels.For crowd management, many organizations are using RFID chips to track and monitor people and products. This high applied science is an effective way of identifying and helping people in urgent situations (Yamin M. et al 2009). These RFID carry some PDA (readable data) which can be used for medical emergencies and for reporting lost pilgrims with their groups. The device should be linked to the event database so as to facilitate the retrieval and updates as and when required.The disease spreads and recent outbreaks of H1N1 computer virus (swine influenza and bird flu) have made the crowd management more challenging. For the management of diseases, as mentioned earl ier, there are set of medical examinations and immunizations to be undergone by the pilgrims to be registered in the event database.Therefore, the management of Hajj can be sum up in three phases. Phase one is about the necessary planning to organize Hajj and to intend pilgrims beforehand departure to Saudi Arabia.Second phase refers to the Hajj process whereby different management steps are undertaken to control the issues in way of the Hajj process and the last phase directs to the measures undertaken to facilitate smooth return of pilgrims to their individual destinations.