Around 6,000 Muslims from Telangana go for Umrah every month, with numbers rising during Ramzan. Travel agencies offer 14-day packages costing Rs 80,000 to Rs 1.3 lakh. More families are joining the pilgrimage, guided by tour operators throughout the trip.
Hajj is a mandatory Islamic pilgrimage performed only on specific dates in Dhul Hijjah, while Umrah is a voluntary pilgrimage that can be done anytime. Both include Tawaf, but Hajj has additional rituals in Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifah.
Sixty-year-old sisters Rayeezunnisa and Shajahan Begum planned to perform Umrah together, joined by their children. The families were excited for the pilgrimage, but relatives in their city were shocked upon learning about a tragic accident involving them
The poor family is finding it hard to come to terms with the tragedy that has befallen them when they received a call from Saudi Arabia that their sole bread winner Shaikh Ahmed was no more.
A software engineer from Telangana, who was rushing home in Riyadh after performing Umrah in Makkah, was killed while three others were injured in a road mishap near Madinah in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
Two from Hyderabad and three from Rajasthan died in a car crash, while being on their way to perform Umrah in Saudia on Thursday night. Another Hyderabadi is critically injured and battling for his life in Hospial.
The accident, which occurred due to a brake failure, took place on the road joining Asir province and the city of Abha, Gulf News reported.
The victims were on their way to Mecca to conduct Umrah.
Jeddah: The uncertainty of lakhs of Muslims who are eagerly looking forward to undertake the journey of a lifetime Haj, came to an end as Saudi Arabia has decided to welcome foreign Haj pilgrims after a gap of two years. Saudi Arabia has revised the number of Haj pilgrims for this year to one million, […]
Jeddah: An Indian woman’s patriotic gesture of holding the national tricolour in a holy Islamic shrine proved costly for her as she had to spend five days behind bars for her show of affection towards her motherland. Unaware of the rules, Indians sometimes land in serious legal trouble in foreign countries and are subjected to […]
The umrah, the pilgrimage that can be undertaken at any time, usually attracts millions of Muslims from across the globe each year but it was suspended in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision to resume the pilgrimage was in response to the "aspirations of Muslims home and abroad" to perform the ritual and visit the holy sites, the interior ministry said last month.
