Romanian Muslims Vie for Charge-free Hajj

[sonz]

CAIRO, January 2, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Romanian Muslim youths have vied for a charge-free hajj through a series of competitions sponsored by charities testing their Islamic and general knowledge.

"We organized religious and cultural competitions for youths, offering the winners charge-free trips to Saudi Arabia to perform hajj," Kareem Anjin, the representative of the International Tiba Charity in Constanta, southeastern Romania, told IslamOnline.net Monday, January 2.

He said six male and female competitors have passed the question-and-answer samples and are preparing now to embark on the spiritual journey.

The charity, he added, has further organized Qur’an memorization contests for the elderly.

"A 60-year-old woman has won and will join the six youths," Anjin said.

The charity has further paid some hajj costs for needy Muslims.

The number of Romanian pilgrims has doubled this year to 350 people compared to last year’s 180.

The first batch of pilgrims will leave the capital Bucharest for Makkah later in the day.

Hajj, which climaxes this year on January 9 when the pilgrims descend the Mount `Arafat, consists of several ceremonies, which are meant to symbolize the essential concepts of the Islamic faith, and to commemorate the trials of Prophet Abraham and his family.

Every able-bodied adult Muslim who can financially afford the trip must perform hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, once in their lifetime.

Hajj Awareness

Anjin said his charity also organizes lectures to raise the awareness of the would-be pilgrims on how to perform proper hajj.

"We plainly explain to them hajj rites and how to perform them properly through a number of preachers and the distribution of some brochures," he added.

The Tiba Charity is one of the leading hajj organizer in Romania.

It successfully co-organized the International Conference on Islam in Europe in October 2005, which was held in Romania and brought together representatives of Muslim minorities in up to 40 European countries.

The charity has translated dozens of Islamic books into Romanian and issued the first glossy magazine on Islam in Romanian, Islam Today. The magazine comes in 36 colored pages.

There are some 70,000 Muslims in Romanian, mostly hailing from Turkey and Albania. They make up two percent of the country’s 22 million population.