Hajj should not be performed on state expense
LAHORE: The performance of Hajj or Umrah is obligatory upon Muslims who have the financial capacity and are in good health. To note, the holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) performed Umrah four times and Hajj only once during his lifetime. It has become customary for every president and prime minister of Pakistan as well as other paid or elected public office holders to perform multiple Hajj and Umrah trips at state expense in a country where over 45 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line with no access to subsidised healthcare, education or even clean drinking water. Millions of poor die of waterborne diseases in this country.
The president of Pakistan, who represents the federation and is supposed to be a custodian of the Constitution, has proceeded to perform Hajj with his family, having done so previously during his tenure in violation of rules and all ethics. Does the president and others who perform this purely personal religious obligation realise that this money could have been spent on providing life-saving drugs to thousands and might have helped alleviate the misery of deserving Pakistani citizens, whose welfare is an obligation of the state? How many heads of affluent Christian countries in the developed world proceed to the Vatican or to Bethlehem to attend the annual holy sermon?
Malik Tariq
Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2016.
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