Punishing pilgrims is wrong

You also need to be reminded that you are not God — it is not your prerogative to prevent people from taking their own money out of the fund, never mind preventing them from being allowed to go.

Ahmad Azrai, The Heat Malaysia

Islam has a few basic tenets that are simple to understand. There may be a lot of considerations to follow when practising the religion – but the heart of it all is really not that complicated. The five basic tenets are the recitation of faith (syahadah); prayers (the five compulsory daily prayers, as well as the various recommended ones); the practice of charity or alms-giving (zakat); the practice of fasting (compulsory during the month of Ramadan, as well as the optional ones); and a pilgrimage to Mecca to perform the Hajj.

While the first four are practised as a matter of course, the fifth pillar is unique in that the main overriding condition for performing it is that the believers who do so are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and can support their family during their absence. The Hajj is performed only once in a lifetime, and only during the month of Zulhijjah, whereas subsequent visits to the Holy City to perform the rituals is known as a “lesser pilgrimage” (umrah).

It is important to note that the costs of travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals have always been somewhat out of reach for most of the faithful. This is why the creation in Malaysia of Tabung Haji (TH, literally Pilgrimage Fund) in 1963 to help pilgrims — in terms of financial, informational and logistic aid — has always been a source of admiration. Therefore, it was a rude shock when it was very recently announced that depositors who withdrew their Hajj registration deposit together with their savings could lose their turn to perform the pilgrimage for up to 70 years.

You see, TH is unfortunately involved in the 1MDB scandal in several ways, such as having several of its directors on the 1MDB board, as well as a widely criticised land purchase deal that was financially disadvantageous for the fund. It didn’t help that last year, in a letter that was leaked, Bank Negara Malaysia had apparently also warned TH its liabilities exceeded assets and pointed to negative reserve levels.

Consider also the fact that since the financial crisis of 1997, returns for the pilgrims’ savings (which were amazingly solid up to that point) dropped tremendously, as the fund’s monetary pool was tapped as part of several government bailouts at the time — and you get a situation whereby TH’s credibility takes a bit of a beating. And what has the response been? For TH to threaten to jeopardise its depositors’ shot at fulfilling an important religious obligation – which is no joke, considering that TH has almost nine million depositors, according to the latest statistics.

Well, here’s a message to all the ministers and board of directors for TH: you cannot, on any account, do this. These blameless depositors are understandably fidgety about the state of their savings, given the stormy economic situation Malaysia is in. Yet although you are trying to punish them, it was your own incompetence and political interference that led TH into the various messes that it is facing right now. In point of fact, you need to apologise — not only to the prospective pilgrims, but to the nation as a whole, for tainting such a holy venture with the temporal consequences of your failed risk-taking.

You also need to be reminded that you are not God — it is not your prerogative to prevent people from taking their own money out of the fund, never mind preventing them from being allowed to go. The annual Hajj quota system imposed in order to cope with the literal millions who make the journey is one thing; what you are proposing to do to them is tantamount to committing an actual sin. And no amount of prayers or photos of you prostrating in front of the Kaabah will change that.