The journey of guests of Allah – the Haj pilgrims started from the State capital on Sunday as Bhopal Shahar Qazi Syed Mushtaq Ali Nadwi flagged off the pilgrims’ buses from Haj House to Raja Bhoj International Airport to board first flight for Haj 2016. Madhya Pradesh Haj
Committee chairman Haji Inayat Hussain, Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board chairman Shoukat Mohammed Khan, friends and relatives of pilgrims besides large number of people were present on the occasion.
The pilgrims were received and further send off to Jeddah for the pilgrimage of lifetime at the airport by Union Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar, Minister of state for Backward Class and Minority Welfare (Independent Charges) lalita Yadav, Bhopal Mayor Alok Sharma, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president Arun Yadav and others.
A total of 142 pilgrims including 71 women flew by Air India flight number 5901 for Jeddah that took off on time at 10.30 am.
It was for the first time that the Haj House of Bhopal was made the transit point though it is incomplete and has not been inaugurated too.
The inaugural flight for Haj 2016 that took off with 142 pilgrims marked the age-old tradition of turning out to wave goodbye to the Haj pilgrims. The 142 pilgrims include 71 male and 71 females.
Emotions at the transit point and at airport were that of confusion as men, women and children oscillated between jubilation and a visible melancholy at seeing the Hajis, clad in an unstitched two piece fabric known as the Ihram, entered the buses dealing with the sea of emotional people, who had tears in their eyes and prayers on their lips.
The emotional charge was unmistakable as some hugged relatives and friends embarking on the pilgrimage, while others standing at a distance wept bitterly for penance and divine intervention that could see them retrace the footsteps of the holy Prophet, who undertook the journey to the holy twin cities of Mecca and Medina some 1400
years ago.