How British Muslims make it to Makkah for Hajj

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London Hajj travel agent Hamdy El-Sawy. (AFP)
Updated 09 August 2018
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How British Muslims make it to Makkah for Hajj

  • Even after 37 years, El-Sawy’s services are as much in demand as ever
  • So quickly did his reputation grow that in 1989 the Swedish ambassador to Morocco, a convert to Islam, asked to join El-Sawy’s group

LONDON: With the approach of Hajj, it is all systems go at the El-Sawy travel agency in London.
Passports need to be taken to the Saudi embassy to be stamped with visas and there are myriad phone calls and emails to be made to suppliers in Saudi Arabia. Those going on their first pilgrimage — perhaps even their first long trip anywhere — will need reassurance while others who applied a little too late and missed out on a place will need placating. But from the start, one thing is obvious: You don’t get to be Britain’s oldest-established Hajj and Umrah travel agency without good people skills.
“I have also been very blessed with luck,” said the Egyptian-born travel agency owner Hamdy El-Sawy.
He organized his first Hajj in 1981 for 37 people. They each paid £325 and stayed in university accommodation. Lots has changed since then: This year he will accompany 150 pilgrims who have each paid £6,450 and will be based at the five-star Al-Safwah Royal Orchid Hotel. “It’s the nearest to the Haram [mosque], right next to it,” he said, pointing to a poster.
Sometimes his work involves performing quite extraordinary feats. Three years ago, an 84-year-old British publisher and convert to Islam, contacted El-Sawy a week before the group was due to leave for Hajj.
Although he was without a booking or visa, El-Sawy suggested he come along anyway to the briefing held before every Hajj.
“An official from the Saudi embassy was present. He arranged the gentleman’s visa right away, out of respect for his age. The package that year cost £4,000 but the publisher had only £2,500. By chance I got a call from another client, a well-known neurologist and convert who had been on Hajj with us. I told her the story and without hesitation she said she would cover the difference.”
Back in 1994 a woman arrived at his agency in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce at 7pm on a Friday. Pulling a huge wad of banknotes from her handbag, she uttered just one word: “Hajj.”
El-Sawy explained: “It was the day before we were due to leave. The Saudi embassy was closed and all the flights were full, but I couldn’t tell her any of this because the lady was from Senegal and spoke only French.”
But by chance — a phrase that crops up a lot in El-Sawy’s stories — a French-speaking client was in the office at the time. “I asked him to tell the lady ‘come tomorrow’ which, as any Egyptian will tell you, actually means ‘don’t come.’ I was fobbing her off, to be honest. But when I came to work next day, she was there again, this time in a Mercedes.
“I didn’t know what else to do so I told her driver to go to Belgrave Square [location of the Saudi embassy] and drive round it seven times and shout ‘Allahu akbar’ every time they passed the Saudi embassy. At least, she would see it was closed. I sent my office boy with her.”
She did as instructed and while she was there the security guard at the Saudi embassy noticed the circling Mercedes and came out to investigate.
“When he heard the story, he gave my office boy the number of the duty officer at the consulate. The duty officer said to bring the lady’s passport at 5pm. He did, she got her visa and went straight to the airport. But the Saudia flight, the last of the day, was full with 10 people on standby. The lady from Senegal was number 11.
“One seat came free in business class and because she was alone and everyone else ahead of her was in couples or groups, she got it, with 10 minutes to go before the flight left. The cost that year was £1,300. She gave me £2,000 in cash and gave the £700 change to the office boy.”
Another client who spoke little or no English was the Senegalese ambassador to London. In his case, El-Sawy decided to contact a client from Gambia who spoke the same African language as the ambassador and soon all the arrangements were made. On arrival in Jeddah, the ambassador received VIP treatment. “The next time we met was at a meeting of the British-Egyptian Society and he embraced me in front of everyone and said what a wonderful time he’d had.” El-Sawy would no doubt say that he came to the travel business too “by chance.” Born “in the oldest street in Cairo,” he studied commerce and law and came to the UK in 1975 and worked in accountancy, as an Arabic tour guide and translator and even, briefly, as a silver service waiter.
In 1980 he organized a day trip to Brighton on the south coast of England, to welcome the new imam at Regent’s Park mosque (El-Sawy’s local place of worship), and introduce him to his congregation.
People on the coach trip brought snacks and drinks, visited a mosque and played football on the beach and a good time was had by all. Over the next weeks, he organized more days out. On the way back from the fourth of these, to Manchester, someone asked him when he was going to do “the big one.”
And so his career as a Hajj tour operator and travel agent began. On the first pilgrimage in 1981, following another chance encounter, his group were guests of the president of King Abudulaziz University. The following year, they were accommodated at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah. The third year, a major-general in the Saudi police hosted a group of more than 40 people at his home because El-Sawy had helped him track down a Egyptian doctor in London who had previously treated the policeman’s aged mother.
So quickly did his reputation grow that in 1989 the Swedish ambassador to Morocco, a convert to Islam, asked to join El-Sawy’s group. He didn’t want to be treated as a VIP, as he would have been if he had applied in Rabat.
“That year we stayed in military barracks and he was very happy. That gave me confidence. I realized that high-up people can be humble.”
He has frequently witnessed how the spirit of Hajj brings out the best in people, he said. In 2014, a Bangladeshi couple from London were distraught when they realized they had miscalculated and did not have enough money to pay for their 10-year-old daughter.
“I told the mother to call again. She did and by chance there was a Saudi friend of mine in the office. He heard the story and paid the difference. All he asked in return was that she say a prayer for his father.
“The same year, a woman came in and told me she would pay for two strangers to go on Hajj. I had to choose them. Her conditions were that they should be first-timers, one must be an older woman and the other a man and if possible, a new convert. Thanks to that lady an elderly Moroccan woman I knew from mosque was able to fulfill the desire which she could never afford.” Even after 37 years, El-Sawy’s services are as much in demand as ever. He insists on meeting every client face-to-face and holds a get-together a week before every departure “so people can get to know each other and not feel like they are traveling with strangers.” He shows a video of last year’s briefing, and it is clear he knows everyone’s name, job and where they come from.
“His memory is incredible,” said Mustafa, 27, the younger of his two sons. “Ten minutes on the phone with him and he ends up knowing more about you than you do.”
Now 74 and with his two sons working with him, El-Sawy shows no sign of slowing down. He has mastered new technology, has an iPhoneX and continues to work all hours.
As well as the forthcoming Hajj, he is busy with an ambitious new project — a tour tracing the journey of Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus fleeing to exile in Egypt to escape the clutches of King Herod. “I enjoy serving people,” he said. “The spiritual side of life is important and God has blessed me with a positive outlook. For me, the glass is half full.”


UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’

Updated 3 sec ago
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UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’

  • Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that meetings between Cyprus’s rival leaders at the organization’s New York headquarters were “constructive,” even as questions remained about crossing points on the divided island.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar have been holding talks and had reached a breakthrough on forming a committee on youth and three other topics, Guterres said.
The opening of four crossing points, and the exploitation of solar energy in the buffer zone between the two sides of the island remained unresolved, he said.
“It is critical to implement these initiatives, all of them, as soon as possible, and for the benefit of all Cypriots,” Guterres said.
The meeting follows one in Geneva in March, which marked the first meaningful progress in years.
At that gathering, both sides agreed on a set of confidence-building measures, including opening more crossing points across the divide, cooperating on solar energy, and removing land mines.
Guterres said there were specific technical issues still to be resolved on the issues of crossing points, but did not give details.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, declared in 1983, is recognized only by Ankara.
The internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, controls the island’s majority Greek Cypriot south.
The last major round of peace talks collapsed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017.
“I think we are building, step-by-step, confidence and creating conditions to do concrete things to benefit the Cypriot people,” Guterres said in remarks to reporters.
 


US designates group that claimed Kashmir attack as terrorists

Updated 17 July 2025
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US designates group that claimed Kashmir attack as terrorists

  • Gunmen in April shot dead 26 people, almost all Hindus, in Pahalgam, a tourist hub in the Indian-administered side of divided Kashmir

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday designated as terrorists a shadowy group that claimed an April attack in Kashmir, which triggered Indian strikes on Pakistani territory.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio described The Resistance Front as a “front and proxy” of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist group based in Pakistan.
The terrorist designation “demonstrates the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting our national security interests, countering terrorism, and enforcing President (Donald) Trump’s call for justice for the Pahalgam attack,” Rubio said in a statement.
Gunmen in April shot dead 26 people, almost all Hindus, in Pahalgam, a tourist hub in the Indian-administered side of divided Kashmir.
Little had been previously known about The Resistance Front, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
India designates TRF as a terrorist organization and the India-based Observer Research Foundation calls it “a smokescreen and an offshoot of LeT.”
Pakistan has denied responsibility for the attack.


US House passes landmark crypto bills in win for Trump

Updated 17 July 2025
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US House passes landmark crypto bills in win for Trump

  • It will now head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a thin majority

WASHINGTON: The US House passed landmark cryptocurrency bills on Thursday, delivering on the Trump administration’s embrace of the once-controversial industry.
US lawmakers easily passed the CLARITY Act, which establishes a clearer regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.
The bill is intended to clarify rules governing the industry and divides regulatory authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission  and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission .
It will now head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a thin majority.
House legislators also easily passed the GENIUS Act, which codifies the use of stablecoins — cryptocurrencies pegged to safe assets like the dollar. That bill was due to immediately go to Trump for his signature to become law.
The GENIUS Act was passed by the Senate last month and sets rules such as requiring issuers to have reserves of assets equal in value to that of their outstanding cryptocurrency.
The raft of legislation comes after years of suspicion against the crypto industry amid the belief that the sector, born out of the success of bitcoin, should be kept on a tight leash and away from mainstream investors.
But after crypto investors poured millions of dollars into his presidential campaign last year, Trump reversed his own doubts about the industry, even launching a Trump meme coin and other ventures as he prepared for his return to the White House.
Trump has, among other moves, appointed crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission .
He has also established a federal “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” aimed at auditing the government’s bitcoin holdings, which were mainly accumulated by law enforcement from judicial seizures.
The Republican-led House is also considering a bill it calls the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act that aims to block the issuance of a central bank digital currency  — a digital dollar issued by the US Federal Reserve.
Republicans argue that a CBDC could enable the federal government to monitor, track, and potentially control the financial transactions of private citizens, undermining privacy and civil liberties.
It would require a not-easily-won passage in the Senate before going to Trump for his signature.
An aborted effort to set the anti-CBDC bill aside caused a furor among a small group of Republicans and delayed the passage of the two other bills before a solution was found.


‘A trap’ — Asylum seekers arrested after attending US courts

Updated 17 July 2025
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‘A trap’ — Asylum seekers arrested after attending US courts

NEW YORK: In gloomy corridors outside a Manhattan courtroom, masked agents target and arrest migrants attending mandatory hearings — part of US President Donald Trump’s escalating immigration crackdown.
Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to deport many migrants, has encouraged authorities to be more aggressive as he seeks to hit his widely-reported target of one million deportations annually.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, Homeland Security agents have adopted the tactic of waiting outside immigration courts nationwide and arresting migrants as they leave at the end of asylum hearings.
Missing an immigration court hearing is a crime in some cases and can itself make migrants liable to be deported, leaving many with little choice but to attend and face arrest.
Armed agents with shields from different federal agencies loitered outside the court hearings in a tower block in central New York, holding paperwork with photographs of migrants to be targeted, an AFP correspondent saw this week.
The agents arrested almost a dozen migrants from different countries in just a few hours on the 12th floor of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building.
Brad Lander, a city official who was briefly detained last month by ICE  agents as he attempted to accompany a migrant targeted for removal, called the hearings “a trap.”
“It has the trappings of a judicial hearing, but it’s just a trap to have made them come in the first place,” he said Wednesday outside the building.
Lander recounted several asylum seekers being arrested by immigration officers including Carlos, a Paraguayan man who Lander said had an application pending for asylum under the Convention Against Torture — as well as a future court date.
“The judge carefully instructed him on how to prepare to bring his case to provide additional information about his interactions with the Paraguayan police and make his case under the global convention against torture for why he is entitled to asylum,” Lander said.
After his hearing, agents “without any identifying information or badges or warrants grabbed Carlos, and then quickly moved him toward the back stairwell,” he said.
Lander, a Democrat, claimed the agents were threatening and that they pushed to the ground Carlos’s sister who had accompanied him to the hearing.
The White House said recently that “the brave men and women of ICE are under siege by deranged Democrats — but undeterred in their mission.”
“Every day, these heroes put their own lives on the line to get the worst of the worst... off our streets and out of our neighborhoods.”
Back at the building in lower Manhattan, Lander said that “anyone who comes down here to observe could see... the rule of law is being eroded.”


US prosecutor in Epstein, Maxwell cases abruptly fired

Updated 17 July 2025
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US prosecutor in Epstein, Maxwell cases abruptly fired

WASHINGTON: A US federal prosecutor who handled the case of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and is the daughter of a prominent critic of President Donald Trump has been abruptly fired, US media reported.
Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was dismissed on Wednesday from her position as an assistant US attorney in Manhattan, several major US outlets reported.
The Justice Department declined to confirm Comey’s firing to AFP, saying it would have “no comment on personnel.”
Politico published a message Comey, who spent 10 years in the US attorney’s office, sent to her former colleagues in which she said she had been “summarily fired” by the Justice Department with no reason given.
She also encouraged them not to fall prey to “fear.”
“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” Comey said. “Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant.”
Comey’s dismissal comes a week after the Justice Department confirmed it had opened an unspecified criminal investigation into her father, a long-time Trump adversary.
It also comes amid mounting pressure on Trump to release material from the probe into Epstein, who committed suicide in a New York prison in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking.
Comey was among the prosecutors who handled the case involving the wealthy financier, which never went to trial because of his death.
She also prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell, the only former Epstein associate who has been criminally charged in connection with his activities.
Trump is facing the most serious split in his loyal right-wing base since he returned to power over claims his administration is covering up lurid details of Epstein’s crimes to protect rich and powerful figures.
The Trump-supporting far-right has long latched on to the scandal, claiming the existence of a still-secret list of Epstein’s powerful clients and that the late financier was in fact murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up.
The Justice Department and FBI said this month that there was no evidence that Epstein kept a “client list” or was blackmailing powerful figures.
Comey’s father, the former FBI chief, has had a contentious history with Trump dating back to his first term in the White House.
Trump fired Comey in 2017 as the then-FBI chief was leading an investigation into whether any members of the Trump campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 presidential vote, in which the Republican beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Since taking office in January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against his perceived enemies, stripping former officials of their security clearances and protective details, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him and pulling federal funding from universities.