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.”


Explosions as Kyiv under missile attack, says mayor

Updated 4 sec ago
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Explosions as Kyiv under missile attack, says mayor

  • Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 3 people were injured so far, and said there was reported wreckage falling in two non-residential sites
  • Last week, a Russian missile struck a residential area in President Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rig, killing 18, including 9 children

KYIV, Ukraine: Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the city was under missile attack on Sunday with explosions in the Ukrainian capital, two days after a Russian missile killed 18 people in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown.
Klitschko said paramedics had been sent to two districts in Kyiv, while the Ukrainian air force said missiles had entered the northern Chernihiv region.
“Explosions in the capital. Air defense is in operation,” Klitschko said on Telegram.
“The missile attack on Kyiv continues. Stay in shelters!“
He added that three people were injured so far, and said there was reported wreckage falling in two non-residential sites.
Across Ukraine, air raid alerts were also issued for the Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions.
The attacks come at a time when US President Donald Trump is pushing for a partial ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, more than three years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, while seeking a thaw in ties with the Kremlin.

On Saturday, Zelensky slammed the US embassy for what he called a “weak” statement that did not blame Russia for the deadly missile strike on his home city Kryvyi Rig. Nine children were among the 18 fatalities.
In one of the deadliest strikes in recent weeks, a Russian missile struck a residential area near a children’s playground in the central Ukrainian city.
Seventy-two people were wounded, 12 of them children, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Sergiy Lysak said after emergency operations ended overnight.
In an emotional statement on social media, Zelensky named each of the children killed in the attack, accusing the US embassy of avoiding referring to Russia as the aggressor.
“Unfortunately, the reaction of the American embassy is unpleasantly surprising: such a strong country, such a strong people — and such a weak reaction,” Zelensky wrote.
“They are even afraid to say the word ‘Russian’ when talking about the missile that killed the children.”
The Ukrainian president took aim at the US Ambassador Bridget Brink after she posted a message on X on Friday evening that said: “Horrified that tonight a ballistic missile struck near a playground and restaurant.”
Brink, who was appointed by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden and has been ambassador since May 2022, added that “this is why the war must end.”
Zelensky wrote on Saturday: “Yes, the war must end. But in order to end it, we must not be afraid to call a spade a spade.”
“It is wrong and dangerous to keep silent about the fact that it is Russia that is killing children with ballistic missiles,” Zelensky reiterated in his evening address.
“It only incites the scum in Moscow to continue the war and further ignore diplomacy.”

The Ukrainian leader was born in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rig, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.
Zelensky said the children killed by the latest attack ranged in age from a three-year-old boy, Tymofiy, to a 17-year-old teenage boy, Nikita.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rig’s military administration, said three days of mourning had been declared on April 7, 8 and 9.
“This is nothing less than a mass murder of civilians,” he said.
Pictures circulated by rescue services showed several bodies, one stretched out near a playground swing.
Russia’s defense ministry said it “delivered a precision strike” in the city “where commanders of formations and Western instructors were meeting.”
The General Staff of the Ukrainian army retorted that Moscow was “trying to cover up its cynical crime” and “spreading false information.” It accused Russia of “war crimes.”
Trump, who said during his re-election campaign he could end the three-year conflict within days, is pushing the two sides to agree to a ceasefire but his administration has failed to broker an accord acceptable to both.
Zelensky said the missile attack showed Russia had no interest in stopping its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.
The president hailed “tangible progress” after meeting British and French military chiefs in Kyiv on Friday to discuss a plan by London and Paris to send a “reassurance” force to Ukraine if and when a deal on ending the conflict is reached.
Zelensky wrote on social media that the meeting with British Chief of the Defense Staff Tony Radakin and French counterpart Thierry Burkhard agreed “the first details on how the security contingent of partners can be deployed.”
This is one of the latest efforts by European leaders to agree on a coordinated policy after Trump sidelined them and opened direct talks with the Kremlin.
 


US to revoke all South Sudan visas over failure to accept repatriation of citizens: Rubio

Updated 12 min 18 sec ago
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US to revoke all South Sudan visas over failure to accept repatriation of citizens: Rubio

  • South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
  • Washington “will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” he added

WASHINGTON: The US said on Saturday it would revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders over South Sudan’s failure to accept the return of its repatriated citizens, at a time when many in Africa fear that country could return to civil war.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has taken aggressive measures to ramp up immigration enforcement, including the repatriation of people deemed to be in the US illegally.
The administration has warned that countries that do not swiftly take back their citizens will face consequences, including visa sanctions or tariffs.
South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner when another country, including the US, seeks to remove them, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
“Effective immediately, the United States Department of State is taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to prevent entry into the United States by South Sudanese passport holders,” Rubio said.
“We will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” Rubio said.
It is time for South Sudan’s transitional government to “stop taking advantage of the United States,” he said.
South Sudan’s embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
African Union mediators arrived in South Sudan’s capital Juba this week for talks aimed at averting a new civil war in the country after its First Vice President Riek Machar was placed under house arrest last week.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s government has accused Machar, a longtime rival who led rebel forces during a 2013-18 war that killed hundreds of thousands, of trying to stir up a new rebellion.

Machar’s detention followed weeks of fighting in the northern Upper Nile state between the military and the White Army militia. Machar’s forces were allied with the White Army during the civil war but deny any current links.
The 2013-18 war was contested largely along ethnic lines, with fighters from the Dinka, the country’s largest group, lining up behind Kiir, and those from the Nuer, the second-largest group, supporting Machar.

 


Panama wants ‘respectful’ ties with US amid canal threats

Updated 06 April 2025
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Panama wants ‘respectful’ ties with US amid canal threats

  • The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance

PANAMA CITY: Panama hopes to maintain a “respectful” relationship with the United States, even as President Donald Trump has repeated threats to retake the Panama Canal, Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha said Saturday.
His comments came ahead of a visit next week by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a trip made more urgent against the backdrop of Trump’s threats and his allegations of Chinese interference in the canal.
“We discussed illegal migration, organized crime, drug trafficking and (other issues),” Martinez-Acha wrote on X of a call Friday with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. “It was a cordial and constructive exchange.”
“I reiterated that all cooperation from Panama will take place under the framework of our constitution, our laws, and the Canal Neutrality Treaty,” he wrote. “Relations with the US must remain respectful, transparent and mutually beneficial.”
The US State Department said Landau had “expressed gratitude for Panama’s cooperation in halting illegal immigration and working with the United States to secure a nearly 98 percent decrease in illegal immigration through the Darien jungle,” an arduous path northward followed by many migrants.
The two officials also discussed the sale last month by the Hong Kong company CK Hutchison to giant US asset manager BlackRock of its concession in ports at either end of the Panama Canal, Martinez-Acha added.
Panama’s comptroller has been conducting an audit of Hutchison since January.
Landau “recognized Panama’s actions in curbing malign Chinese Communist Party influence,” the State Department said.
The deal was set to close on April 2 but has been held up as Chinese regulators pursue an investigation.
The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance. It was inaugurated by the United States in 1914 and has been in Panamanian hands since 1999.


Tens of thousands of Spaniards march across the country to protest the growing housing crisis

Updated 06 April 2025
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Tens of thousands of Spaniards march across the country to protest the growing housing crisis

  • The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent

BARCELONA, Spain: Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched in protests held across the European country on Saturday in anger over high housing costs with no relief in sight.
Government authorities said that 15,000 marched in Madrid, while organizers said 10 times that many took to the streets of the capital. In Barcelona, the city hall said 12,000 people took part in the protest, while organizers claimed over 100,000 did.
The massive demonstration of social angst that is a major concern for Spain’s left-wing government was organized by housing activists and backed by Spain’s main labor unions.
The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent. Rents have been driven up by increased demand. Buying a home has become unaffordable for many, with market pressures and speculation driving up prices, especially in big cities and coastal areas.
A generation of young people say they have to stay with their parents or spend big just to share an apartment, with little chance of saving enough to one day purchase a home. High housing costs mean even those with traditionally well-paying jobs are struggling to make ends meet.
“I’m living with four people and still, I allocate 30 or 40 percent of my salary to rent,” said Mari Sánchez, a 26-year-old lawyer in Madrid. “That doesn’t allow me to save. That doesn’t allow me to do anything. It doesn’t even allow me to buy a car. That’s my current situation, and the one many young people are living through.”
Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez said on X that “I share the demand of the numerous people who have marched today: that homes are for living in and not for speculating.”
Lack of public housing
The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years. The price per square meter rose from 7.2 euros ($7.90) in 2014 to 13 euros last year, according to real estate website Idealista. The increase is bigger in Madrid and Barcelona.
Incomes have failed to keep up, especially for younger people in a country with chronically high unemployment.
Spain does not have the public housing that other European nations have invested in to cushion struggling renters from a market that is pricing them out.
Spain is near the bottom end of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries with public housing for rent making up under 2 percent of all available housing. The OECD average is 7 percent. In France it is is 14 percent, Britain 16 percent and the Netherlands 34 percent.
Angry renters point to instances of international hedge funds buying up properties, often with the aim of renting them to foreign tourists. The question has become so politically charged that Barcelona’s city government pledged last year to phase out all its 10,000 permits for short-term rentals, many of them advertised on platforms like Airbnb, by 2028.
Marchers in Madrid on Saturday chanted “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods” and held up signs against short-term rentals. In Barcelona, someone carried a sign reading “I am not leaving, vampire,” apparently in a message to would-be real estate speculator seeking to drive him out of his home.
Authorities under pressure
The central government’s biggest initiative for curbing the cost of housing is a rent cap mechanism it has offered to regional authorities, based on a price index established by the housing ministry. The government says the measure has slightly reduced rents in Barcelona, one of the few areas it has been applied.
But government measures have not proven enough to stop protests over the past two years. Experts say the situation likely won’t improve anytime soon.
“This is not the first, nor will it be the last, (housing protest) given the severity of the housing crisis,” Ignasi Martí, professor with the Esade business school and head of its Dignified Housing Observatory, said in an email.
“We saw this with the financial crisis (of 2008-2012) when (a protest movement) lasted until there was a certain economic recovery and a reduction in the social tension,” Marti added.


Protesters tee off against Trump and Musk in ‘Hands Off!’ rallies across the US

Updated 06 April 2025
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Protesters tee off against Trump and Musk in ‘Hands Off!’ rallies across the US

  • Over 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups
  • Trump chided for “tearing this country apart” as he goes golfing amid tariff turmoil

Opponents of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk rallied across the US on Saturday to protest the administration’s actions on government downsizing, the economy, human rights and other issues.
More than 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The protest sites included the National Mall in Washington, D.C., state capitols and other locations in all 50 states.
Protesters assailed the Trump administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut federal funding for health programs.
Musk, a Trump adviser who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in government downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, spoke at the Washington protest, criticizing the Trump administration’s treatment of the LBGTQ+ community.
“The attacks that we’re seeing, they’re not just political. They are personal, y’all,” she said. “They’re trying to ban our books, they’re slashing HIV prevention funding, they’re criminalizing our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives. This is Donald Trump’s America and I don’t want it y’all. We don’t want this America, y’all. We want the America we deserve, where dignity, safety and freedom belong not to some of us, but to all of us.”

Thousands of people marched in New York City’s midtown Manhattan. In Massachusetts thousands more gathered on Boston Common holding signs including “Hands off our democracy,” “Hands off our Social Security” and “Diversity equity inclusion makes America strong. Hands off!”
In Ohio, hundreds rallied in the rain at the Statehouse in Columbus.
Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, said at the Columbus rally that he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.
“He’s tearing this country apart,” Broom said. “It’s just an administration of grievances.”
Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, a few miles from Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club’s Senior Club Championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting slogans against Trump.
Archer Moran from Port St. Lucie, Florida, said, “They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security.”
“The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long,” Moran said. “And it’s amazing how soon these protests are happening since he’s taken office.”
The president plans to go golfing again Sunday, according to the White House.
Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement that “President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”
Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump or Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But the opposition movement has yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women’s March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington, D.C., after Trump’s first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, protesters said they were supporting a variety of causes, from Social Security and education to immigration and women’s reproductive rights.
“Regardless of your party, regardless of who you voted for, what’s going on today, what’s happening today is abhorrent,” said Britt Castillo, 35, of Charlotte. “It’s disgusting and as broken as our current system might be, the way that the current administration is going about trying to fix things — it is not the way to do it. They’re not listening to the people.”
“All they’re doing is making sure that they have a parachute for them and their rich friends, and everybody else here that lives here — that makes the gears turn for this country — are just screwed at the end of the day,” she said.