More than 4,300 Indian women have registered to perform Hajj independently this year, which, according to authorities, will be the largest contingent of women in the country to embark on the pilgrimage without a male guardian.
With more than 200 million Indians professing Islam, the South Asian nation with a predominantly Hindu population has the world's largest Muslim minority population. According to the Hajj quota for 2023, about 175,000 of them will travel in June to Saudi Arabia for the spiritual journey that is one of the five pillars of Islam.
First, among the pilgrims will be women who applied individually and will make their own way to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, following Saudi Arabia's decision last year to cancel the rule that women must be accompanied by a mahram, or male guardian. Those who did not have such a companion could previously travel only in large groups of other women.
India accordingly amended its Hajj policy in February, and the Ministry of Minority Affairs announced its list of pilgrims on Monday, saying that this year 4,314 pilgrims were selected in the «Women Without Mahram» category, meaning «the country's largest contingent of women performing the Hajj alone without a male member.».
A. P. Abdullakutty, chairman of the Hajj Committee of India, a statutory body of the Indian government that organizes Islamic pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia, told Arab News that the fact that so many Indian women are performing the Hajj without a mahram is an indicator of social development. .
«This is a good sign,« he said. »This is women's empowerment, especially the empowerment of Indian Muslim women.".
Shaista Ambar, a resident of Lucknow, is one of the women who applied to travel alone.
«I lost my husband and son during the COVID pandemic, but I did not lose hope of going on the Hajj and applied completely on my own,» she told Arab News.
«Women (have) long asked the Hajj committee to change the rules. The Quran gives women equal rights to education and freedom (as men).».
To make the new pilgrimage policy even fairer, the Indian authorities also abolished the VIP quota for pilgrims, which previously provided 500 reserved places for high-ranking government officials. They also adopted special measures to provide pilgrims with foreign exchange operations, allowing them to carry amounts corresponding to their actual needs.
«Before Allah, everyone is equal,» Abdullakutty said. «There is complete transparency in the selection… The whole idea is to make the pilgrimage as smooth as possible for Indian Muslims.».