Coordinating Minister For Human Development And Culture Affirms Mandatory Hajj Only Once

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy (ANTARA/Sean Filo Muhamad)

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy emphasized that the pilgrimage that must be carried out by Muslims is only once.

"Based on the initial data I met, every year there are around 6,000 pilgrims who have left more than once. There are two or three times, and I think that is actually the right of people who have not had a pilgrimage, because Hajj is mandatory only once in a lifetime," he said as quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, August 29.

Coordinating Minister Muhadjir said he found data on the waiting period of one of the prospective pilgrims who had to wait for the queue for 38 years.

"So if the age list is 40, it means that 78 years old just left, already grandfather and grandfather," he said.

Therefore, he said, if later regulations related to the prohibition of Hajj pilgrimages are applied more than once, it will make it easier to regulate pilgrims who will go for Hajj.

According to him, the prohibition of Hajj is more than once without violating the Shari'a, because the pilgrimage is only required once in a lifetime.

Related to this, he has coordinated with the Indonesian Ministry of Religion to study the case, as well as the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) for its deepening in terms of sharia law.

Coordinating Minister Muhadjir revealed that the restrictions on performing the pilgrimage have been regulated in the Minister of Religion Regulation (Permenag) No. 29 of 2015, which states that people who want to perform the pilgrimage second time and so on must wait for a gap of ten years.

"If the ban cannot be stipulated, the Minister of Religion may review it, maybe it can be extended to (waiting) 25 or 30 years before leaving again," he said.

Coordinating Minister Muhadjir stated that efforts to prohibit the pilgrimage were more than once in favor of people who had not performed the pilgrimage, meaning that they were still obliged to perform it.

In addition, he does not want people who have not carried out the pilgrimage to be hampered in fulfilling their obligations, because there are people who have fulfilled their obligations to perform the pilgrimage, but carry out the pilgrimage for the umpteenth time.

"After all, if they can't have Hajj more than once, they can also carry out small Hajj, namely Umrah which can be done at any time," said the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture.