An excellent BBC radio documentary by Navid Akhtar on the Ka’ba in the holy city of Mecca in modern day Saudi Arabia. Must listen if you have access to BBC’s iPlayer (UK only). For those of those not able to listen to this due to geographic location, there may be a way, will publish details when I am able to. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hxnwb/Sunday_Feature_The_Black_Cube/
A new charitable organisation has been launched called the Council of British Hajis: The CBH is a not-for-profit voluntary charity whose aims are to work for the welfare of British Hajjis and to ensure that they are relieved of any distress and to ensure that Hajj service providers perform their obligations towards the pilgrims making the experience an enjoyable one. See http://www.the-cbh.org.uk/ for more details.
Before I performed the Hajj in 2007, I used to be very critical of those who would go every year, I thought that this was very selfish since the numbers of hujjaj increase year upon year and that if you have completed this sacred duty once and fulfilled your obligation you should go for umrah instead to lessen the human load and burden on this momentous occasion. I now understand why those whom Allah has given the tawfiq financially go…