KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is looking forward to closer ties with Saudi Arabia, officials and experts have said after the Kingdom’s Hajj and Umrah minister’s visit to Kuala Lumpur. Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah concluded on Wednesday his three-day visit to the Southeast Asian nation, where he met its new Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, members of his Cabinet and Hajj officials.
In probably the first of its kind, a Saudi Hajj services firm has refunded SR542,033 - equivalent to N107, 864,567 (US$144,091.30) as it failed to provide adequate and promised services, especially proper food and accommodation, to Nigerian pilgrims who visited Makkah in 2022.
A Bangladeshi willing to perform Hajj will have to pay Tk59,000 more for the Hajj packages which were earlier announced by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Hajj Agency Association of Bangladesh (HAAB). During a media briefing at the ministry on Thursday, State Minister for Religious Affairs Faridul Haque Khan said the executive committee on Hajj management raised the
Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Tuesday said that it was for the Saudi Arabian government and not the Government of India to decide the date for Hajj in the year 2022.