MoRRA signed contracts with 132 Hajj, Umrah companies last year

KABUL (Pajhwok): Contracts with 132 Hajj and Umrah companies have been signed while necessary facilities to send more than 44,000 Umrah applicants to Saudi Arabia have been provided, an official said on Tuesday.

Addressing reporters here, officials of the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs Ministry (MoHRA) talked about sending 30,000 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, the necessary conditions, facilities and measures have been taken, and 652 scholars have been sent to that country as teachers.

They added that they have signed contracts with 132 companies applying for Hajj and Umrah and issued 42 permits to companies applying for Umrah and pilgrimage and provided the necessary facilities to send 44,307 applicants for Umrah to Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Azizurrahman Mansour, deputy head of the Education and Arrangement of Residential Places, said organizing 4 capacity building seminars for imams of central and provincial mosques, equipping 75 mosque mihrabs in 14 provinces and building 5 mosque mihrabs in the Ministry of Transportation, Atomic Energy Administration, Norm and Standards Administration, Samangan Provincial Authority and Farah Provincial Court are among the major activities of the ministry in the past five years..

He said in the past year, 353 fatwas have been issued on various issues, in 42 cases opinions have been expressed about the authenticity of the Holy Quran’s print, interpretations, books and thesis, and 7 scientific works have been authored and compiled.

Sheikh Mansour said during the last one year, 8,508 students have graduated from various departments of religious sciences, 80 have graduated from the first stage of training imams, and 15 have graduated from the Institute of Higher Recitation Institute.

Attaullah Khadem, head of the Hajj and Umra Department, said this year, 27 Afghan pilgrims died during the Hajj ceremony due to various causes, among them, several people died in traffic accidents and many of them died due to various diseases.

During the past one year, the leadership of this ministry participated in the 27th "Conference on Rapprochement of Islamic Religions" in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the "Consultative Conference of Scholars of the Islamic World" in Turkey and also visited the countries of Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia.

They added that this ministry has collected nearly 125 million Afghanis from the endowment areas of the center and the province in the past year.

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