A majority of pilgrims from the Eastern Province are back home delighted to have performed an incident-free Haj this year. All the pilgrims expressed satisfaction and praised King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and his government for managing the annual event in an exemplary way. Several expat pilgrims from Dammam, Al-Khobar, Al-Ahsa and other cities in the Eastern Province reached home directly from Makkah skipping their trip to Madina. Ali Adham, an Egyptian national, told Saudi Gazette in Al-Khobar that he did not go to Madina in order to provide more room for pilgrims from abroad. “We, being blessed to live in the Kingdom, can visit Madina anytime we want. So the Haj group I traveled with decided that we would exclude Madina at the time of Haj so that it would be less crowded for those coming from outside the Kingdom,” he said. “I performed Haj ten years ago, and this year it was a very smooth Haj in comparison,” he added. Muhammad Musthafa, a Pakistani national living in Dammam, who performed pilgrimage with his wife and two children, also shared the same view. “It was a fantastic Haj this year, everything went smoothly and I really applaud the Kingdom's efforts to make the pilgrimage easy and safe. We were able to perform the rituals with much ease and the scouts and police officers were really helpful,” he said.
