By Anam Tazeen

JEDDAH — The Haji Muhammad Ayub Seoharvi Welfare Organization will be distributing 75,000 gift packets among pilgrims during this year’s Haj.

The Jeddah-based organization has been active in this cause and other charitable activities for over a decade, senior official of the organization Bahjat Ayub Zinjani (Najmi) said here in a press release.

The gift packets this year will include easy-to-carry light weighed prayer mats, brochures, key chains, stickers and wall hangings containing selected Ahadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad — peace be upon him) and supplications in several languages. They also include a bottle of attar.

Najmi, founding president of Maulana Hifzur Rahman Seoharvi Academy and a leading dawa worker in Jeddah, said the gifts will be distributed among all the pilgrims based on the quotas decided which include 30% to Pakistani pilgrims, 30% to Indian pilgrims and the remaining 40% to pilgrims coming from other countries.

On behalf of the academy, this year a group of around 20 volunteers (both men and women) will carry out the process of gift distribution by traveling to and fro daily from Jeddah to Makkah.

Their target is to hand over the gifts to at least 5,000 pilgrims each day, Najmi added. The group plans to reach out to and serve the pilgrims in Madina and the Haj terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport too from next year.

Najmi has been assisting both Umrah and Haj pilgrims by guiding them on ways to perform the rituals and also by advising them about the precautionary measures to be taken into account that can save them from harming themselves and others.

Women pilgrims should refrain from wearing glass bangles while performing tawaf (circumambulation of the Holy Kaaba) as they might break leading to an injury in the hand and also can harm other pilgrims in the mataaf, he said.

Najmi is supported by his wife, Umm Fakeha Zinjani and son Fahad, in taking on this noble line of work and in reaching out to pilgrims.

Ayub Seoharvi is the son-in-law of Maulana Hifzur Rahman, a great Muslim leader of the Indian subcontinent who participated in the freedom struggle and helped Muslims lead a dignified life following the partition of India. He was an Islamic scholar of repute and a prolific writer, who is much remembered in India and Pakistan for several books, the most notable of which are “Qassasul Anbiya.”