Hajj Under Debt

As the nitty gritty of the budget and the monetary affairs of Pakistan are being discussed threadbare daily over the media by the financial pundits and economic gurus, it has transpired that the state of our economy couldn’t be worse and we would have to go once again to the IMF with the begging bowl for a loan of 5 billion dollars to survive. According to these financial whiz kids we Pakistanis as a nation are under such a colossal internal and external debt that the share of each and every citizen of Pakistan comes to Rs. 18,000/- per head which will increase further with the fresh loan from the IMF. This has greatly disturbed me as according to some Hajj is not obligatory for a person under debt.  About 2 million Pakistanis (natives and ex-pats) are expected to go for Hajj this year and each one of them would spend approximately Rs. 4 lacs, thus spending a total amount of Rs. 800,000,000,000 (Rs. 800 billions!!) and that too mostly in foreign exchange. In the l ight of above relaxation while under debt could the religious authorities kindly throw some light on it? Are we as a people under debt not exempt from this obligation till we clear our debts?

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)