By TCN News,
New Delhi: Jamia Millia Islamia, in collaboration with the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is organising a two-day Workshop to prepare a comprehensive encyclopedia of Hajj Pilgrims and Pilgrimage from South Asian countries on 22-23 February, 2014.
32 prominent scholars, academics and researchers from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Maldives, who are experts on past and present Hajj management from the countries of South Asia, are participating in this important workshop.
Indian contingent of Hajj pilgrims had remained the largest till the partition of India in 1947. Even today India sends the second largest number of pilgrims to perform Hajj after Indonesia. A lot of material on their journeys to Makkah Mukarrama and Madina Munawwara is scattered over different parts of the Indian sub-continent and other countries of South Asia in the form of travelogues, details of Hajj endowments, systems of transportations, medical facilities to Hajjis and their departure and arrival arrangements since ages.
King Abdul Aziz Foundation of Saudi Arabia and Jamia Millia Islamia felt the need to compile the information and bring it out in the form of a comprehensive Encyclopedia. Jamia Millia Islamia was identified as the nodal agency from South Asian countries to coordinate in compiling this encyclopedia in an agreement that was signed more than a year ago by the Vice Chancellor of Jamia and the Secretary General of King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, Riyadh.