Jakarta. President-elect Prabowo Subianto recently thanked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) for a smooth sailing hajj season, as hundreds of thousands of Indonesians fly to Mecca to perform the annual religious ritual.

On Wednesday evening local time, MBS hosted Prabowo in Jeddah. As the visit coincided with the hajj season, Prabowo brought up how the Saudi government had been helping the Indonesian pilgrims. 

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Your Majesty for ensuring the safety of Indonesian pilgrims until they complete their hajj journeys here in Saudi Arabia,” Prabowo told MBS, as reported by a recent ministerial press statement.

The soon-to-be Indonesian leader also praised Saudi’s initiative to streamline the pilgrimage process -- a program popularly known as the Mecca Route. The scheme aims at enhancing the pilgrimage experience for worshippers from Indonesia and Malaysia, among other countries. Pilgrims and their luggage are directly transported to their accommodation in Mecca and Medina upon arriving in Saudi Arabia, enabling them to skip the long queues at the airport. Saudi also claims that pilgrims under this initiative only spend a few minutes at the immigration counters.

Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country. The Saudi government granted Indonesia an additional hajj pilgrimage quota of 20,000 people. This allows Indonesia to send 241,000 pilgrims this year. The Religious Affairs Ministry claims that this is the largest number of hajj pilgrims Indonesia has ever sent in history. About 213,320 of the pilgrims will take part in the government-managed, “regular” hajj pilgrimage. Some 27,680 people are going to Mecca using private travel agency services.

Prabowo is set to assume power this October alongside his vice president-elect Gibran Rakabuming Raka. According to his election campaign manifesto, Prabowo seeks to establish a hajj savings body as a means to enable a “quality pilgrimage”.

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