Chinanews, Beijing, Nov. 10 - Organized by the Chinese Islamic Association (CIA), some 9,600 Muslims in China will set off from Lanzhou, Urumqi, Beijing and Kunming on November 29 by charter flights to attend the Hajji pilgrimage for the year 2006-2007 in the holy city Medina of Saudi Arabia.

 

The Chinese Islamic Association will be responsible for organizing the religious event. In an exclusive interview given to this Chinanews reporter, the team leader Mustafaa Yang Zhibo, who is also deputy director-general of the Chinese Islamic Association, said that a team of some 9,600 Chinese Muslims would attend the religious event this year, the biggest one ever of it kind in Chinese pilgrimage history. Most of them are ethnic minorities from Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Henan provinces and autonomous regions. China Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines will offer charter flights for Chinese Muslims attending the religious event.

 

Yang Zhibo said that Chinese government’s policy in organizing a “well planned and orderly” religious event was attracting more and more Muslims to join in, and also acclaimed by the Saudi Arabian people.