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Turkmenistan organizes special flight for pilgrims to Mecca

Politics Materials 15 December 2008 12:30 (UTC +04:00)

Turkmenistan, Ashkhabad, Dec.15 / Trend , corr. E.Hsanov / The Turkmen authorities organized charter flight to believing compatriots to Mecca. Today Turkmen television reported that the airplane of the Turkmenhovayollari airlines with 188 pilgrims, who pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia under the sponsorship of the state, landed in Ashgabat airport.

Turkmen in Islam practice Sunni. This year 188 compatriots, after visiting the sacred earth of the Prophet and after completing all required rituals became the Hajj- keepers of high spirituality and morals.

Turkmenistan has been sponsoring such actions since 2001. Annually believers from Turkmenistan join million of prayers on the threshold of the Kurban Bayram and visit holy cities of Islam - Mecca and Medina. "Since the very independence thousands of Turkmen got an opportunity to pilgrimage to holy places and fulfill all devotions related to Eid al-Adha, which the Turkic nations call Kurban Bayram.

The incumbent President Gurbangulu Berdimukhamedov after election for this post in 2007 left for Saudi Arabia in order to complete pilgrimage. The former president of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov, which passed away in Dec 2006, also completed omra-hajj (small hajj). For a while after, the construction French company Buig erected the Saparmurat-hajj not far from the capital in the city of Gek-tepe.

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