Answer
Wa `alaykum as-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
Hajj is basically a spiritual journey in which a Hajji should give his utmost care to rituals, giving the least care to food, luxuries and the like.
On VIP hajj packages, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states,
I would agree with you in expressing indignation at commercializing Hajj; it has been turned into a sort of extended picnic or vacation, accompanied by sumptuous feasts and all other comforts.
Ironically, the holy cities are no more the historic cities reminding us of the great Islamic past; they look more like modern European cities.
All with a modicum of Islamic conscience should deplore this situation. However, unfortunately, our scholars are mostly cozying up to the rich and famous in order to curry favor. I can only repeat the poet’s words:
Religion is corrupted by the kings, scholars and monks.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.