Source : Islam.About / 07 May 2014

Travelling for the annual pilgrimage to Makkah (Hajj) requires both spiritial and material preparation. Certain religious and logistical requirements must be met before one can set off for the trip.

Source : Saudi Arabia / 25 Apr 2014

Authorities at the Grand Mosque at Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque at Madinah will soon replace plastic water dispensers with stainless steel tankers in a bid to keep Zamzam water supplies sterile and cool for pilgrims ahead of the scorching summer months, said Maher Al-Zahrani, director of the Zamzam Water Division at the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques Affairs.

Source : Al Arabiya / 21 Apr 2014

The majority of Arabs want tighter censorship of films and TV shows, according to a six-nation poll.

Around 69 percent of respondents felt there should be greater regulation of romantic content, while 74 percent said more should be done about on-screen violence, according to a survey by Northwestern University in Qatar in partnership with the Doha Film Institute.

Source : SG / 01 Apr 2014

Source : Arab news / 29 Mar 2014

The Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowment and Guidance has urged preachers to keep their Friday sermons short and concise and is considering taking legal action against preachers who discuss controversial topics.

“Ministry inspectors have received complaints from worshippers that preachers make their sermons unnecessarily long and often repeat the same sermons several times throughout the year,” a ministry source said. “Boring sermons make worshippers inattentive and defeat the purpose of attracting people to faith.”

Source : IINA / 24 Mar 2014

Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) President Muhammad Al-Suwaiket said the project linking Makkah to Madinah (Al-Haramain Train Project) will be ready by 2016, while adding: “Only 50 % of the project has been completed so far.”

By Irfan Mohammad / Arab news / 21 Mar 2014

The project for translating Friday sermons at the Two Holy Mosques in Makkah and Madinah is rapidly expanding to include languages other than Urdu and English.

Live translation into the Malay and French will be launched from Friday at the Grand Mosque in Makkah.

By P.K. Abdul Ghafour / Arab news / 20 Mar 2014

Over half of Friday sermon listeners do not remember the subject of the sermon, according to a recent survey conducted by the King Abdul Aziz National Dialogue Center. 

However, more than two-thirds of the 685 respondents, picked randomly from the Kingdom’s 13 regions, said sermons had impacted their lives.

Source : Saudi Gazette / 18 Mar 2014

The Saudi job market is expected to open up considerably in the next three months, with seven out of 10 companies expecting to create up to 10 new positions, according to a survey.

Most of these jobs will be with large or multinational private companies, presenting exciting opportunities for new graduates and first-time employees in particular, showed the latest Bayt.com Middle East and North Africa Job Index Survey, conducted by Bayt.com, the Middle East’s number one job site, and YouGov, a research and consulting organization.

Source : Gulf-Times / 17 Mar 2014

Saudi authorities have banned hundreds of books, including works by renowned Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish, as part of a crackdown on publications deemed threatening to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The local Okaz daily reported yesterday that organisers at the Riyadh International Book Fair had confiscated “more than 10,000 copies of 420 books” during the exhibition.