The tent city of Mina?

[insufficient]

:salam:

Apologies for this not strictly being an being an 'islamic' topic.

I am currently writing my degree dissertation on the tent cities of the Hajj, specifically Mina. I would be very grateful if anyone had any information to share.

I have read in books and articles published in the 1980s about a yearly plan being made, involving aerial photography, called the 'Mina Annual Guide Plan'. If anyone has more information about this, I would be very interested, since the books in question are in a library and I cannot scan the images, only get poor-quality photocopies.

My research so far suggests that originally pilgrims would bring their own tents to Mina. Throughout '80s, Mina was rebuilt every year with white cotton tents. Then (I have some doubts about this as it is very loosely inferred), perhaps in the '90s, permanent cotton tents were erected. A major fire caused these to be replaced, in 2003, with the current 'permanent' city. Any more information or clarification about any of these phases would be very helpful.

The current tents are organized by nationality. Does anyone have specifics, or maps, with regards to this? I am sure that, :mash:, many of you have been on Hajj recently. I am sure it was the least thing you were worried about, but is there anything that would be interesting about the tents, or even the facilitation of Hajj arrangements as a whole, to a student of architecture?

Finally, I humbly request that you please spare a few words of your duas to ask Allah to help me in my studies.

:jazak:

Ma'salaam

[azimshaikh]

yellow coloured pole at the camp (TENT) notifies the area allotted to INDIANS< PAKISTANIS and BANGALADESHIS

[meelash]

:salam:

Apologies for this not strictly being an being an 'islamic' topic.

I am currently writing my degree dissertation on the tent cities of the Hajj, specifically Mina. I would be very grateful if anyone had any information to share.

I have read in books and articles published in the 1980s about a yearly plan being made, involving aerial photography, called the 'Mina Annual Guide Plan'. If anyone has more information about this, I would be very interested, since the books in question are in a library and I cannot scan the images, only get poor-quality photocopies.

My research so far suggests that originally pilgrims would bring their own tents to Mina. Throughout '80s, Mina was rebuilt every year with white cotton tents. Then (I have some doubts about this as it is very loosely inferred), perhaps in the '90s, permanent cotton tents were erected. A major fire caused these to be replaced, in 2003, with the current 'permanent' city. Any more information or clarification about any of these phases would be very helpful.

The current tents are organized by nationality. Does anyone have specifics, or maps, with regards to this? I am sure that, :mash:, many of you have been on Hajj recently. I am sure it was the least thing you were worried about, but is there anything that would be interesting about the tents, or even the facilitation of Hajj arrangements as a whole, to a student of architecture?

Finally, I humbly request that you please spare a few words of your duas to ask Allah to help me in my studies.

:jazak:

Ma'salaam

السلام عليكم,

I checked, and I still had my maps from 1426 Hajj of Mina and Arafat. It's on oversized paper so a bit difficult to scan, so I took pictures instead. If you really need scans, I can probably do it sometime.

The tents are all on cement slab about 2', if I remember correctly, above the level of the roads. Every block of tents has a bunch of stalls each containing both toilet and shower with a large wudu' sink on either end. This is how the men's area is, obviously I don't know how the women's is. You can see these clearly on maps.google.com satellite view, they are the long skinny rectangles in each group of tents. I believe there are kitchen tents in which it is allowed to cook with prior arrangement, but food is actually readily available by delivery and from street vendors. Every tent is labeled with coloured and numbered poles, and all the haajis are supposed to have badges with their color and number on it in case you get lost (which almost everyone does). The tents have permanent airconditioning, sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers.

As far as facilitation, it is really amazing and hard to describe. Just the handling of the trash pickup is an unbelievable job for those few days, as you can imagine, required huge bulldozers to pickup the trash and move it to central areas and then truck it out.

If you have any other specific questions I may be able to help you out.

http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af112/meelash/DSCF0001.jpg
http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af112/meelash/DSCF0002.jpg