{"id":4322,"date":"2009-11-23T13:01:50","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T13:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2009\/11\/23\/muslim-minister-to-take-pilgrimage-to-mecca\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T12:06:48","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T12:06:48","slug":"muslim-minister-to-take-pilgrimage-to-mecca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2009\/11\/23\/muslim-minister-to-take-pilgrimage-to-mecca\/","title":{"rendered":"Muslim Minister to take pilgrimage to Mecca"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3>Shahid Malik first British Minister to perform Hajj<\/h3>\n<div><strong>COMMUNITIES and Local Government Minister Shahid Malik is to become the first ever British Minister to perform Hajj.<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>The Member of Parliament for Dewsbury will join thousands of British Muslims in Mecca this week for the annual pilgrimage. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Mr Malik became Britain\u2019s first Muslim Government Minister in June 2007 when Prime Minister Gordon Brown took the historic decision to appoint him as International Development Minister.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>While in that role some of the most significant increases in British aid were achieved in Palestine, Yemen, Pakistan, Bangladeshi, Sudan, Kosovo and Indonesia.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Speaking about his pilgrimage, Mr Malik said: \u201cHajj is a pillar of Islam and a compulsory act of worship for those who are blessed with the means to undertake the journey. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>\u201cI feel a great sense of privilege at having the opportunity of visiting the holy sites through the journey of devotion to Allah that Hajj represents.\u201d<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Hajj is expected to take place this Thursday with Eid-Al-Adha celebrations following on Friday. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shahid Malik first British Minister to perform Hajj COMMUNITIES and Local Government Minister Shahid Malik is to become the first ever British Minister to perform Hajj. &#13; The Member of Parliament for Dewsbury will join thousands of British Muslims in Mecca this week for the annual pilgrimage. &#13; Mr Malik became Britain\u2019s first Muslim Government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}