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n Monday the first batch of Indonesia'€™s aspiring pilgrims leave for the Holy Land for the Muslim duty that is the haj. They will arrive well ahead of Idul Adha, the Day of Sacrifice, which will mark the highpoint of the pilgrimage in which some 2 million Muslims descend annually on Mecca.

Given the length of time they have waited to make the pilgrimage virtually none of this year'€™s batch of some 160,000 Indonesian Muslims has been deterred by worries about the Ebola virus or the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. However, just because pilgrims are totally devoted to their purpose does not mean authorities can get away with such proclamations as Mecca is '€œguaranteed by Allah to be free of any epidemic and diseases,'€ as Abdul Aziz, the director general for pilgrimage at the Religious Affairs Ministry, said.

Indonesian pilgrims need to be reminded that extra care in sanitation and personal hygiene is required, along with other efforts to maintain their health in the much hotter temperatures than Indonesians are used to.

Also, the absolute patience the pilgrims displayed during the wait for their turn to go on the haj and their endurance of all the shortcomings they will encounter during their stay does not mean they will have endless tolerance for the exploitation of pilgrims.

The ministry now led by Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, who replaced Suryadharma Ali (who is under investigation for graft), raises the hope of better haj management. Although neighboring Malaysia has been named a world model for its haj management, our Religious Affairs Ministry and all the politicians eying the money in its coffers have managed to resist every recommendation and effort to make the management of the pilgrimage independent of the ministry.

A deposit of 50 percent of the total price of going on the haj, the cheapest package of which costs some Rp 50 million (US$4,300), must be placed in the ministry'€™s appointed bank account and the pilgrim cannot remove it until his or her name is chosen for the batch of any given year.

Few know where the interest on those trillions of rupiah worth of individual deposits goes, but few pilgrims raise questions about it, given the focus they place on completing their religious duty.

Neither is it clear what is stopping the government from trying to reduce the currently required time of 40 days that Indonesians must spend on the pilgrimage '€” unless it is to allow for the lucrative business afforded by all the extra accommodation, meals and other needs.

Guests of Allah, as pilgrims to Mecca are called, come from many of the world'€™s hotspots and some have said they will pray for peace in their ravaged homelands while on pilgrimage.

The pilgrims from Indonesia will be leaving their country on the verge of a new leadership. It would be a new era indeed if we saw serious efforts made to better serve these guests of Allah and to end the chronic corruption in the Religious Affairs Ministry.