By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 9 August:
Mustafa Abdul Jalil flew to Saudi Arabia today to perform Umrah at Mecca, one day after standing . . .[restrict]down as head of the National Transitional Council.
Having led the NTC throughout the revolution and overseen Libya’s first peaceful transfer of power in its modern history last night, Jalil’s decision to perform the Umrah now is not seen as a coincidence.
Ramadan is a particularly popular time to perform the Umrah. Although not obligatory for Muslims, unlike Haj the performance of Umrah is seen as having equal merit to that of Haj. However, Jalil was unable to head to Mecca and do so until now because of his responsibilities until last night as head of the NTC.
Having stepped down from the postion, Jalil has announced his intention to retire from politics. [/restrict]
