Word: mutawwif
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...Jidda he met his mutawwif-a professional guide who took Ahmed and 20 other Syrians under his wing for about $15 each, instructing them in the religious procedures required of a pilgrim and arranging food and lodging for the entire trip. Life used to be grim in Jidda during the ten days of the hadj, as heat-sick pilgrims squatted in the streets gathering strength for the 46-mile trek to Mecca. But newly rich Saudi Arabia has recently built a "Pilgrim City"-a roofed compound, equipped with food shops, electricity, running water and toilets. Here pilgrims wait...
Ahmed stayed in Mecca eight days, living in one of the small hotels that crowd the city. Again and again he visited the Kaaba, the small cubic building that houses the sacred Black Stone-the center of the earth for Moslems. Guided by his mutawwif, Ahmed queued up to put his head in the bowl-like enclosure to kiss the Black Stone, worn away by the lips of pilgrims, and added his kiss to the kisses of centuries. He made his seven counterclockwise turns around the Kaaba, three times running and four times walking...
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