‘Around 30,000 tourists visited Southern Mazar shrines in 2014’

AMMAN — The religious appeal of the Southern Mazar tombs and shrines continues to attract thousands of people from around the world each year despite the regional unrest, an official said Tuesday.

Some 30,000 people of different nationalities visited the shrines and tombs of Prophet Mohammad’s companions in the Southern Mazar District, some 13km south of Karak City, Southern Mazar Awqaf Department Director Nael Sarayrah said.

“The number of visitors to Mazar’s religious sites in 2014 was slightly higher than in 2013, when around 28,000 people came to the area,” Sarayrah told The Jordan Times.

Of the total visitors to the district last year, 13,303 were from foreign countries, 8,816 from Arab states and 7,955 were Jordanians, he noted.

The religious significance of the Southern Mazar sites dates back to 629AD when the leaders of the Muslim army — Jaffar Bin Abi Taleb, Zeid Bin Haretha and Abdullah Bin Rawaha — were killed in the Mutah battle against the Byzantines.

“It is true that the number of visitors went down during the last two years compared to 2012, when more than 42,000 people visited the district, but the tombs still top the list of must-see sites for a lot of people around the world,” Sarayrah noted.

He indicated that tourists who visited the shrines last year came from India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Thailand, Singapore, Turkey, Australia, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

The tombs and shrines, located some 150km south of Amman, are being renovated under Royal directives at a cost of JD6.7 million, Sarayrah noted.

“There are several plans to improve the tourism experience at the sites such as connecting the tombs of the Mutah martyrs with the location of the battle through parks to be named after each one of them,” he said.