How one family turned small savings into a shared haj journey

MAKKAH: For many Malaysian children, duit raya is quickly spent on toys, snacks or shopping trips before the festive season is even over.

But in one Perak household, Aidilfitri money came with a different lesson – save first, spend later.

Every year, instead of spending their duit raya, 12 siblings were encouraged by their parents to deposit the money into their Tabung Haji accounts – a simple practice that began more than two decades ago.

That long-term habit has now come full circle. This haj season, 10 of the siblings and six of their spouses are in the Holy Land together, fulfilling a journey their parents had prepared them for since childhood.

Muhammad Huzair Zakhal, 39, said his parents started planning early by opening accounts for all their children and consistently adding to the savings whenever they could.

“We never really saw duit raya as spending money because most of it would go into Tabung Haji,” he told Bernama.

“When we were younger, we didn’t fully understand why our parents were doing it. But now we realise it was one of their earliest efforts to help ensure we could perform haj one day.”

The family’s approach was simple but consistent. Apart from duit raya, their mother, Azizah Zaudi, 69, also set aside RM10 monthly for each child, later increasing the amount to RM20 when she could.

By 2009, all the siblings had successfully registered for haj. But even then, when the siblings eventually received their offers for this year’s pilgrimage, some did not have enough to fully cover the costs.

For a moment, there was concern not everyone would be able to make the trip together. But their mother remained determined.

“Some of us thought we might need to postpone it, but our mother really wanted all her children to go together and helped however she could,” Huzair said.

He also revealed that their eldest sister had already performed haj last year, while another sister was unable to join this year because of health issues.

Still, having most of the family reunited in Makkah has turned the pilgrimage into something even more meaningful. “Here, we are not only able to worship together, but also spend valuable time with one another,” Huzair said.

“As adults, especially after starting our own families, it’s difficult to gather all together like this.”

And just as the tradition once began with them, it is now continuing into the next generation: many of the family’s children already have their own Tabung Haji accounts, with some registered for future haj pilgrimages despite still being very young.

المصدر: Free Malaysia Today