Manasik App— Your Personal Umrah/Hajj Guide
Design decisions behind Manasik
What is Manasik? Literally is an Arabic word that means rituals. In Islamic term, it refers to the ritual of Hajj and Umrah.
Hajj is one of the largest human gathering in the world. Over 4 million people gather in Makkah from the 9th to the 13th of the month of Dzul Hijjah, the last month in the Islamic calendar. Most people will come a few weeks ealier or go back a few weeks later to spend more time worshipping in Makkah and visiting Madinah. Umrah can be done anytime of the year, and because of that, the number of umrah visitors is almost double the number of people who perform Hajj.
For most people, Hajj or Umrah is an expensive endeavour; you save money for a few years before you can afford to perform it. And because of that many people will attend intensive training on the specific rituals of hajj and umrah at their country before embarking on the journey. But like many things in life, theoretical training and the practical aspect of rituals in a foreign land can be very different. And the difference can be daunting.
The Problem
There are many apps that teach you how to perform the manasik of Hajj and Umrah. We don’t want to enter into this crowded space. What we want is a personal guide; an app that guides you through the manasik, the rituals. It is not meant to replace training, it is meant to complement. Here are the problems that we have identified when talking to people performing Hajj or Umrah.
- Education and Experience
For most people hajj is a one in a lifetime experience. And umrah, while some may perform it more than once, for the rest of the Muslims, it is something you can afford to do a few times in your life. Herein lies the problem, the rituals for hajj and umrah is very specific and many are location based. If you are not familiar with it, you’ll need help.
Some institutions do provide trainings and some even go to have life simulations, constructing mini Kaabah, jamaraat in their localities. While this is good, nothing beats having a personal guide who is experienced in doing hajj and umrah. So many resort to hiring the services of a mutawwif — someone to guide the rituals of the ibadah. - The Crowd
The crowd during hajj is unimaginable. And for umrah, during peak seasons, the crowd is just like hajj. And in such crowd, unless you have a personal mutawwif, you won’t be hearing what the guide is trying to say. For most people, they go perform umrah in a group and hire one mutawwif for the group. The crowd also makes reading while doing to the rituals very difficult and some do it with much discomfort. In fact trying to read while doing hajj has proven to cause accidents which in some cases have caused severe injuries.
The App
We decided that if were to make a hajj/umrah app it will have to be eyes-free. The app will need to replicate the role of a mutawwif — the app will be your personal mutawwif. Hence the app must have the following:
- Location Aware
We wanted to use the GPS in the phone to guide the user. There will be no need to fiddle with buttons in the app. Just turn on the app and allow it to track your locations, it will notify you what to do when you are at a particular locaiton. For instance when you are at miqat, the app will prompt you to make the intention for umrah and ihram. The app will know that you are on the way to Makkah and will remind you to recite talbiah. - Audio Guide
In order to be fully eyes-free, we need to rely on audio guide. While you can perform most of the rites in umrah and hajj by making any invocation, scholars have outlined certain recitations that are recommended while doing each ritual such as entering Masjidil Haram, Tawaf, Saie and pretty much everything else. So like a good mutawwif, Manasik will guide you through those recitation. It will read the invocations in short phrases and pause to allow you to follow it. Exactly what a good mutawwif would do. We have to be extra careful with the pauses as we don’t want to pause where it is inappropriate to stop from a meaning point of view.
With all these in mind, we started with our prototype. And January of 2015 we sent out a team of three to go on a research trip to Makkah and Madinah.
When we got back from our umrah trip we realised that we have one problem:
GPS doesn’t work well in Masjidil Haram even though it is open air. The crowd in the area with their mobile phones are causing a lot of disturbance in the signal.
We had to go back to the drawing board to solve our guide problems in Masjdil Haram. Without GPS in Masjidil Haram we can’t guide user while tawaf and saie. And we can’t count the number rounds they have done for the two ibadahs.
After some tinkering, we decided that we wanted the app remain eyes-free but not necessarily hands-free. The solution is to use the buttons on the earphone to interact with the app. We designed the app to allow users to interact with the app by listening to the audio guide and using the buttons to move forward or backward. This way we do not need to rely on GPS when user is indoors and at areas where our tests show that GPS signal is unreliable.
The 1.0
After working on the app we released version 1.0 just in time for Hajj. We had a few users testing the app during last year’s hajj and gave us their feedback. To be honest, without proper on-site testing, it was quite difficult to develop an eyes-free app. The 1.0 turn out to be confusing for users.
From the feedback we received from our users we reworked the app. Cleaned up the design and made improved on the audio intructions. And one crucial change we made was to simplify the earphone buttons interaction. The volume down button to move forward, the volume up button to pause. And at every juncture where user is required to use the earphone button, the audio instructions will remind the user of this.
The 1.2 — Ahmed
In time for the umrah season we released the much improved version of Manasik. The app now has a new design and clearer instructions and we introduced a new feature for visiting historical sites in Makkah and Madinah and we call this Ziarah.
The new Ziarah feature became a hit with our users as most of the historical sites in these two Holy Lands have either been demolished or left without any explanation. Pilgrims are usually taken to the historical sites but depending on your guide, he may not explain anything at all. Our team had a mutawwif who upon arrival at Uhud, the site of one of the most important battle in Islam, he simply said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Uhud. The Battle of Uhud took place here. And you can buy dates from those stalls there.”
With 1.2 we also gave a name and personality to our Digital Mutawwif — Ahmed.
The Future
We are currently working on version 1.3, which will be a huge leap from 1.2. But that’s for another article. In the mean time you can get hold of Manasik from which is available on iOS and Android.
We are committed to make improve your hajj and umrah experience with Manasik, and we request for your du’a.
