A Survey On Hajj Mobile Applications

Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is an annual pilgrimage, mandatory on every Muslim and must be performed at least once in a lifetime. To perform Hajj in a perfect manner, one has to follow location and time correctly as per guidelines. The task is quite challenging as more than 4 million pilgrims gather from around 140 countries to perform rituals from 8th Zhul Hijjah to 13th Zhul Hijjah of the Hijri lunar calendar. Every pilgrim wants to perform their rituals in the best way. Many smartphone applications have been created to help pilgrims perform their rituals during Hajj. In this survey paper, we present taxonomy of Hajj applications. One aspect of this taxonomy is that it covers Hajj applications in different essence. There is no application that provides all services for Hajj due to complexity in the application. Other important aspects are taken into account in taxonomy are offline services over online services due to limited availability of mobile data especially during five days of Hajj. The survey takes an in-depth knowledge of each application and presents services for each group in the taxonomy. The apps are discussed and analysed based on various factors such as languages, individual service and group of services based on downloads. Moreover, this paper help pilgrims to see available Hajj applications with their list of services on one platform. It will also help developers to enhance their Hajj applications or develop new applications based on the available list of services. The document can also help authorities to enhance Hajj by providing valuable services to pilgrims.