As Islam’s holiest city gets ready to host the largest hajj pilgrimage since the Covid-19 outbreak, believers from all over the world have crowded the streets of Mecca.
Banners welcomed the faithful, including the first international visitors since 2019, festooned squares and alleys, while armed security forces patrolled the city, the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad (bpuh).
After two years of severely reduced attendance due to the pandemic, one million people, including nearly 850,000 foreigners, are allowed at this year’s hajj; a central part of Islam that all able-bodied Muslims are required to do at least once.
Under tight sanitary guidelines, one million vaccinated pilgrims under the age of 65 will attend the hajj, the holiest site in Islam, disinfected 10 times a day.
According to the official toll, the rites have been the scene of countless calamities, including a 2015 stampede that may have killed up to 2,300 people and a 1979 assault by hundreds of shooters that claimed 153 lives.
The pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam, hajj, is a powerful source of prestige for Saudi Arabia and its ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is returning from the diplomatic wilderness.
Days after the hajj, Prince Mohammed will welcome US president Joe Biden who, with oil prices sent soaring by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has reneged on promises to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
The hajj, which costs at least $5,000 per person, is a game changer for the world’s biggest oil exporter, bringing in about $12 billion a year along with other religious visits.
Masks are no longer compulsory in most enclosed spaces in Saudi Arabia but they will be mandatory at the Grand Mosque. Pilgrims from abroad will have to submit a negative PCR test result.
The Grand Mosque will be “washed 10 times a day… by more than 4,000 male and female workers”, with more than 130,000 liters of disinfectant used each time, authorities said.
(With Agency Inputs)