One million Muslim pilgrims gathered in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday to begin the largest Hajj, or annual Islamic pilgrimage, the Kingdom has seen since before the Chinese coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, Arab News reported.
“A million pilgrims began the spiritual journey of a lifetime as the first rituals of the annual Hajj began,” the Riyadh-based newspaper wrote on July 7.
“Hundreds of thousands of worshippers circled Islam’s holiest site, the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque in Makkah [Mecca]. Many held umbrellas to block the sun as the temperature climbed to 42C [107.6 Fahrenheit],” Arab News observed.
“On Thursday [July 7], the pilgrims will move to a vast tented city at Mina, about 5 kilometers [3 miles] from the Grand Mosque, ahead of the main rite at Mount Arafat, where the [Islamic] Prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon,” the newspaper detailed.
The Hajj is an annual pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The journey is required of all able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lifetime, as long as they can afford the trip. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which also include a profession of faith, prayer, alms, and fasting.
Though ancient, Saudi Arabia’s Hajj has become one of the world’s largest religious gatherings in recent years. The religious tourism event generates an average of $12 billion for Saudi Arabia each year. The Chinese coronavirus pandemic hampered Hajj earnings from 2020 to 2021, when the Saudi government was forced to close the pilgrimage to all foreigners citing public health concerns. The event drew just 1,000 Saudi citizens and residents in 2020 after the Kingdom enforced the attendance cap. For comparison, 2.5 million Islamic adherents from across the globe participated in the Hajj in 2019.
Muslim pilgrims gather around the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca on August 8, 2019, prior to the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage in the holy city. (Photo credit should read FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images)
Saudi government officials invited a select number of foreign pilgrims to this year’s Hajj for the first time since before March 2020. These foreigners included Muslims from Indonesia, Malaysia, and India, hundreds of whom began arriving in the Kingdom in early June in preparation for the event. The Hajj is slated to last this year from July 7 to July 12.
The Saudi government employed a new online booking system for this year’s Hajj. The system was based on a lottery “designed to keep numbers down to one million or under, by comparison with 2019 when 2.5 million Muslims made the journey for Hajj before the coronavirus pandemic hit,” Al Jazeera observed on July 7.
The 2019 Hajj and Umrah — which is an optional, shorter version of the Hajj that may be completed at any time of year — generated roughly $12 billion for the Saudi economy, according to a June 29 report by Al Jazeera.
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