Millions of Pilgrims
MAKKAH: Millions of worshippers reached Makkah on Friday for the biggest Hajj pilgrimage in years. More than two million pilgrims are performing Hajj this year.
Pilgrims wearing white robes and sandals are seen in Makkah. Pilgrims are seen in hotels and air-conditioned shopping malls, after flooding in on planes, buses and trains for performing Hajj-2023.
This year’s hajj could break attendance records, Saudi officials said.
As the Hajj draws near, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prepares for the largest Islamic gathering in history.
Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq Al-Rabiah said in a video message this week.
Important religious rites include circling the Kaaba, praying on Mount Arafat, and “stoning the devil”. Pilgrims stone three giant concrete walls representing Satan.
More than two million people from more than 160 countries are attending Hajj, Rabiah said. It shows a robust when compared to 926,000 Hajjis last year. Last year, the number of Hajjis was capped at one million post-pandemic.
In 2019, about 2.5 million people took part. Only 10,000 were allowed in 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, rising to nearly 59,000 a year later.
Essentially, the Hajj is among the five pillars of Islam. All Muslims who can afford are supposed to perform Hajj once in their lives.
Travelers from around the world have been pouring into Jeddah’s modernized airport, some of them using streamlined visa services to disembark from planes straight onto buses to their accommodation.
Transportation facilities
About 24,000 buses will be in service to ferry the pilgrims, as well as 17 trains capable of moving 72,000 people every hour, officials said.
“It is an unbelievable feeling that is very emotional,” Souad bin Oueis, a 60-year-old Moroccan pilgrim told media when he landed at Jeddah on her first visit to Saudi Arabia along with her husband.
This hajj will be the biggest since the requirement for women to be accompanied by male guardians was dropped in 2021.
This year, Saudi authorities scrapped the upper age limit. Hence, thousands of elderly people will be among those performing Hajj this year.
The hajj rituals begin late Sunday at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The worshippers will sleep in tents on Monday night and spend Tuesday at Mount Arafat, the climax of the hajj, where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have delivered his final sermon.
After casting pebbles in the “stoning of the devil” ritual on Wednesday, marking the start of the Eid al-Azha holiday, pilgrims return to Mecca to perform a farewell “tawaf” — circling seven times around the Kaaba.
