Pilgrims return to Mecca as Saudi Arabia eases coronavirus restrictions

Pilgrimages have partially returned after a seven-month coronavirus hiatus
AFP via Getty Images
Ellena Cruse4 October 2020

Mecca has stirred from a seven-month hibernation after Saudi Arabia partially lifted a coronavirus ban which allowed pilgrims to return to the holy site.

Millions of Muslims from around the world usually descend on the region for the umrah and haj Islamic pilgrimages each year.

From Sunday, citizens of Saudi Arabia are now allowed to perform umrah at 30 per cent capacity which equated to 6,000 pilgrims a day.

However, Mecca will only be opened for Muslims from abroad on November 1.

“All of Mecca is happy today, it’s like the end of a jail term," said Yasser al-Zahrani, who became a full time Uber driver after losing his construction job during lockdown.

"We have missed the spiritual feeling of pilgrims roaming the city.

Muslims keeping a safe social distance perform Umrah at the Grand Mosque
VIA REUTERS

“I pray we never go through the past few months again, it was a nightmare ... there was barely any work to cover my bills."

At midnight, tens of registered pilgrims wearing face masks prepared to enter the Grand Mosque in small groups.

An aerial view shows the Grand Mosque complex in the holy city of Mecca
AFP via Getty Images

As they circled the Kaaba, a stone structure that is the most sacred in Islam and the direction which Muslims face to pray, officials made sure they kept a safe distance apart with worshipers no longer allowed to touch it.

Last year the Gulf state drew 19 million umrah visitors and before the pandemic, more than 1,300 hotels and hundreds of stores buzzed around the clock to cater to pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Muslims keeping a safe social distance perform Umrah at the Grand Mosque
VIA REUTERS

Pilgrimage is the backbone of a plan to expand tourism under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s drive to diversify the economy of the world’s top oil exporter. It aimed to boost umrah visitors to 30 million by 2030.

Religious pilgrimage generates $12 billion in revenues from worshippers’ lodging, transport, gifts, food and fees, according to official data.

Muslims praying by the Kaaba
Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umra/

Saudi Arabia hosted a drastically reduced haj in late July for the first time in modern history, with a few thousand domestic pilgrims instead of the usual white-clad sea of some three million Muslims.

Near the Grand Mosque, the hotels at high-rise towers were mostly empty and shopping malls closed hours before the resumption of umrah. Dozens of stores and restaurants were shut.

Economists have estimated Mecca’s hotel sector may lose at least 40 per cent of pilgrimage-driven income this year.

Five hotel workers, who declined to be identified, said they were put on unpaid leave during the lockdown and said hundreds of others in the hospitality sector were laid off.

“It is hard to think that this will be the new normal, I pray every day for the corona to end,” Mr al-Zahrani said.

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