Mecca's Grand Mosque Floors and Pillars Disinfected as Pilgrims Arrive for Downsized Hajj

Workers disinfected the floors and pillars of Mecca’s Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia as the first of 1,000 pilgrims began arriving for an unusually limited hajj this year.

Saudi Arabia has said because of the coronavirus only “very limited numbers” of people will be allowed to perform the annual pilgrimage which traditionally draws around 2 million Muslims from around the world.

Earlier this month, the kingdom issued guidelines for those who will be allowed to perform the pilgrimage.

Pilgrims will have to bring their own prayer mats and can only drink from packaged water battles filled from Mecca’s Zamzam well.

For the first time the hajj will not include pilgrims from outside the country.

Instead, the kingdom said that 70% of pilgrims allowed to make the pilgrimage this year will be from among foreign residents of Saudi Arabia and 30% would be Saudi citizens.

Saudi pilgrims will be selected from among health care workers and security personnel who have recovered from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

The foreign residents making this year’s pilgrimage should be between the ages of 20 and 50, and that they have not performed the hajj before. The pilgrims will have to quarantine before and after the hajj, and they will be tested for the coronavirus.

Saudi Arabia has one of the Middle East’s largest outbreaks of the virus, with infection rates rising by 3,000-4,000 cases daily.

More than 264,000 people have contracted the virus in the kingdom so far, including 2,703 who have died.

Hajj will begin on July 28 and end on August 2.

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In This Story: Hajj

The Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims, who visit the Kaaba, a cubic structure at the centre of the Grand Mosque.

Because the Islamic calendar is lunar and the Islamic year is about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year, the Gregorian date of Hajj changes from year to year. In 2020 AD (1441 AH), Dhu al-Hijjah extends from 22 July to 19 August.

According to the official published statistics between 2000 and 2019, the average number of attendees is 2,269,145 per year, in which 1,564,710 come from outside Saudi Arabia and 671,983 are local.

In June 2020, while not cancelling the Hajj outright, the Saudi Government announced that they would only welcome “very limited numbers” of pilgrims who are residents of Saudi Arabia due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.