Mecca: Hajj pilgrims flow out of the holy city of Mecca Sunday, launching a large pilgrimage ritual held by Saudi Arabia in the form of feeding for the second year to ward off the Coronavirus.
Saudi Arabia only allows 60,000 citizens and residents who are fully vaccinated from the kingdom to take part, far from the large crowd that goes down to Mecca in the ordinary times, when rituals attract around 2.5 million pilgrims.
Since Saturday, pilgrims have conducted a “Tawaf” at the Great Mosque of Mecca, circling the Kaaba, a large cubic structure that covered a golden embroidery black cloth where Muslims throughout the world pray.
After that, pilgrims have walked to the Mina Valley, where they will spend the night.
“46,000 pilgrims have arrived in Mina,” Deputy Minister of Haji and Umrah Abdelfattah son of Suleiman Mashat told AFP on Sunday morning.
“The number of women participating in this year’s Hajj exceeds 40 percent,” he added.
Mina sat in a narrow valley surrounded by Rocky Mountains, and changed every year to become a broad campground for pilgrims.
“The Public Health Team monitors the health status of pilgrims all the time on their arrival in Mecca,” said Sari Asiri, director of the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah at the Ministry of Health.
Anyone who turns out to be infected will be taken to isolation facilities, he added.
At the high point of Hajj, the worshipers will on Monday climb Mount Arafat.
Also known as “Mount of Mercy”, it is a site where it is believed that the Prophet Muhammad delivered his last sermon.
The worshipers will pray for hours and Al-Quric’s recital.
After going down the next day, they will collect pebbles and do symbolic “demon stones”.
Hajj, usually one of the largest annual religious meetings in the world, is one of the five Islamic pillars and must be done by all Muslims with the facilities at least once in their lives.
This year’s pilgrimage is greater than the pared-down version which is performed in 2020 but drastically smaller than normal, creating hatred among Muslims abroad which is banned once again.
Participants were elected from more than 558,000 applicants through online betrayal systems, with limited events in adults who were fully vaccinated aged 18-65 without chronic diseases, according to Hajj services.
“I thank God that we accept the agreement to come, even though we don’t expect it because of a small number of pilgrims,” said Abdulaziz bin Mahmoud, a Saudi, 18 years old.
Saddaf Ghafour, a 40-year-old Pakistani woman traveling with her friend, including the increasing number of women made a pilgrimage without a man “guardian”, which is a requirement to date.
“It is the privilege of conducting pilgrims among a number of very limited pilgrims,” he said.
Saudi Arabia has so far recorded more than 507,000 coronavirus infections, including more than 8,000 deaths.
About 20 million doses of vaccines have been given in more than 34 million countries.
Hajj, which usually packs a large crowd into solid religious sites, has the potential to be a super spreader for viruses.
But the Hajj Ministry said he was working on the “highest level of health prevention measures” in the light of the pandemic and the emergence of a new variant.
Pilgrims are divided into several groups of only 20 “to limit the exposure of only 20, limiting the spread of infection”, said the Raw Ministry of Mohammad al-Bijawi.
Apart from strict social distance measures, the authorities have introduced “smart Hajj cards” to allow free contact access to camps, hotels and buses to ferry pilgrims around religious locations.
Hajj goes last year on the smallest scale in modern history.
Authorities initially said only 1,000 pilgrims were permitted, although local media said up to 10,000 finally took part.
No infection reported as authorities established several health facilities, cellular clinics and ambulances to serve pilgrims, which were brought to religious locations in small batches.
Saudi Arabia Stage Second Scaled-Down Hajj Era Coronavirus
