The six-day annual pilgrimage began Tuesday in the Muslim holy city of Mecca under strict coronavirus restrictions that have prevented millions of others from attending the sacred ritual. Last year, about 2.5 million Muslims from around the world participated in the Hajj.
The kingdom has allowed only another 1,000 people to make hajj this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has inflamed at least 16.4 million people internationally and killed more than 654,000. Saudi Arabia has reported more than 270,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 2,700 deaths.
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Riyadh authorities imposed a strict blockade when the first cases of coronavirus gave the impression in March. They did not begin to apply the restrictions until May, but very cautiously.
Many Pakistanis who had requested hajj hoped that the pandemic would disappear before the Hajj. The crisis, however, is over and those other people feel despondent by the situation. At the same time, many other people on business trips to the Hajj have suffered massive monetary losses.
Not this year!
Ale Imran Ahmed Rizvi, a 35-year-old Karachi resident, was ecstatic when his call gave the impression on a Hajj ballot in January. He had sought to make a stopover at the sacred sites of Saudi Arabia.
“I had begun to plan my trip. I’ve won a lot of congratulatory messages,” Rizvi told DW.
“Most other people like to do Hayy when they’re older. But I tried to do it as soon as possible, so my wife and I would be our year,” Rizvi added.
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Pakistan recorded its first case of coronavirus last February. Since then, the South Asian country has shown more than 275,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 5,800 deaths. The virus has immobilized the whole world.
“Our arrangements were almost complete when we learned about the coronavirus. I think it would remain confined to China, where it originated, but in March it began to spread in Pakistan. Then we learned that Saudi Arabia had imposed a curfew in Mecca and others. Last month, the Saudi government announced that this year’s Hajj would be limited to a few hundred people,” he added.
Unlike Saudi Arabia, Pakistan did not impose restrictions on mass gatherings of devotees the pandemic
Although Rizvi did not lose cash as a result of the cancellation of the Hajj, he fears he will not be able to make the pilgrimage in the short term. Saudi Arabia allows only a certain number of people from each country to make the Hajj and sometimes the demands exceed the quota of pilgrims.
Rizvi, however, has given up hope. He said he would resubmit his application next year and suggested that the Pakistani government ask the Saudi government to increase The Hajj’s quota for Pakistanis.
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Hajj fee and financial losses
Syed Tanvir ul Kazim, a Hajj tour operator in Pakistan’s Punjab province, says the Saudi government’s resolve to ban foreign pilgrims has ruined its own and left thousands unemployed.
“There are about 700 to 800 corporations in the province that are involved in the Hajj tour. Each of them takes 80 to 100 people to Mecca each year and earns at least 20,000 to 30,000 rupees according to the user (102 to 153 euros, 119 to 180 dollars). This is not imaginable this year,” Kazim told DW.
Kazim also expects the Saudi government to increase the quota for Pakistan Hajj. “Otherwise, we will face massive unrest next year.”
The Pakistani government says they are concerned that hajj requests by 2021 will accumulate exponentially. “We regret that our other people conduct the Hajj this year, but the viral scenario is beyond our control. We will ask Riyadh to increase our quota of Hajj so that more Pakistanis can make the non-secular adventure next year,” he added. Muhammad Iqbal Khan, a member of the ruling party, told DW.
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Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. All Muslims are expected to carry out this devout duty at least once in their lives if they are physically and economically capable. It is one of the five pillars of Islam, or basic ritual practices, and the largest collection of other people in the world, with millions of other people every year.
No less than 3 million pilgrims perform a series of rituals over five or six days. First, they prevent them from praying in the Grand Mosque, which houses a cubic construction wrapped in black silk called Kaaba, the ultimate shrine of Islam.
Pilgrims go to the village of Mina to pray and read the Koran. Then they spend a day on Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad delivered his last sermon, to ask forgiveness. On their way back to Mecca, pilgrims prevent on a plain called Muzdalifah to collect stones, which they will throw on 3 pillars of Mina to symbolically stone the devil.
Finally, back in Mecca, the pilgrims will perform the kaaba seven times in the Grand Mosque, thus ending their hajj. They then shave their heads and make an animal sacrifice before celebrating the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.
Since 1987, more than 5,800 people have died in construction collapses, stampedes, tramplings and fires. In 2015, a stampede killed 2,400 others, making it the worst hajj crisis in history. The pilgrimage is also a hotbed of infectious diseases, as pilgrims from all over the world walk barefoot because of the heat and the percentage of crowded dormitories.
While hajj is the oldest and holiest ritual in Islam, it has also been introduced into the 21st century. The Saudi government is employing the latest crowd techniques to avoid trampling and architectural collapses. On YouTube, they streamed hajj live and now Google, iTunes and other sites have launched hajj apps to help pilgrims perceive and perform hajj rituals.