Millions of Muslims around the world descend to Saudi Arabia for the Islamic pilgrimages of umrah and Haj. Two percent of non-unusual rites, however, Haj, which takes place once a year, is the longest main ritual that is an exclusive duty of Muslims.
Saudi Arabia, which organized a symbolic haj largely this year, limited to domestic worshippers, allowed citizens to start practicing Umrah from Sunday at 30% of its capacity, or 6,000 pilgrims a day. November 1.
Last year, the Gulf State attracted 19 million to the Umra.
“The total of Mecca is satisfied today, it is like the end of a criminal sentence. We miss the non-secular sentiment of pilgrims roaming the city,” said Yasser al-Zahrani, who has become a full-time driving force for Uber after wasting his structure task on a three-month national closure imposed in March.
“I pray that we will never come back in the last few months, it is an Array nightmare . . . there are virtually no paintings to pay my bills,” he told Reuters.
Before the pandemic, more than 1,300 hotels and plenty of bustle 24 hours a day to welcome pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
In short, dozens of registered pilgrims dressed in masks had to enter the Great Mosque in small groups.
As they surrounded the Kaaba, a stone design that is the ultimate sacred in Islam and the direction Muslims face in praying, officials made sure to stay at a distance.
They are no longer allowed to touch the Kaaba, which is wrapped in a black cloth adorned with Arabic calligraphy in gold.
NEW REALITY
The pilgrimage is the backbone of a tourism expansion plan as a component of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s preference to diversify the economy of the world’s largest oil exporter and aimed to increase omra visitors to 15 million until 2020, a plan interrupted by coronavirus, and to 30 million by 2030.
The devoted pilgrimage generates $12 billion in a source of income for housing, transportation, gifts, food and expenses for the faithful, according to official data.
Saudi Arabia hosted a particularly small haj at the end of July for the first time in fashion history, with a few thousand domestic pilgrims from the same old sea dressed in white from some 3 million Muslims.
Near the Grand Mosque, hotels in high-rise towers used to be empty and grocery shopping malls closed hours before the Umra resumed. Dozens of department stores and restaurants were closed.
Economists estimate that Mecca’s hotel sector may lose at least 40% of the profits generated through pilgrimages this year.
Five hotel employees, who declined to be identified, said they had been put on leave without pay during the lockdown and that many more had been laid off in the hotel industry.
“It’s hard to think that this will be the new normal, I pray each and every day for the crown to end,” Zahrani said.