RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) – Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that Muslims will be allowed to make the smallest pilgrimage year-round starting on October 4, as the kingdom begins to lift restrictions that were in place in the past. Islam’s holiest site for seven years due to coronavirus.
State media reported that the government planned to allow up to 6,000 visitors a day to the huge Grand Mosque in Mecca, which will only be open to Saudi citizens and citizens in this first phase.
Before visitors can enter the mosque to pray or make the pilgrimage “umra”, they must request and book electronically an express date and time through an online application that will be submitted on September 27 to avoid overcrowding and social estating guidelines. your shipping and assembly issues through the app.
The moment phase is introduced on October 18 and allows up to 15,000 pilgrims and 40,000 other people to pray between citizens according to the hours assigned to the application.
The Grand Mosque houses the cube-shaped Kaaba that practicing Muslims pray times a day.
Muslim travelers from outside Saudi Arabia may be allowed to make the pilgrimage “Omra” from 1 November, the Ministry of the Interior said in a statement. Saudi Arabia recently began to loosen some restrictions on foreign flights for the first time since March.
The ministry said it would often compare these rules and pandemic developments.
The kingdom celebrated a particularly reduced symbolic hajj pilgrimage in July, fearing that it will seamlessly become a global virus over-propagation event. Pilgrims made up their way after applying through an online portal and were all citizens of Saudi Arabia. Instead of the more than 2 million pilgrims the kingdom welcomes to the annual event, only 1,000 have attended after being screened for the virus and quarantined.
Despite the early and radical measures to involve the virus, Saudi Arabia has recorded more than 330,000 cases, more than 4,500 deaths.