The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced that it will no longer impose restrictions and limits on the number of pilgrims who will take part in the hajj this year.
This is a welcome development for pilgrims more than three years into the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The number of pilgrims will return to what it was before the pandemic, without any age limit,” said Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq al-Rabiah in a press briefing.
The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is a pilgrimage that all able-bodied Muslims are required to perform every year. This year’s hajj is scheduled for June.
In 2022, only 900,000 pilgrims went to the holy city of Mecca, a far cry from the over 2.5 million pilgrims in 2019.
Due to the pandemic, pilgrims had to be under the age of 65, as well as vaccinated against COVID-19 and present a negative test.
