HAJJ 2020 AMID COVID-19

This year’s annual prayer session in the Muslim’s holy land in Mecca, Saudi Arabia has seen its participants shrink seriously because of the covid-19 menace. The new rules to Muslims who must respect the fifth pillar of Islam is to respect 1 meter distance from each other. The coronavirus pandemic has so seriously affected the organization of the most serious Muslim rendezvous in the world that only ten thousand participants were allowed in the country this year instead of the usual two million and a half.

Most foreigners who manifested their desire to carry out their religious duties as usual where barred from entering Mecca. “We were given an electronic bracelet which will monitor were we go” said a Malaysian student who was lucky to be accepted for the hajj this year. A lot of other who were not that lucky were forced to watch the religious rendezvous over the television.

With the decline in the prices of petroleum in the world market, there are fear that Saudi Arabia could have economic difficulties in the nearest future. Especially with the absence of the additional 12 billion income yearly that was supposed to be brought in the country by the religious tourists.