Last week, Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, cancelled participation of its citizens in the Hajj, stating that “the Saudi Arabian authorities failed to provide certainty”.
Following suit, Malaysia banned Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Every year, Malaysia sends tens of thousands of pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, for the annual event. The country’s Religious Affairs Minister Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri was reported saying, “I hope the pilgrims continue to be patient and accept the decision”. He further added that, the risks of contracting COVID-19 were high, not to mention the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, as well as the lack of a vaccine to treat it. Malaysia has reported 8,369 coronavirus cases so far, with 118 fatalities.
This comes at a time when the Tablighi Jamaat incident is being heavily criticised for its role in the surge of India’s coronavirus cases.
While it was expected that Saudi Arabia would scale down on numbers, cancelling it would serve to be an enormous blow to the country’s economy. This is because of the fact that a major part of its revenue comes from religious tourism it receives every year. It is to be noted that, a recent announcement stated that the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages were to be suspended until further notice in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.