{"id":228795,"date":"2021-03-03T08:37:36","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T08:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=228795"},"modified":"2021-03-05T07:38:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T07:38:53","slug":"covid-19-saudi-arabia-says-vaccine-is-a-must-for-hajj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=228795","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Saudi Arabia says vaccine is a must for Hajj"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Areeb Ullah \u2013 Middle East Eye March 2, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Saudi Arabia said pilgrims hoping to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19, according to local reports.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Health Minister Tawfiq al-Rabiah said &#8220;compulsory vaccination&#8221; would be required for all pilgrims planning to attend the five-day event in July.<\/p>\n<p>Rabiah did not confirm whether pilgrims from outside the kingdom would be permitted to undertake Hajj, but said a vaccine would be the &#8220;main condition&#8221; for participating.<\/p>\n<p>Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslims who are physically and financially able are expected to perform it at least once in their lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>The pilgrimage would typically attract at least 2.5 million people from across the world.<\/p>\n<p>But last year, Riyadh made the historic decision to restrict the number of pilgrims able to attend Hajj because of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>Two-thirds of the pilgrims were foreign residents, and one-third of those selected were security and medical staff from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>Pilgrims selected to attend the pilgrimage were chosen via an online portal and required to be aged between 20 and 50.<\/p>\n<p>Those able to attend were given prayer rugs and special attire to wear.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Covid restrictions\u00a0relaxed for Umrah<\/h3>\n<p>In October, Saudi authorities relaxed coronavirus restrictions and allowed thousands of pilgrims to enter the Grand Mosque in Mecca to perform the Umrah, a lesser pilgrimage that can be done all year round, for the first time in seven months.<\/p>\n<p>Pilgrims were allowed to visit the cities of Mecca and Medina, but despite allowing them to return, a range of restrictions had been put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>A health worker must accompany groups, and medical teams are\u00a0present in case of an emergency.<\/p>\n<p>Other restrictions include\u00a0banning pilgrims from touching the Kaaba, the cubic structure Muslims pray towards five times a day.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/hajj-saudi-arabia-covid-vaccine-pilgrims-must\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Health Minister Tawfiq al-Rabiah said &#8220;compulsory vaccination&#8221; would be required for all Muslims planning to attend the annual Hajj pilgrimage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228796,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228795\/revisions\/228796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}