{"id":49734,"date":"2020-06-22T20:51:49","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T19:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=49734"},"modified":"2020-06-22T21:00:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T20:00:22","slug":"hajj-2020-to-be-held-with-limited-number-of-pilgrims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/hajj-2020-to-be-held-with-limited-number-of-pilgrims\/","title":{"rendered":"Hajj 2020 to be held with limited number of pilgrims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-49253\" src=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Hajj.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"854\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Hajj.jpg 612w, https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Hajj-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 854px) 100vw, 854px\" \/>Hajj will go ahead next month but with a \u201cvery limited\u201d number of pilgrims allowed to take part, Saudi Arabia said on Monday. The decision was taken due to the ongoing threat from the coronavirus pandemic and to preserve \u201cglobal public health,\u201d the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah said. Pilgrims taking part will be from various nationalities who already reside in Saudi Arabia.<br \/>\nAbout 2.5 million pilgrims performed Hajj last year but the ongoing scale and spread of COVID-19 worldwide means people will not be able to travel to the Kingdom to take part.<br \/>\nThe ministry said the decision had been made \u201cin light of continuation of the pandemic and the risks of Coronavirus spreading in crowded spaces and large gatherings.\u201d<br \/>\nThe statement said: \u201cA very limited number of pilgrims from various nationalities who already reside in Saudi Arabia, would be able to perform it. Pilgrims travel to Mount Arafat on the second day of Hajj last year.<br \/>\n\u201cThis decision is taken to ensure Hajj is performed in a safe manner from a public health perspective while observing all preventative measures and the necessary social distancing protocols.\u201d<br \/>\nLast year, more than 1.8 million pilgrims traveled to Saudi Arabia from abroad to take part. The Hajj ministry said this year the risk of transmitting the disease between countries and the increase in infections globally meant the risk was too high.<br \/>\nThe ministry said Saudi Arabia\u2019s top priority is to always enable Muslim pilgrims can perform Hajj and Umrah safely and securely.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Statement?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Statement<\/a> issued by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah regarding Hajj of 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UGCShFZw1n\">pic.twitter.com\/UGCShFZw1n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Foreign Ministry ?? (@KSAmofaEN) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KSAmofaEN\/status\/1275132024735633410?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 22, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/hajj-2020-to-be-held-with-limited-number-of-pilgrims\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hajj will go ahead next month but with a \u201cvery limited\u201d number of pilgrims allowed to take part, Saudi Arabia said on Monday. The decision was taken due to the ongoing threat from the coronavirus pandemic and to preserve \u201cglobal public health,\u201d the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah said. Pilgrims taking part will be &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,26,2],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49735,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49734\/revisions\/49735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}