Hajj winds down as ritual is marked by health precautions

Hajj winds down as ritual is marked by health precautions

MECCA - In the final ritual of the hajj on Sunday, Muslim pilgrims circled Islam's holiest site along socially distanced paths.

This hajj season was the smallest in modern history as Saudi authorities sought to prevent a coronavirus outbreak.

Only up to 10,000 Muslims took part in the pilgrimage, a far cry from the 2.5 million who took part in the five-day annual season last year.

Masked pilgrims threw pebbles at a wall symbolising Satan in Mina, close to the holy city of Mecca, on the final day of hajj, state media reported.

Instead of gathering the pebbles themselves as in past years, they were handed them bagged and sterilised by hajj authorities, to protect against the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Muslim pilgrims circumambulating around the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the centre of the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca on the final day of the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage. (AFP)

Pilgrims returned to the Grand Mosque in Mecca later Sunday to perform a final "tawaf,“ or circling of the Kaaba “” a cubic structure towards which Muslims around the world pray.

Holding the ritual in the shadow of the disease required "double efforts“ by Saudi authorities, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud said