Mecca

A senior Saudi official has urged more than 1 million Muslims intending to travel to Islam's holiest sites to delay making plans for the hajj this year due to the new coronavirus pandemicBy AYA BATRAWY and JON GAMBRELL Associated PressApril 1, 2020, 7:18 PM4 min readDUBAI, United Arab Emirates --…

Iran Press TV Saturday, 28 March 2020 6:14 AM Turkey says its first cases of the new coronavirus were detected among those returning from Saudi Arabia, accusing Riyadh of concealing the number of patients among pilgrims. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the first cases of coronavirus were confirmed in…

Home News Science & Astronomy Beijing's Tiananmen Square, which is normally teeming with people, has been deserted amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Image: © Maxar Technologies) Planet Earth is looking pretty deserted these days as people around the world are sheltering in place and avoiding social contact to curb the spread…

A man sorts donations for families in need in the central Iraqi holy city of Najaf on Wednesday. (Haidar Hamdani / AFP)Paying no attention to the tenets of social distancing, the abaya-shrouded women — no masks or gloves among them — crowded into the Baghdad square surrounding the shrine to…

By: New York Times | Beirut | Published: March 25, 2020 10:24:13 am In a world where so many routines have been obliterated, it is the rites themselves that many cherish.(Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)(Written by Vivian Yee) Down on Earth, the coronavirus outbreak was felling lives, livelihoods and normalcy.…

Mosques are closed, sermons are shortened and communion causes anxietyEditor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For more coverage, see our coronavirus hubFOR CENTURIES the…

Mosques are closed, sermons are shortened and communion causes anxietyEditor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For more coverage, see our coronavirus hubFOR CENTURIES the…

-6 US Rapper Akon Visits Mecca Before Virus Closure This is the moment US rapper Akon visits the Holy Kaaba in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca just before its closure amid COVID-19 fears. The Senegalese-American star, who was born to a Muslim family and spent a large part of…

Men's Health/Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies Ever since the coronavirus started its spread, people around the world have been asked to limit their travels, work from home if necessary and avoid public gatherings in an effort to stop or slow the spread of COVID-19. As the World Health Organization reports…

Due to concerns over the global spread of the coronavirus – especially in nearby Iran – Saudi Arabia has temporarily suspended travel to its holy sites. Millions of Muslims visit the Saudi kingdom around the year for pilgrimage. The current travel restrictions prevent the entry of both overseas pilgrims and…