Muslims from around the world hailed to Saudi Arabia this year
27 November 2018
| Last updated on 27 November 2018
As the year comes to an end, it starts on a promising note for 2019
According to official statistics from Saudi Arabia, the number of Umrah pilgrims in KSA has well reached 1,318,605 people.
This large statistic was released on Friday by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah for the second Hijri year in Saudi Arabia.
This is a major increase from October when we reported that the total number of Umrah pilgrims was 282,124 people.
SEE ALSO: The Number Of Umrah Visas Issued This Year Has Been Revealed
Accounting for more than a million visitors, Umrah in Saudi Arabia is a holy pilgrimage to take part in and it attracts Muslims from around the globe – while millions hail from abroad, Umrah pilgrims from inside KSA amount to 362,225.
And of those hundreds of thousands, 242,638 are already in Mecca and join in on the Umrah pilgrimage in the Kingdom.
Which means that during the past year, 677,000 Muslim pilgrims made their way from abroad into the Kingdom for the sole purpose of doing Umrah and Hajj in the holy premise of Mecca.
Umrah in KSA
The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah of KSA has released that there are more than 8,000 Saudi employees who work in companies relating to Umrah in the country and help facilitate and plan the pilgrimage – of those 1,239 Saudi employees are women.
Pilgrims from around the world
Here’s the majority of nationality breakdown of Umrah performers this year so far:
- Pakistan – 359,000 pilgrims
- India – 178,893 pilgrims
- Indonesia – 204,176 pilgrims
What is Umrah?
The pilgrimage of Umrah is when Muslims from around the world come together to Mecca and perform their pilgrimage inside the holy premise of Mecca.
This is a non-mandatory pilgrimage but highly recommended in Islam to be performed by Muslims are any given time under their will.
How many days do you need to do Umrah?
The pilgrimage of Umrah does not have a specific time limit.
The performance can be done in hours or days depending on the pilgrim – however, pilgrims will have to account for travel time and time spent in Mecca and Madinah.
What is the difference between Umrah and Hajj?
Both Umrah and Hajj are pilgrimages performed by Muslims in Saudi Arabia.
However, the main difference between the two is time – as Hajj is performed during a certain period of a year, while Umrah can be done at any time.
Hajj takes longer to perform while Umrah can be done in a couple of hours.
And Umrah is not mandatory and is regarded as a smaller and minor pilgrimage, while Hajj is compulsory to be done by Muslims once in their life at least.
