For the first time, Saudi women step up to lead crowds during Haj

Riyadh: For the first time, Saudi women are at the forefront of female crowd management during this year’s Haj.

This comes as per the directives of the General President for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudaia.

Nouf Qahl, the agency’s agent for assisting women’s gatherings and crowds, told Arab News that the Kingdom has become a world leader in crowdfunding as a result of its handling of the annual Haj, while millions of Muslims flock to Saudi Arabia to perform Haj and Umrah.

“Our mission at the agency is to assist and smoothly lead women’s crowd to designated areas for women to pray and perform their rituals in a safe environment such as to ensure grouping (and leading) women coming for Umrah and Hajj to the Mataf to perform the circumambulation, to vacate the women’s prayer area after the prayers, and preparing to receive other groups of women around the clock. Working to serve pilgrims is a great honour that we take pride in,” Qahl added.

In 2021, for the first time in Arab history, female soldiers stood guard to maintain law and order during Haj in Makkah.

Saudi crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman instituted Vision 2030 reform to help modernize the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

The Saudi authorities announced that one million Muslims including 850,000 performed Haj for the current year, most of them from outside the Kingdom, while their number in the last Haj season before COVID-19 were about 2.5 million Muslims from all over the world.

The pilgrimage to Makkah is one of the five pillars of Islam, and it is considered obligatory for Muslims to perform it at least once during their lifetime if they can afford it.