The Saudi Arabia Health Ministry recently announced Covid-19 vaccination would be compulsory to participate in the annual Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam. The measure was announced in early March as the kingdom prepared for the days-long ritual which begins in July.
Saudi officials said a vaccination committee will be formed for Hajj and Umrah, a smaller pilgrimage outside the fixed dates of Hajj, seasons. Participants will be required to show proof of vaccination before being allowed on Hajj.
“You must prepare early to secure the manpower required to operate the health facilities in Mecca, the holy sites and Madinah, and the entry points for pilgrims for the 2021 hajj season,” said Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, the Saudi Arabia health minister.
The Kingdom is the “custodial” government of the Islamic sites of Mecca, the Kaaba, the centerpiece for circumambulation, and other places in Saudi Arabia visited by multiple millions every year. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic that gripped the world in 2020, travel to the sites were curtailed. Hajj was limited to 1,000 locals and foreign citizens already living in the kingdom who represented their countries.
›Saudi King Salman announced March 10 no such limits for Hajj 2021. Countries are issued predetermined quotas by Hajj authorities that will comprise the 2.5 million annual pilgrims.
The Kingdom is reopening its gates, but at what cost? And has the Kingdom knowingly or unknowingly sold its soul concerning “experimental vaccines” given the Saudi mandate on 1.6 billion Muslims who desire to make hajj at least once in their lifetime, observers ask?
For its part, the Kingdom has signed off on accepting the Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca experimental vaccines and began jabbing its residents in mid-December, despite warnings against “experimental vaccines,” while other therapies are available in the world.
One voice of warning is the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the United States-based Nation of Islam. He has been outspoken in opposition to blindly accepting experimental vaccines developed and pushed globally by the U.S. government and huge American pharmaceutical companies.
Days before the Saudi announcement, in remarks Feb. 27 at a major plenary session called “Covid-19: The Virus and The Vaccine” during the Nation of Islam annual Saviours’ Day convention, Minister Farrakhan gave further warning.
“It is death itself created in what you call ‘Warp Speed,’ ” he said, referring to the U.S. government initiative that facilitated, and accelerated the development and distribution of Covid-19 experimental vaccines.
“You know anything that’s ‘warped’ is misshaped. Anything that’s warped is crooked. You were rushing so fast to get something out and bypassing normal steps in a true vaccine. Now God is going to turn your vaccine into death in a hurry,” Min. Farrakhan warned.
Minister Farrakhan has called for the Black community’s skilled virologists, epidemiologists, students of biology and chemistry to vet what is being offered to the world outside of America and even develop something better. He has also called for access to treatments and approaches researched and developed in Cuba but denied to the United States. One of Cuba’s anti-covid vaccines is set for trials in Iran and Mexico.
“We need to find those things that are working other than Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines and take those things to protect our health,” Minister Farrakhan stated.
He also raised questions about the efficacy of experimental vaccines when Covid-19 variants are “popping up here and there” and “making null and void” Big Pharma’s vaccines.
Minister Farrakhan has been warning against the experimental vaccines since a vital message delivered last July titled “The Criterion.”
Specifically addressing the leaders of Africa, China, and America, Minister Farrakhan also cautioned Mecca and the Muslim World.
“Mecca, you’ve been halted because hate stands in the place where love for God and your fellow Muslims, and others, should be seen,” remarked Minster Farrakhan on July 4, 2020.
He warned Saudi Arabia against its unholy geopolitical relationship with Washington, a major U.S. supplier of planes, guns and weapons of destruction used against other Muslim nations. “So, when I read the Qur’an and it says, ‘Mecca is to be warned.’ Who of you is courageous enough to warn Mecca?” asked Min. Farrakhan.
“Mecca is to be warned and the cities and towns around it. Who’s around Mecca that needs also to be warned? Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, all of these are the towns, cities, nations around Mecca,” he continued. “Mecca, you must repent.”
Globally, Covid-19 has affected and killed millions, not sparing the centers of religion in Mecca, Madinah, Jerusalem, and Rome. Minister Farrakhan said the crisis is connected to divine chastisement against the U.S. government, which has a depopulation agenda and wants to cull the world’s population by two to three billion people.
The Minister described the ever-mutating virus as a “pestilence” and “plague from heaven” to answer a spiritual pestilence permeating humanity that requires repentance to God.
The Saudi vaccination rule was also announced one month before Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, begins and when millions of Muslims make umrah.
Tying mandatory Covid-19 vaccination to Hajj can unfortunately produce a strong enticement for Muslims to take scarcely vetted vaccines as they seek to fulfill their spiritual duty.
“All Muslims love Mecca,” said Sultan Rahman Muhammad, the student national imam for the Nation of Islam. “It’s the heart of many Muslims’ desires, for at least one time in their life to visit the holy precincts of Mecca, to fulfill the principle of faith in the pilgrimage,” he explained.
The decision comes at a time of “great sadness” when Muslims are being tried on who God is and the source of the Covid-19 affliction, the imam told The Final Call.
“The source is Allah’s will. There is no vaccine that will halt Allah’s judgment,” said Student Imam Muhammad.
“Only truth and the restoration of love, that can change what Allah has ordained as a chastisement … to humble the nations,” he added.
Echoing Minister Farrakhan, Imam Muhammad said there have been troubling signs of “abomination” and “desolation” in Mecca. He added, there is a reckoning in the Middle East and its challenge to mitigate the pestilence is linked to solving the problems between brothers in Islam.
“Are we going to bomb Yemen into submission or are we going to come to a table and resolve our problems, our differences, with the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet (Muhammad)?” he asked rhetorically. “Are we going to now wage war on our brothers and sisters that are Shiite in Iran, continuing to follow the policies … dictates… influences of our shared open enemy?” he asked.
Until Mecca and the powers allied with the enemies of God that incite Muslims to kill Muslims repent and cease, Mecca will continue to experience desolation, he said.
While the custodians of the holy sites must keep people safe, Imam Muhammad described the trust in the experimental vaccines, like their trust in American bombs, wrongheaded.
“There is no vaccine that will help us find our way back to the path of God, except the purification of the heart … our conduct, the establishment of our righteous nature of living,” said Imam Muhammad.
As Muslims should be able to unite and settle differences, the same can happen for the coronavirus, he said. “We have our own scientists … that would not approach this in the manner of Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson,” the national imam said.
As nations examine the impact of Covid-19 on their economies, Saudi Arabia has suffered a financial setback, said analysts.
Hajj generates $12 billion annually, which is eight percent of the Kingdom’s gross national product. Covid-19 impacted the primary income source for many of Mecca’s 1.9 million inhabitants, who are 45 percent non-Saudis.
The coronavirus caused adjustments to Hajj with pilgrims no longer touching the Kaaba, the black cubic structure towards which Muslims pray. Groups are accompanied by health providers and onsite medical teams were increased.
Some countries committed to the experimental vaccines, local Hajj committees, tour operators and pilgrim hopefuls worldwide are preparing to comply with the mandate.
Abdul Malik Sayyid Muhammad, student Western regional minister for the Nation of Islam, disagrees. The Los Angeles-based student minister is on a public awareness campaign with a documentary produced with Attorney Robert F. Kennedy called “Medical Racism: The New Apartheid.” It exposes the perils of experimental vaccines and the sordid history of America’s medical malfeasance.
“So, whatever Saudis do, if its contrary to what God’s man has instructed, then Saudi is in trouble,” said Abdul Malik Sayyid Muhammad. “Their people are in trouble because their health department is leading the people to death’s door,” he said.
“Look at Satan: ‘I’m going to come at you in your straight path,’ ” Student Minister Sayyid Muhammad said, quoting the Holy Qur’an. “What Muslim doesn’t want to go to hajj?” he asked.
Minister Farrakhan said Feb. 27, a price for standing against possible vaccine orders may be the inability to travel by plane.
“I’m with Farrakhan,” said Min. Sayyid Muhammad. “I just won’t go.”
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