Although the pilgrimage was imposed on every Muslim who was able to perform it after reaching the age of assignment, obstacles prevented him from establishing it or completing it in some years throughout history due to the loss of security or fear of epidemics and diseases.
According to the considered Islamic historical sources, the first epidemic of a solution to Muslims is the “Emmaus” epidemic, which is the plague that afflicted the Levant in the 18th year of migration, and killed the Muslims ’lives and caused the death of the companions and followers, and it was the reason that the Islamic conquests stopped to some extent.
According to Ibn Katheer in his book “The Beginning and the End”, an epidemic in Mecca in the year 357 of migration called “Al-Mashri”, and caused the death of many people, and the death of Jamal Al-Hajij as a result of thirst, and most of those who managed to reach Makkah died after Performing the Hajj pilgrimage due to the epidemic.
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani also indicated that in the year 827 AH, mosques in Mecca were disrupted due to epidemics.
Historian books indicate that caravans of pilgrims in that year witnessed a significant decline, especially from countries where the epidemic broke out.
As Imam Al-Dhahabi mentioned in the book “History of Islam” on the events of the year 448 AH, he says: “And in it the great drought was in Andalusia and the epidemic, and the creation died in Seville, so that the mosques remained closed to what they had to pray in.”
In the year 449 AH, it was mentioned in the book “Traders Beyond the River” that a great epidemic occurred in these lands, which was overburdened, and that 18,000 funerals were exited from this region in one day, and the number of dead was estimated at 2,650 million people.
Thus, it is clear that epidemics affected areas far from Makkah have greatly affected the launch of pilgrims' convoys to them due to business interruptions and people refraining from meeting in markets and places of worship.
Historians have also called the 19th century the "century of the epidemic" because of the large number of epidemics that spread and killed people in various parts of the world, and the Hejaz had its share of these epidemics, especially the cholera epidemic that came again and again through pilgrims coming from India.
Historical sources state that in the year 1246 AH, the epidemic from India again spread to take the lives of many pilgrims, killing at least three quarters of the pilgrims arriving at the time, and it was called the "Indian Epidemic."
The year 1892 witnessed a severe accumulation of dead bodies, accompanied by a renewed cholera epidemic during the Hajj season. It was not possible to bury them, and deaths increased in Arafat and reached a climax in Mina.
In the late 19th century, cholera threatened the methods of Islamic pilgrimage, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal, and the ease of spreading diseases through ships and railways, and forced pilgrims to remain in quarantine for 15 days in Suez or the Red Sea, before heading to the Hijaz.
Historical sources indicate that the first application of the quarantine system in the Ottoman Empire was during the cholera outbreak in 1831 AD.
In 1895, the first directorate of health was established in the city of Makkah Al-Mukarramah, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia established a quarry for pilgrims outside the city of Jeddah in the fifties of the last century, and its site was later transferred to King Abdulaziz Hospital.
In 2009, with the spread of the pandemic, "H1N1", it was decided to limit the elderly, children and sick people to perform the rituals of Hajj that year because of fears of the spread of the epidemic.
As the spread of one of the strains of the Corona virus escalated in 2013, fears increased about its danger to the pilgrims of the Sacred House of God. Saudi Arabia urged the elderly and the chronically ill from Muslims to refrain from performing the Hajj pilgrimage, to limit the spread of the Corona virus that causes the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that resulted On the killing of dozens in the Kingdom.
With the spread of the Covid-19 virus at the beginning of 2020 and thousands of lives claimed around the world, dozens of workers in the Holy Mosque of Mecca began to purify the floors of the Sacred Mosque and sterilize them non-stop, and with the increasing number of infected people worldwide, Saudi made a decision to suspend the entry of pilgrims to it, and with the first cases recorded inside the Kingdom, Umrah was suspended For residents and expatriates, Saudi Arabia subsequently decided to limit the performance of the Hajj segment to a specific number of its citizens and those on its land.