The hajj is the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. It is one of the five "pillars" of Islam; the Koran instructs all Muslims to complete it once if they are financially and physically able. Around 1.7m pilgrims took part in the 2026 hajj, the majority travelling from Asia. The rituals span five days and have changed little for centuries. They include the tawaf—walking seven times anti-clockwise around the Kaaba, a building at the centre of Mecca's Grand Mosque—and the sa'i, walking or running seven times between two hills.
Saudi Arabia allocates each country an annual quota of hajj visas. Demand often vastly exceeds supply: around 5.7m Indonesians sit on a waiting-list, but Indonesia—the world's biggest Muslim-majority country—gets only 220,000 places. Some wait 40 years to be selected. Bangladesh failed to fill its quota between 2023 and 2025 because of rising costs and in 2026 agreed to lower its allowance to 78,500, from 127,000.
Costs have risen sharply since the pandemic, partly because of more expensive flights, depreciating Asian currencies and Saudi Arabia's replacement of older, cheaper accommodation with swanky new hotels in Mecca. In Bangladesh a hajj package cost around 300,000 takas ($2,440) in 2019; by 2026 it was 600,000 takas. Bangladesh is considering reviving sea-borne pilgrimage, which it has not done since the 1980s.
The umrah is a cheaper mini-pilgrimage that can be performed year-round and has no quota. The umrah is also becoming pricier. Wealthy pilgrims pay for VIP packages and stay in nicer hotels closer to the Grand Mosque, and some brag about how many times they have completed it on social media—undermining the hajj's egalitarian spirit, in which all Muslims are meant to be equal before Allah.
For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat.