Umrah Aug ’21: Post-COVID Experience

Alhamdulillah. On 12th August 2021, I was blessed with the opportunity to visit the Haramayn with my parents and perform Umrah for the first time in 16 years. The guide below will hopefully outline some of the key aspects of this experience from a practical standpoint, with the current COVID regulations in mind, in the hope that this might support anyone else considering this journey during these strange times.

A few notes before we proceed: please bear in mind, this guide is based on my own experience, and experiences may differ for each individual. I have done my best to outline facts and check accuracy at the time of writing, however I would urge you to please do your own research to verify these points and double-check they are still valid if and when you plan your trip. None of this information was clear to us prior to the trip, so I do hope it’s useful to you.

Finally, this journey occurred during the very first weeks of Saudi reopening its doors to international Umrah pilgrims (still excluding some countries) including the lifting of quarantine. We were some of the first (possibly even the very first) Umrah visitors from the UK, and this was highlighted by conversations at our hotels, stores we visited and just the general state of affairs. With this in mind, be prepared for things to adjust (hopefully) as time goes on and more international visitors fly in. This fact sets the tone for much of this guide and the overall experience.

Quick Overview

Before we dive in, I’m sure many will be interested in the general state of affairs for Umrah visitors, particularly around the Haramayn. For context, our stay was roughly 4 nights in Makkah and 5 nights in Madinah. Aside from the entry and security situation (detailed in full below), what we experienced can perhaps be likened to a sleeping state slowly reawakening. Most stores were closed, especially restaurants – an accurate summary would be that Ibrahim al Khalil Street behind Masjid al Haram, usually bustling with restaurant activity and crowds of people, was completely shut except for one or two small shops selling random wares. Otherwise, every single food business had its shutters down. In Madinah, things were slightly more ahead of the curve, there was slightly more activity and more ‘normality’ on the streets.

Aside from this, hotels are also resuming service although some were referring to this period as a ‘soft launch’ (fewer or slightly pared back services). Masks are worn pretty much everywhere, so make sure you pack enough. 

Entry into KSA

Including that which is outlined by the official Saudi guidelines, you will need the following for entry:

• Saudi tourism eVisa which now includes Umrah – ours were granted within half hour of applying
• Registration on Muqeem (vaccination data) – must be completed within 72 hours prior to flight

• Meningitis vaccine certificate – vaccine must be at least 10 days before entry
• COVID vaccine certificate showing both doses – second vaccine must not be less than 14 days prior to flight
• Negative PCR COVID-19 test certificate – test must be done within 72 hours prior to flight

Please ensure you are double vaccinated with one of the recognised vaccines (Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson). Based on the above, you generally will not need to quarantine after entry – however, for Umrah visitors, please keep reading.

Access and apps

You will need the Tawakkalna app for entry into Masjid al Haram and Masjid al Nabawi, and to enter some stores, malls and other sites of interest. You will also need the Eatmarna app to book a slot for Umrah, congregational prayer in Masjid al Haram and prayer in the sacred Rawda of Masjid al Nabawi which apparently also covers ziyara of the Prophet ﷺ.

You will not be able to access either of these apps until you’re in Saudi and have a Saudi SIM, so I had no idea what I was in for. Hopefully this guide will help you avoid facing the unknown!

Tawakkalna

As mentioned above, you will need this app to enter most places and it basically verifies your ‘health status’ as someone who is COVID negative and double-vaccinated. 

To register, you will need to be inside Saudi and have a Saudi SIM card. If you attempt to register whilst in the UK or using a UK SIM card, you will simply see a “This service is unavailable, please try later” error. I was told I’d need to register within 8 hours of arrival into Saudi, however I found this to be untrue and was able to register later on when I was finally able to obtain a Saudi SIM.

Another important note if you are traveling with elderly dependents: if they don’t have smartphones, please get budget or second-hand handsets if possible and register separate Saudi SIMs for them so they can have their own Tawakkalna app. The Tawakkalna app system does not allow non-residents to add dependents or family members to one account, nor can you register several Tawakkalna accounts to one Saudi SIM (I tried and it kicked back with errors), which makes it stressful when you’re entering any place requiring it, especially Masjid al Haram or Masjid al Nabawi including its courtyards (more below).

Eatmarna

You will need to be registered with Tawakkalna to be able to register with Eatmarna. As mentioned briefly, you will need this to be able to perform Umrah, congregational prayer in Masjid al Haram ¹Update: 11 Nov ’21 – Bookings no longer required to perform congregational prayer inside Masjid al Haram, only Tawakkalna health status required. Umrah permits still required. (Source: Sara Intl. Travel) and prayer in the sacred Rawda of Masjid al Nabawi which apparently also covers ziyara²Update: 29 Aug ’21 – men no longer require the permit for ziyara and can do this via Bab al Salam whenever Masjid al Nabawi is open. Women still require a permit. (Source: Sara Intl. Travel) of the Prophet ﷺ.

To be completely honest, this app is an absolute horror to use so here is what I learnt from my own experience:

• You can only book Umrah after 3 days of being in Saudi (so essentially a type of quarantine)
• You can only book one Umrah permit every 15 days
• When booking Umrah, you will be asked to select a ‘gathering point’ – I showed this to a clerk at our hotel (Movenpick) and was told it would be fine to select any, which proved true for us
• You can only book one ‘Praying in the Noble Rawdah’ permit every 30 days – which would apparently allow you access to the ziyara ³Update: 29 Aug ’21 – men no longer require the permit for ziyara and can do this via Bab al Salam whenever Masjid al Nabawi is open. Women still require a permit. (Source: Sara Intl. Travel)

Please note here, there is an office for Ministry of Hajj and Umrah tucked away behind Gate 305 (if I remember correctly) of Masjid al Nabawi. The lady there advised me that the Eatmarna app has a ‘system’ where if you check it every half hour on the dot, it refreshes and you may see some slots open up. If you miss it by even half a minute, you won’t see this change. There may be some weight to this, and I did check it often, but it didn’t help our case for women’s ziyara.

Based on the above, one can assume that it means a permit for praying inside the Masjid al Haram or Masjid Nabawi would also be limited to one every 15-30 days. This essentially means, on a normal ~10 day trip, you’d be limited to one congregational prayer in each place and one Umrah, and one moment of ziyara of the Prophet ﷺ within the sacred Rawda. Make of that what you will..

Notes

In some instances, we found guards to be incredibly stern. Without a Tawakkalna app per individual – and in those specific cases, a permit – it is a struggle. For myself, I was with elderly parents who don’t have smartphones and so it was a difficult lesson to learn; it meant I had to persuade and pray hard every time there was a ‘checkpoint’, including just to enter the courtyards of Masjid al Nabawi. Again, save yourself the headache if you’re in a similar boat and be prepared to set up individual Tawakkalna accounts.

That being said, there are some instances where we found guards to be slightly more lenient and so two Umrahs were possible instead of one. We did find female guards to be much more forbidding, hostile if you will, and so we were unable to perform ziyara on the women’s side since there was no ability to book a permit.

SIM Card

The first SIM card stall we found was Mobily (within Hajar Tower), however the SIM registration system was experiencing technical issues and after 40 minutes, the guy told us he was having trouble and we’d need to come back later. We eventually went to the Zain store, where it was registered within 20 minutes. I asked for a ‘pre-paid data SIM’, that seemed good enough and I was able to make local calls without issue, although I can’t recall the cost.

Bear in mind that buying a SIM in Saudi is not like buying a SIM in the UK, so be prepared to provide proof of ID and fingerprints and await ‘acceptance’ of your application. Zain turned out to be a pretty good network, solid coverage overall and only cut out in a few remote areas between Makkah and Madinah.

Entry into the Haramayn (Masjid al Haram, Masjid al Nabawi)

Masjid al Haram: there is no longer an outer courtyard as such, that area is now just for walking. Either you are inside the Masjid al Haram itself, or you’re not. To enter, you will need to show your Tawakkalna and your Eatmarna permit. Alhamdulillah, I managed without the Eatmarna permit and it was a difficult negotiation, but otherwise I would’ve had to forgo performing Umrah this trip – so if this is your only option, I’d say try. May He grant you an opening to His House.

Masjid al Nabawi: you will need to show your Tawakkalna to enter the courtyard, and congregational prayer is performed in the courtyard so this may suffice your day-to-day activities here. You will need to show your Tawakkalna and your Eatmarna permit to enter for ziyara⁴Update: 28 Aug ’21 – men no longer require the permit for ziyara and can do this via Bab al Salam whenever Masjid al Nabawi is open. Women still require a permit. (Source: Sara Intl. Travel).

The Spiritual End Goal

Now for the main event. All of these procedures aside, there are absolutely no words for the incredibly surreal experience that is looking at the Ka’bah for the first time, and indeed seeing the noble Green Dome upon entering the fragrant city of Madinah. The Haramayn themselves cloak you with a gentle and loving amnesia, in that you forget about all stress when you’re within their sacred perimeters. I can still taste the sweet Madinah air, can still vividly see the colours of spectacular Madinan sunrises when I close my eyes..

Umrah

Let’s do a quick paragraph regarding Umrah. There are volumes and volumes of resources on this sacred matter, and I found two particularly useful:

• Firstly, this app ‘Hajj and Umrah Guide with Dua’ (Android) which was useful to help me to navigate steps and supplications without too much overwhelming information. I actually screenshotted the key steps from it and cropped/highlighted sections so that I didn’t need to navigate the app whilst moving. I could then just flip through each image whilst circumambulating the Ka’bah, which made it even easier to follow what I was doing, when and how.
• The second resource, which I briefly skimmed over and seems really well-written, is this guide from Hajj & Umrah Planner.

Quick note here: there are now no longer any Zamzam tanks in Masjid al Haram, I believe this change actually happened pre-COVID. Zamzam is now distributed by guards wearing a ‘tank backpack’ – something to bear in mind if you want to drink Zamzam after performing your Umrah.⁵Update: 14 Sep ’21 – Zamzam tanks have now returned to the Haramayn. (Source: HaramainInfo #1, HaramainInfo #2)

Slow Down..

Here is a section I’d like to dedicate to gently nudging you to slow down. Everything moves fast these days, even more so when you’re now in Saudi and trying to juggle Umrah and this new era of regulations. When you’re in the Haramayn, make a conscious decision to slow down and absorb every single moment. Supplicate deeply, ask for what you’re seeking, refocus your heart and remember where you are; there is a deep and sacred history to where you are standing right at this moment.

When you see the Ka’bah and are circling around it, feel the majesty enveloping you entirely. When you are in Madinah, know that you are a guest at the banquet of the most honourable and most hospitable of Hosts ﷺ. And a request: please, whilst you’re there, kindly convey my salam to the Best of Creation ﷺ.

Ziyara to Sacred Sites

We had a list of places to visit for both sacred cities, however many of these were closed due to COVID and many were just closed off permanently.

For reference, in Makkah we visited Jannat al Mu’alla, the mount of Hira, the mount of cave Thawr, the Hajj sites including Mina, Arafah and Jabal Rahma, and Masjid A’isha. Do note that the sacred site where the Prophet ﷺ was born is now the Makkah al Mukarramah Library. In Madinah, we visited Jannat al Baqi (can be done from a distance if not possible to enter), Masjid Quba, Masjid Qiblatayn, the site of the military expedition of Khandaq, the home of Sayyida Fatima nearby this, the site of the battle of Uhud and the resting place of the martyrs of Uhud including Sayyidina Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib. I did dearly wish to visit the garden of Sayyidina Salman al Farsi but it was apparently closed at that point, so we were unable to do so.

If you wish to do the above, ask the staff at your hotel – they may be able to arrange contact with a local driver, most of whom are very familiar with the main ziyara sites.

There are a huge number of other sacred and memorable sites to visit, in both Makkah and Madinah and their surrounding areas, including various wells the Prophet ﷺ drank from, distributed from etc., and even those which still remain the property of Companions such as Sayyidina Uthman, however these now seem to be more and more inaccessible as time goes on.

Return to UK

Our experience at Jeddah Airport to return to the UK was, to say it politely, traumatising. This is partly due to lack of organised communication regarding COVID test policies, poor adjustment to the international reopening, but also just generally terrible attitude from staff. In summary, there was a huge drama regarding language barriers (see PCR test Results section below) which turned out to be pointless, and there was interrogating my elderly father in some remote room for ~20 minutes, in a language foreign to him, because his pacemaker sounded off the detectors at security (they refused to recognise his St. Bart’s pacemaker card and refused to communicate with him in English). This all also very nearly made us completely miss our flight, and thank God that plane was still on the tarmac when we ran through the gate.

The reason for the above disclosure is simply to say, please brace yourself. I pray hard that this lack of service improves, but otherwise be mentally prepared for psychological ambush.

PCR Test Results

As it stands⁶Please check the latest government guidance as it is subject to change – for the UK, please check official travel advice before making plans., you will need to do a PCR test within 72 hours of your departure flight from Saudi. Since we were in Madinah, we were told to go to a private hospital and upon further enquiry, were told to try Sulaiman Al Ahmadi Hospital (located here on Google Maps). They do indeed conduct PCR tests, and results are sent to you by SMS within roughly 24 hours. Please ensure you take ID with you, including passports and your Muqeem details.

Now, the PCR test results did indeed arrive to my SMS inbox the next day and naturally, it was in Arabic, from a number labelled MOH. This apparently didn’t satisfy the staff member at Jeddah Airport who frantically scolded me for the fact that it was an SMS in Arabic (why not PDF, and why Arabic?), despite my explanation that it’s clearly certified as sent from the Saudi Ministry of Health and we could easily translate this via Google Translate if the folks in London were concerned (even holding up the translation on my phone). As for format, I of course had little control over this and nowhere was it outlined that SMS is not an accepted output. Roughly 45 minutes later, after his many calls to his contact in London and hushed discussions with his own team (some of whom clearly didn’t see what the fuss was about), we were finally allowed through. If you’re wondering, we had absolutely no trouble at Heathrow as we didn’t need to show our test results when we arrived home.

In summary, my advice would be to ask your PCR test provider in Saudi if there is a possibility that you can receive your test results in English as a PDF, in addition to the Arabic SMS from the Saudi MOH (just to fully cover your back).

Passenger Locator Form (& Day 2 Test Kits)

Within 48 hours prior to your return flight to the UK, you must complete a passenger locator form. This includes ordering your Day 2 COVID Test Kits from a verified supplier (listed in the same form, so you can order it as you’re filling out the form) and entering the reference number. Test kits purchased elsewhere will not have a valid reference number and the form cannot be completed without, so bear this in mind.

Once your passenger locator form is complete, you can save the PDF. We were asked to show this at Jeddah Airport when checking in for our flight.

Miscellaneous Advice

Food options

Since availability was generally very limited, it was useful for us to know that:

• There are food courts inside Hajar Tower (Makkah) on floors P3 and P4 – these were slowly reopening but already had some decent options open during our trip.
• Supermarkets are a great and easy-to-find option in both sacred cities: there is an absolutely enormous supermarket in Makkah near Masjid al Haram called Al Abraj Hypermarket. There is also the well-known Bin Dawood Supermarket branches which can be found in both cities quite easily.
• There is an app which I personally found incredibly useful called HungerStation (Android & iOS) – I used it roughly 3 times in Madinah and had positive experiences all-round. Please note though, you will need minimum basic Arabic skills and the confidence of locating the driver since not all of them will meet you in the hotel lobby.

Useful words

If you’re not familiar, these words may be useful to note down:

tasreeH (تصريح) – this is referring to your permit booked on Eatmarna

iqama (اقامة) – if they ask for this, they’re asking to see your Muqeem registration. If they seem confused, bear in mind that the resident’s version is an ID card with a photograph whereas this is not the case for visitors.

At-Home COVID Kits

Be cautious of at-home COVID kits for fit-to-fly purposes! We used the MyHealthChecked kits brought from Boots, which were an absolute disaster; the results were not processed on time, despite us sending them off through a priority post box at 8.30am at the start of the pre-flight 72 hour window. Royal Mail delays, coupled with the fact that the test company had zero systems in place to prioritise delayed kits, meant we were stressed beyond words the night before our flight. We ended up spending significantly more on urgent COVID tests, but were fortunate to find a solution at all! The 4 hour service at DocTap (about 10 minutes away from Heathrow T2) was a lifesaver; excellent service, easy process and we received our results within 3 hours whilst nervously waiting in T2. Relief!

Please consider going into a physical test location for your fit-to-fly test, it may be worth the extra effort.

WhatsApp Calls

If you are hoping to make WhatsApp calls whilst in Saudi, please note you will most likely need a VPN. I was recommended SuperVPN, which seemed to do the job despite the annoying ads.

Drivers

If you’re looking for drivers (e.g. ziyara), from my experience, hotels were not willing to arrange this including airport transfers. It may be useful to ask service staff at your hotel if they can recommend someone local. Also, Uber works well in Saudi, at least this was my experience in Madinah so it’s definitely worth a try.

Quick Checklist (Key To-Do Items)

Pre-flight:⁷Please check the latest government guidance as it is subject to change – for the UK, please check official travel advice before making plans.

Have all important documentation ready (see first section titled ‘Entry into KSA’)
Create several paper copies of each of these items
Install Tawakkalna and Eatmarna apps

Upon entry:

Buy a Saudi SIM
Register on Tawakkalna
Register on Eatmarna
Book any necessary permits on Eatmarna ASAP

Pre-return:⁸Please check the latest government guidance as it is subject to change – for the UK, please check official travel advice before making plans.

Book pre-flight COVID test
Fill in passenger locator form, including ordering Day 2 kits

Parting Words

I hope and pray this guide was useful, practical and insightful. Please keep me in your prayers, especially if you do embark on this sacred journey and your eyes meet the noble Haramayn. Kindly please do also convey my salam at the blessed resting place of the Beloved ﷺ.

Check out my ‘Haramayn’ Instagram highlight reel from this trip for a casual insight into the experience.

If you have any further questions, please send me a DM on Instagram (@knownaszahra) or email me at zahra@knownaszahra.com and I’ll do my best to serve.

Zahra