This Sunday the Government of Saudi Arabia announced that women will no longer be able to access the tomb of Muhammad, one of the spaces most visited by Muslims.
The government of Saudi Arabia announced this Sunday that from now on women will no longer be able to access the tomb of Muhammad, one of the spaces most visited by Muslims who come to the holy city of Medina.
The Saudi Ministry of Pilgrimages indicated that the mobile application with which pilgrimages to the holy places of Mecca and Medina are managed will no longer allow women to reserve a view to the burial site of the prophet, published the Okaz newspaper, which regularly features official government information.
With this application, which began to be used with the onset of the pandemic, almost two years ago, you can reserve tickets to the Great Mosque of Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque, where is his tomb, in Medina, and obtain a code that is scanned to the entrances of these.
In general, according to the interpretation of Islam in Saudi Arabia, women are prohibited from visiting cemeteries, but until now there was generally leniency regarding the prophet’s tomb, although in some periods they had also been prohibited from visiting.
According to the Ministry, the visit to the tomb of Muhammad is now restricted to men, while they can ask for a permit to visit “Al Rawda”, the courtyard of the Prophet’s Mosque located between the pulpit and the tomb where he met with his friends.
The grave is in the mosque built by Muhammad following his arrival in Medina, where he spent part of his life and died, and Muslims come to visit it, although this ritual is not part of the rituals of the “hach” or major pilgrimage (obligatory to the least once in a lifetime for those Muslims who can afford it) or the “umra”, or minor pilgrimage.
In recent years Saudi Arabia, an ultra-conservative country that has imposed multiple prohibitions and limitations on women’s rights for decades, has lifted some of them in recent years, such as those of driving or playing sports, in an attempt to present itself to the world as a modern country.
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