Hajj Guidance for Japan-based Pilgrims

This guide walks you through documents, health checks, booking channels, day-by-day rites and return steps for Hajj as presented on the Wikipedia page. Hajj is an annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, required once in a lifetime for Muslims who are physically and financially capable and able to support their family during their absence.

What makes Hajj a duty for you?

Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam alongside the Shahadah, salah, zakah and sawm. The Shahadah states that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. The Wikipedia page presents Hajj as a cleansing of worldly sins and as a display of brotherhood, solidarity and submission to God. The rites run over five to six days from the 8th to the 12th or 13th of Dhu'l-Hijja, the last month of the Islamic calendar. Because the Islamic year follows the moon and runs about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year, the Gregorian date moves each year. The page lists 15 June for 2024, 5 June for 2025, 26 May for 2026 and 15 May for 2027, each corresponding to 9 Dhu'l-Hijja, known as Day of Arafah and called the Day of Hajj. If you are an adult in good health with personal safety and sufficient wealth, the page says you should perform Hajj in the same year and only reasons beyond your control justify waiting.

How do booking and visas work?

Most Hajj-related issues are handled by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah. The government of Saudi Arabia sets quotas for various countries to keep numbers manageable and uses security forces and CCTV cameras for safety. For you as a traveler, the Wikipedia page describes packages arranged through licensed Hajj agencies and notes that pilgrims from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom purchase packages from licensed agencies in their countries. It also cites the Haj subsidy in Pakistan and Tabung Haji in Malaysia as institutions that assist pilgrims with costs. Since 2023, the Ministry has used Nusuk for parts of registration and package booking. For the 2023 season, applicants from Europe, Australia and the Americas were selected through Nusuk, which served applicants from 57 countries and offered packages and payment options. Its Nusuk Hajj channel is overseen by the Ministry and lists packages from authorized providers. If you live in Japan, check which authorized channel serves your country of residence before you plan payments or travel.

What papers should you prepare first?

To enter Saudi Arabia for Hajj as a Muslim, visa requirements must be met. The Ministry plans to ease issuance so Hajj and Umrah pilgrims can obtain an e-visa within minutes through campaigns and companies, and Umrah visas can be issued electronically within 24 hours through a special platform. People from Gulf Cooperation Council countries do not need a visa to enter Saudi Arabia and vice versa. People with Saudi visas are not allowed to enter the site unless they are Muslim. The Makkah Route Initiative, implemented since 2018 by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, completes certain steps at the airport of departure. In 2019, it planned service for about 225,000 pilgrims from airports in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Tunisia, with visa issuance, health compliance checks, preventive measures linked to the global epidemiological situation, and luggage sorting with direct delivery to hotels upon arrival. Keep your passport, visa approval, package contract and health certificates together from departure to return.

How do you enter Ihram and the first rites?

Ihram gives its name to the special state of holiness that marks the start of Hajj for each person, and it starts at the Miqat or before reaching it. In Ihram, you abstain from clipping nails, shaving any part of the body, sexual relations, using perfumes, damaging plants, killing animals, covering the head for men or the face and hands for women, getting married and carrying weapons. Men wear two white seamless cloths, one wrapped around the waist reaching below the knee, and the other draped over the left shoulder and tied at the right side. Women wear ordinary dress that fulfills the Islamic condition of public dress, with hands and face uncovered. The dress shows equality before God without difference between rich and poor, and recalls shrouds worn after death. You then perform the annual pilgrimage to Mecca step by step with tawaf and sai. Tawaf means walking seven times counterclockwise around the Kaaba, including Hateem on the north side, starting and ending each circuit at the Black Stone, which you kiss, touch or point to with the right hand while reciting the Talbiyah. Men perform the first three circuits at a hurried pace known as Ramal. After tawaf, you pray two Rakaat at the Place of Abraham and drink water from the Zamzam Well. Sai means walking or running seven times between Safa and Marwah, now enclosed by the Sacred Mosque with air-conditioned tunnels, two green pillars where you run, and an internal express lane for elderly or disabled people.

Why do Arafat and Muzdalifah shape the whole journey?

On the 8th of Dhu'l-Hijja, known as Tarwiyah Day, you again don Ihram garments and confirm your intention. The name refers to quenching thirst, because pilgrims once carried water from Mecca to Arafat where there was no water. After morning prayer, you proceed to Mina, where you spend the whole day and offer noon, afternoon, evening and night prayers, then leave for Arafat after morning prayer. Before noon on the 9th, you arrive at Arafat, a barren plain some 20 kilometres east of Mecca. From noon through sunset, you stand in contemplative vigil, known as wuquf, offering supplications, repenting past sins, seeking mercy and listening to the sermon delivered from near Jabal al-Rahmah, the Mount of Mercy, from where Muhammad is said to have delivered his last sermon. At Masjid al-Namirah, you offer noon and afternoon prayers together at noontime. The page states that Hajj is invalid if you do not spend the afternoon on Arafat. After sunset, you leave for Muzdalifah without performing Maghrib at Arafat. At Muzdalifah, an area between Arafat and Mina, you perform Maghrib and Isha jointly, spend the night praying and sleeping on the ground under the open sky, and gather pebbles for the next rite.

How do the days in Mina close the pilgrimage?

After morning prayer, you move from Muzdalifah to Mina. On the 10th, known as Qurban Day, you throw seven stones from sunrise to sunset at only the largest of the three pillars, known as Jamrat al-Aqabah. The remaining two pillars are not stoned on this day. Pilgrims climb ramps to the multilevel Jamaraat Bridge, and since 2004 the pillars have been replaced by long walls with catch basins below to collect pebbles. After stoning, cattle are sacrificed to commemorate the story of Ibrahim and Ismael. Many pilgrims buy a sacrifice voucher in Mecca before Hajj begins, so the animal is slaughtered in the name of God on the 10th without the pilgrim being present, and modern abattoirs send the meat as charity to poor people around the world. At the same time, Muslims worldwide perform similar sacrifices during Eid al-Adha. Then men shave or trim head hair, and women cut the ends of their hair. You revisit the Sacred Mosque for Tawaf al-Ifadah, an essential part of Hajj, and spend the night of the 10th back at Mina. From noon to sunset on the 11th and again on the 12th, you throw seven pebbles at each of the three pillars. You may leave Mina for Mecca before sunset on the 12th. If you cannot leave or choose to stay longer, you perform the stoning ritual again on the 13th before returning to Mecca. The visitor guide to the mosque area can help you review prayer manners before you join large crowds again at home.

What do you do before leaving Mecca?

Before leaving Mecca, you perform a farewell tawaf called Tawaf al-Wadaa, in which wadaa means to bid farewell. You circle the Kaaba seven times counterclockwise and, if you can, attempt to touch or kiss the Kaaba. During Hajj, pilgrims traditionally also travel to Medina, approximately 450 kilometres to the northeast, in particular to pray at Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, which contains the tomb of Muhammad. The Quba Mosque and Masjid al-Qiblatayn are also usually visited. Attendance figures give a sense of scale. The page reports 1,707,301 participants in 2026, 1,673,230 in 2025 and 1,833,164 in 2024, with an average of 2,269,145 per year between 2000 and 2019 and a high of 3,161,573 in 2012. Recent years also show tighter health controls, from very limited resident-only numbers in 2020 and 2021 during COVID-19 to heat care in 2024. After returning, pilgrims may prefix their names with the title Al-Hajji, though scholars cited on the page say Hajj should signify religious commitment rather than social status. Discuss what you learned with community life across Japan, keep copies of your travel and sacrifice records, and set aside time to rest after the night in Muzdalifah and the long walks between sites.