Mecca slowly stirred from a seven-month hibernation on Sunday as pilgrims trickled in after Saudi authorities partially lifted a coronavirus ban on performing umrah — a pilgrimage to Islam’s two holiest sites that is undertaken at any time of year.

Millions of Muslims from around the world usually descend on Saudi Arabia for the umrah and Haj pilgrimages.

Saudi Arabia, which held a largely symbolic Haj earlier this year limited to domestic worshippers, has allowed citizens and residents to start performing umrah as of Sunday at 30 per cent capacity, or 6,000 pilgrims a day. It will open for Muslims from abroad starting November 1.

Last year, the Gulf state drew 19 million umrah visitors.

“All of Mecca is happy today, it’s like the end of a jail term. We have missed the spiritual feeling of pilgrims roaming the city,” said Yasser al-Zahrani, who became a full time Uber driver after losing his construction job during a three-month national lockdown imposed in March.

“It was a nightmare... there was barely any work to cover my bills,” he said.

Before the pandemic, more than 1,300 hotels and hundreds of stores buzzed around the clock to cater to pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Now many are closed.

At midnight, tens of registered pilgrims wearing masks prepared to enter the Grand Mosque in small groups.

“This year has been heavy and full of tragedies.I am praying for God’s forgiveness for all mankind,” said Eman, a Pakistani national who resides in Saudi Arabia, accompanied by her daughter.

As pilgrims circled the Kaaba, a stone structure that is the most sacred in Islam, officials made sure they kept a safe distance apart.

Some enjoyed a respite from the usual crowding. “This is the easiest umrah I have ever made,” said Abu Fahad, a Saudi.

Pilgrimage is the backbone of a plan to expand tourism under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s drive to diversify the economy of the world’s top oil exporter. It aimed to boost umrah visitors to 15 million by 2020, a plan disrupted by coronavirus, and to 30 million by 2030.

Religious pilgrimage generates $12 billion in revenues from worshippers’ lodging, transport, gifts, food and fees, according to official data.

Economists have estimated Mecca’s hotel sector may lose at least 40 per cent of pilgrimage-driven income this year.

Near the Grand Mosque, hotels at high-rise towers were mostly empty and shopping malls closed hours before the resumption of umrah. Dozens of stores and restaurants were shut.