Journalist and travel writer Zirrar Ali performed the Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia together with his elderly father. Amid the millions of people gathered for the five-day rite, he felt that the heat could become deadly, and he described this as a consequence of the climate crisis.
Temperatures during the Hajj exceeded 51 °C. According to the data cited in the article, a similar heat wave had already been recorded in 2024. Ali describes the pilgrimage as an experience in which the human mass and the hellish weather exist at the same time: there are many people around, but this does not guarantee rescue from dehydration and heat stroke.
Ali's story also has a personal dimension. He quit his corporate job after a turning-point experience in Iran, which changed his life priorities and led him to travel as a profession. The Hajj with his frail father became for him a trial in which the personal and the global were intertwined.
The piece is presented as a slice of the climate crisis, not merely as a story about a religious rite. The data cited show that peak temperatures in Mecca are about 2 °C higher than they were before the industrial era. According to the logic of the report, this is what turns the annual pilgrimage into a question of safety, not only of faith and organization.
This case shows that for the millions of people who come to Mecca each year, climate is becoming a decisive risk factor. Elderly pilgrims, like Ali's father, are the most vulnerable to heat, so the topic covers questions of health, the movement of people to religious events, and the readiness of infrastructure for extreme weather.