Between the corridors of the Grand Mosque, the plains of Makkah, the valley of Mina, the plain of Arafat, and the grounds of Muzdalifah, millions of pilgrims move these days answering the call of their Lord. They have come from every corner of the earth, with their diverse races, languages, cultures, and colors. Many belong to countries torn apart by conflict and exhausted by wars and divisions. Yet they converge upon Makkah, united by Hajj in a scene that refutes the rhetoric of war and embodies the possibility of coexistence.
At a time when Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people continue, and as the region’s crises and the suffering of its peoples persist, from Sudan to Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria despite occasional signs of relief here and there, the American-Israeli war on one side and Iran on the other has placed not only the region, but the world itself, before a major crisis.
From the outset, the position of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was that it would not allow its airspace or territory to be used to target Iran. However, Iranian attacks on Riyadh and other cities and capitals led the world to anticipate the Saudi response. As some voices called for drawing Riyadh into the conflict, Saudi decision-making circles handled the situation with calm restraint.
Despite the nature of the Iranian attacks and their immediate repercussions, the Saudi response operated on several fronts. In the media sphere, Riyadh neither denied nor downplayed the Iranian attacks. On the security front, the Saudi authorities took all necessary measures to protect the country’s assets and achievements. Politically, Saudi diplomacy leveraged those attacks in international forums and conferences, transforming them from incidents demanding retaliation into part of an accusatory record on which international pressure could be built, a strategy viewed as more effective than an immediate military response.
Amid these tensions, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced, through Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that it had placed all its capabilities at the service of supporting brotherly countries subjected to Iranian attacks. It opened its territory, airports, and ports to them and kept supply chains running.
At the same time, it continued receiving millions of pilgrims and providing them with every service, including pilgrims holding the nationalities of countries involved in the crisis or sympathetic to one side or another. This Saudi approach delivers a political message: Makkah is not governed by the logic of war; rather, war is managed according to the logic of Makkah.
Strategic calculation is what gives Saudi policy its real weight. Saudi diplomacy often operates behind the scenes, and the countries that forge peace in times of war are remembered in history with a different kind of distinction than those who fought battles, won them, and still lost much in the process. Throughout its history, and even during its most turbulent periods, Saudi Arabia has preserved the voice of Makkah and the call of Islam as a unifying force for Muslims, while keeping peace a possible choice.
Yet the most distinctive element of the Saudi experience remains tied to its service to the Two Holy Mosques and its care for Hajj and the pilgrims. This responsibility, in particular, is what gives Saudi policy a different dimension. Saudi Arabia acts not only as a state defending its interests, but also as a country carrying a religious and symbolic responsibility that makes its calculations more delicate.
The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques does not merely represent a local political authority; in the global Islamic consciousness, the role is tied to safeguarding the holy sites and preserving the unity of the Ummah. As a result, the choice of war becomes a complex decision that extends beyond purely political calculations and military equations.
Saudi wisdom becomes especially evident as the human caravans move between Makkah and the holy sites. Much of the world’s political geography collapses before a scene unlike any other: millions of pilgrims answering the call with one voice and gathering on the same plain. Though they arrived aboard planes from countries competing over borders, interests, and ideologies, with governments clashing across security councils and media platforms, the Saudi government receives them and provides them with care and support so they may perform their rites with peace of mind and ease.
In Makkah, the Iranian stands beside the Arab, the Asian beside the European, the American beside the Chinese, and the Russian beside the African, without any of them asking the other about political positions or international alignments. The language of war dissolves before the cry of “Labbayk Allahumma Labbayk,” and the entire scene becomes a living refutation of the idea that conflict is the eternal destiny of peoples.
Makkah does not merely present a theoretical discourse on coexistence; it produces coexistence as a lived reality every year, transforming difference into temporary unity under the canopy of worship. At a time when the world has become more divided and polarized, Hajj seems to deliver a message to humanity that people can still come together despite everything.
It is an expression of the responsibility of serving the Two Holy Mosques and a moral commitment before more than two billion Muslims, upheld by a state that has dedicated itself to serving Islam and striving for peace from the era of King Abdulaziz to that of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz.
