I have read that only Muslims can visit Mecca and that foreigners need to apply for the Hajj visa and provide a receipt from a local Muslim center. Are Saudi citizens who are Christian able to visit Mecca without such requirements?
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8While Islam.SE may have information, I don't think this question is off-topic at Politics.SE as the requirement is legally imposed by the Saudi Arabian regime and is not purely a question decided by religious officials. A strict limit of this kind is also probably unique in the world.– ohwilleke ♦Commented Sep 3 at 19:37
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8Islam SE has quaranic justification for why not, which is not the point of the question, that is I don't care what the Quran says, I care what the Saudi Gov't says, so I believe this question better belongs in this SE– maxCommented Sep 3 at 19:43
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7Travel.SE is a possibility since the question asks only about travel to Mecca not the politics behind any restrictions.– Rick SmithCommented Sep 3 at 19:50
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4Official policies of Saudi law and govt wrt non-Muslims would seem to be pretty much the same type of concern as non-discrimination laws and policies in other countries - i.e. well-suited to this site, or SE.Law. And, yes, from an external PoV, religious motivations for discrimination - assuming there is any - are of secondary interest to the discrimination happening in the first place.– Italian Philosophers 4 MonicaCommented Sep 3 at 22:05
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7BTW, one angle I didn't consider [thus far] is that officially there might not be any non-Muslim citizens! skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/57273/…– Make StackExchange GREAT 4everCommented Sep 4 at 6:35
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2 Answers
Frame-change: it is already (effectively) illegal for a citizen to not be Muslim.
Whilst it is true that there is no specific law requiring citizens to be Muslims, conversion away from Islam is defined as apostasy and punishable by death. Foreign nationals seeking to gain Saudi citizenship are required to convert to Islam if not already Muslim.
The only potential route by which there could be non-Muslim Saudi citizens could (legally) exist, is if they had Saudi citizenship from birth, and both grew up non-Muslim and without a Muslim father (if they grew up Muslim or with a Muslim father they would legally be considered to have been Muslim as a child, and thus an apostate). I.e. they would have had to have had citizenship since the creation of the state (if conquered, they would have had to gain citizenship, which requires conversion). Such a population does not appear to exist (although of course it is hard to prove a negative, and so many other sources simply give proportions of Sunni & Shii citizens that sum to 100%):
"non-Muslims are not allowed to have Saudi citizenship" - CIA World Factbook
One edge case would be the child of apostates. If the apostasy postdates the birth, but results in the child not being raised Muslim, then it seems that the following the usual rules of a Muslim's child being considered Muslim, the child would still be considered Muslim (or potentially an apostate if they do not profess Islam going forward). If the apostasy predates the birth it is less clear to me, but my guess is that the child would either be deemed Muslim (or an apostate if they are old enough to deny such an identification and, in fact, do so).
As such, any non-Muslim Saudi citizen would have to be (legally) an apostate and so could already be arrested and subject to the highest penalty of the law (death), making the question of whether they're allowed to enter Mecca moot - they're not allowed to exist.
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Once I googled for that, non-born saudi can not ever become saudi and that was all. Even the simplest way - foreigner wives of saudi nationals - get only permanent residency. As far I know, even the king can only grant permanent citizen status. Only way for acquiring Saudi citizenship can happen if you are - strongly - bound to the saudi by blood, but somehow you did not get your papers at birth. Note, except their huge amount of money, there is really not too much reason to become one of them. Knowing this, they are pretty rational. Commented Sep 4 at 17:53
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1@Joshua in the eyes of the Saudi government, a child to a Muslim father is considered Muslim. Additionally, according to some interpretations of Islam, all children are born Muslim, but may later be led into apostasy. This is why many Muslims refer to converts to Islam as "reverts" rather than "converts"– TristanCommented Sep 5 at 8:40
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Imho it is important to mention that while this is the law in KSA, it is not necessarily enforced. A Saudi citizen who would for instance become agnostic would not necessarily face any problem, as long as they don't advocate for it. The law is similarly harsh for gay people, but similarly not really enforced. However there are multiple examples of long prison sentences for people who publicly defend opinions perceived as apostasy. There are numerous grey legal areas in KSA, the official law is not always enforced.– ErwanCommented yesterday
IDK if anything's changed since 2022, but according to the US State Department:
The government prohibits non-Muslims from entering central Mecca or religious sites in Medina.
There doesn't seem to be any distinction based on citizenship stated.
OTOH the enforcement level of the ban isn't too clear. In the same year, an Israeli journalist made the news by "sneaking in". (AFAICT he drove in and walked around taking photos in Western attire with no interference.)
But there are clear road signs:
answered Sep 3 at 19:50
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5As discussed on travel SE it would be fairly difficult for the authorities to check the religion of every visitor. Commented Sep 3 at 20:08
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Iirc the only requirement to "become a Muslim" is to state sincerely there is one God and Muhammad is his prophet. Based on the news article, there doesn't seem to be any check like official religion on citizenship or something like that.– qwrCommented Sep 5 at 14:49
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1@qwr non-citizen residents have Muslim/non-Muslim marked on their ID cards they're required to carry. That doesn't apply to non-residents (i.e. tourists) though, so there are obvious issues around practical enforcement– TristanCommented Sep 5 at 15:23