What’s Behind Central Asia’s Umrah Fever?

As the holy month of Ramadan drew near in March, Tajikistan’s president expressed his concern about frequent hajj and umrah pilgrimages performed by Tajik citizens and the amount of money spent on them. “In 2023 alone, 63,000 citizens of the country undertook hajj and umrah ceremonies,” Emomali Rahmon said, altogether spending more than 1,200 billion somoni, or roughly $110 million, on such pilgrimages. He urged people to redirect their financial resources toward their families, building homes, and investing in their children’s education rather than making repeated pilgrimages.

Islam is the most prevalent religion in Central Asia. The hajj pilgrimage is the fifth pillar of the Muslim faith; it is a journey to Mecca and Medina that Muslims view as a mandatory religious duty to make once in a lifetime if a person is physically and financially capable of doing so. Unlike hajj, which can only be undertaken at a specific point in the Islamic calendar and comes with a bevy of rituals, umrah is a smaller pilgrimage that can take place at any time.

Central Asian Leaders and their Pilgrimages

It was an ironic reprimand, given the fact that Rahmon has performed umrah five times and has been inside the Kaaba in Mecca thrice. He’s not alone. Other Central Asian presidents have made their own pilgrimages.

Such journeys to Mecca serve two purposes: they appeal to the general public, with the presidents portraying themselves as leaders of Muslim-majority nations, and these pilgrimages also are often arranged during state visits to Saudi Arabia. For example, when Serdar Berdimuhammedov took office as president of Turkmenistan, his first foreign visit was to Saudi Arabia and he performed his umrah during that two-day visit. Uzbekistan’s president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has also been to umrah twice already, in 2022 and 2023, again during state visits. The chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan and the former president of the country, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, remains the only Central Asian leader who performed both umrah (2016) and hajj (2023), although his hajj was only possible after he left the presidency.