Hajj is a physical pilgrimage โ seven circuits of the Kaaba, seven walks between Safa and Marwa, hours in the open air at Arafat, a night in Muzdalifah, the casting of stones at Mina. For a healthy adult, it is demanding. For an elderly person with limited mobility, or someone living with a disability, it can seem impossible. Yet Islam teaches that Hajj is obligatory once in a lifetime for every Muslim who is physically and financially able โ and for millions of believers, completing it is the most profound aspiration of their lives.
Who they are
The Volunteer Guides of the Two Holy Mosques โ an informal but increasingly organised movement of Saudi citizens, residents, and international pilgrims returning for a second or third Hajj โ have made it their mission to ensure that age and disability do not bar anyone from completing the rites. They operate in the margins of the official Hajj system, filling gaps that even the Saudi government's comprehensive pilgrimage infrastructure cannot fully address.
Many are students from the Islamic University of Madinah and Umm al-Qura University who give their entire Hajj season to volunteering. Others are retired professionals โ doctors, engineers, teachers โ for whom this is an annual act of devotion more meaningful than any prayer they could offer in isolation. Some are converts to Islam who found their faith changed when they first saw the Kaaba and returned every year since to pay that gift forward.
The wheelchair brigade
The most visible element of the volunteer movement is the informal wheelchair brigade โ teams of young men who assist pilgrims in wheelchairs through the tawaf, the sa'i, and the journey between sites. Official wheelchair services exist but are stretched thin across Hajj's peak days. The volunteer brigade fills the gap, pushing elderly pilgrims through the dense crowds of the Masjid al-Haram, ensuring they complete each circuit, stopping to let them rest and pray, and making sure they are hydrated and safe throughout.
The work is physically exhausting. The marble floors of the Haram are smooth and the crowds intense; navigating a wheelchair through two million pilgrims requires patience, strength, and a particular kind of alert calm. Volunteers train informally with more experienced members of the brigade before their first season. Many who begin as volunteers return year after year โ some for a decade or more โ saying that the experience of serving pilgrims in the holiest places on earth is the closest thing to paradise they can imagine.
Stories from the field
Among the volunteers, the stories accumulate. There is the 94-year-old woman from Malaysia who had saved for Hajj her entire life and arrived in a wheelchair, terrified she would not be able to complete the tawaf. Four young Saudi volunteers carried her chair through seven circuits, praying with her, and wept alongside her when she made her final dua at the Multazam. There is the blind man from Nigeria whose volunteer guide described every step of the sa'i to him in detail โ 'Now we are passing the green lights, now we can see the Kaaba to our left' โ so that he could hold the complete picture of the rite in his mind even as his feet walked it.
Allah is in the aid of His servant as long as the servant is in the aid of his brother.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Hajj has begun formally recognising and supporting the volunteer movement, providing training, identification badges, and logistical coordination. What began as scattered acts of individual generosity is slowly becoming an institution โ ensuring that the gates of Hajj remain open to those who need the most help to walk through them.