ISLAMABAD — This year’s Hajj in Saudi Arabia attracted the lowest number of pilgrims for 30 years, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic period, according to figures released Thursday.

The annual Islamic pilgrimage attracted just 1,673,230 Muslims, the majority of them from outside Saudi Arabia, according to a post from the country’s Hajj Ministry on the social platform X.

Authorities did not immediately offer an explanation for the low turnout.

It’s almost 160,000 fewer pilgrims than last year and a far cry from the pre-pandemic boom, when attendance would regularly push past 2 million. There was a record-breaking Hajj in 2012, when more than 3.16 million Muslims took part.

The kingdom ran a pared-down pilgrimage during the COVID-19 pandemic, sharply reducing the scale of the Hajj between 2

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