The reason for the prohibition lies somewhere between the fundamentalrequirement as well as the policies of the state of Saudi Arabia.
Mosques or holy places in other religions as well as places reserved for meditation usually have basic requirements for entry - cleanliness and purity. Prayer is a form of meditation and meditation requires cleanliness. This basic principle drives the restriction to not allow someone 'not clean' into a Mosque - be it a Muslim or a non Muslim. For people who don't know, even Muslims are prohibited to enter the Mosque if they are not clean, although it happens otherwise because no one can keep a check on this. In Islam, cleanliness is obligatory to an extent that there is a specific way to take bath and you need to perform ablution to even touch the holy book Quran or perform your prayers. It sounds a tedious process to take so much pains to just perform a prayer or meditate but logically it stands correct. So as far as a 'clean' non Muslim is concerned, he should be allowed to enter Mecca or a Mosque. There are numerous stories of non Muslims visiting Mecca in the past, including the Kaaba, notably Guru Nanak from Sikhism and hence can't be just relied on the (dubious) interpretation of the verse from Quran prohibiting entry.
The second and major reason is the policy of Saudi Arabia as a country. Every country has its own laws to allow entry into their territory. You can visit a country as a foreigner but you and civilians aren't allowed to enter certain premises like cantonments etc. for obvious reasons. In this particular case, the reasons aren't so obvious but valid. There are two major events annually - Haj and Ramzan, that draw huge Muslim crowd from around the world pouring into one city of Mecca. It is also evident that the crowd grows every year and Saudi Arab administration has to pull majority of the resources from the country to manage the two events apart from the usual tourists who don't come to take part in these two.Apart from these two main events, there are year long visits by Muslims called as Umrah that maintain a constant flow of Muslims during the so-called 'Off season'. The sheer magnitude of Muslims visiting resulting in the reasons mentioned above and several other reasons force the Saudi administration to prevent tourists and visitors from visiting Mecca.
There are even similar cases of prohibitions in Hinduism and Christianity, namely - Guruvayur Temple in Kerala, India and several other orthodox churches and societies like Lutheran GEL churches in Jharkhand, India. They provide the sole reason as 'no entry to people of different faith'.
Mosques or holy places in other religions as well as places reserved for meditation usually have basic requirements for entry - cleanliness and purity. Prayer is a form of meditation and meditation requires cleanliness. This basic principle drives the restriction to not allow someone 'not clean' into a Mosque - be it a Muslim or a non Muslim. For people who don't know, even Muslims are prohibited to enter the Mosque if they are not clean, although it happens otherwise because no one can keep a check on this. In Islam, cleanliness is obligatory to an extent that there is a specific way to take bath and you need to perform ablution to even touch the holy book Quran or perform your prayers. It sounds a tedious process to take so much pains to just perform a prayer or meditate but logically it stands correct. So as far as a 'clean' non Muslim is concerned, he should be allowed to enter Mecca or a Mosque. There are numerous stories of non Muslims visiting Mecca in the past, including the Kaaba, notably Guru Nanak from Sikhism and hence can't be just relied on the (dubious) interpretation of the verse from Quran prohibiting entry.
The second and major reason is the policy of Saudi Arabia as a country. Every country has its own laws to allow entry into their territory. You can visit a country as a foreigner but you and civilians aren't allowed to enter certain premises like cantonments etc. for obvious reasons. In this particular case, the reasons aren't so obvious but valid. There are two major events annually - Haj and Ramzan, that draw huge Muslim crowd from around the world pouring into one city of Mecca. It is also evident that the crowd grows every year and Saudi Arab administration has to pull majority of the resources from the country to manage the two events apart from the usual tourists who don't come to take part in these two.Apart from these two main events, there are year long visits by Muslims called as Umrah that maintain a constant flow of Muslims during the so-called 'Off season'. The sheer magnitude of Muslims visiting resulting in the reasons mentioned above and several other reasons force the Saudi administration to prevent tourists and visitors from visiting Mecca.
There are even similar cases of prohibitions in Hinduism and Christianity, namely - Guruvayur Temple in Kerala, India and several other orthodox churches and societies like Lutheran GEL churches in Jharkhand, India. They provide the sole reason as 'no entry to people of different faith'.





































