Saudi Prince’s Year of Prestige Is Unraveling in Front of Him
MBS was supposed to show off the fruits of modernization in 2020—instead, he’s dealing with the costs of the coronavirus and oil shock.
A Muslim worshipper prays near the Kaaba in Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site, on March 7.
Photographer: Abdel Ghani Bashir/AFP/Getty ImagesThe courtyard around the Grand Mosque in Mecca should be teeming with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims marking the start of Ramadan. Instead, it’s deserted: The coronavirus pandemic has hit the city where the Prophet Mohammed was born.
Saudi Arabia’s health minister appealed for social distancing during the month of abstention, a time of large gatherings at iftar, the daily meal at sunset to break the fast. On state-run Ekhbariya TV, doctors and nurses are hailed as heroes as they test foreign workers living in cramped quarters and hand out medical supplies in plastic bags with a rose sticking out of each one.