Saudi Arabia's officials expect record attendance as millions of worshippers headed to Islam’s holiest city of Mecca on Friday for the biggest hajj pilgrimage in years. 

Over two million people from 160 countries are expected to gather in the ancient city amid scorching Saudi Arabian heat, according to Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq Al-Rabiah. This is a dramatic increase from 926,000 pilgrims that Mecca hosted last year. 

"As the hajj draws near, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prepares... for the largest Islamic gathering in history," he said in a video published by the ministry earlier this week.

This hajj will be the biggest since the requirement for women to be accompanied by male guardians was dropped in 2021. The record of 2.5 million people attended hajj in 2019 with only 10,000 allowed in 2020 due to the Covid restrictions. 

Travelers from around the world have been pouring into Jeddah's modernized airport, some of them using streamlined visa services to disembark from planes straight onto buses to their accommodation. Some 24,000 buses will be in service to ferry the pilgrims, as well as 17 trains capable of moving 72,000 people every hour, officials said.

This year, the maximum age limit has also been scrapped, meaning thousands of elderly will be among those contending with Saudi summer temperatures that are expected to reach 111 Fahrenheit. The hajj rituals begin late Sunday at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.