Summary: battered by Houthi missile strikes, a resurging coronavirus and a low oil price, Saudi Arabia dramatically reduces the scale of the Hajj.
The coronavirus situation in Saudi Arabia remains serious but stable.
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I consulted an Oxford don and he has responded as follows:
“The writer obviously knows a lot about the present kingdom, but is poor on earlier material. Bilal, an Abyssinian slave in Mecca, was a very early convert and was manumitted by Abu Bakr. He is the subject of much apocryphal material, including the report that when Mecca was conquered, in his role as Muhammad’s muezzin he climbed on to the roof of the Ka’ba to give the call to prayer.
However, ignoring maintenance workers and those who fit the kiswah, he was not unique. One doesn’t have to look very far in fiqh to come across questions on the direction of the qibla if one is on the roof. I won’t take you any further.”
When I read about the Kharijites considering the possibility of electing an Abyssinian slave as caliph, Bilal is the one who comes to mind, though he died in Syria no later than 642.