Over 2 million Muslim pilgrims braved the scorching Saudi Arabian warmth as they thronged Mecca, Islam’s holiest metropolis, for the most important hajj pilgrimage in years on Friday.
Pilgrims in white robes and sandals packed the traditional metropolis, now dotted with luxurious accommodations and air-conditioned buying malls, after flooding in on planes, buses and trains for the annual rites.
This 12 months’s hajj – one of many world’s largest annual spiritual gatherings, with a tragic historical past of stampedes and different disasters – might break attendance information, officers mentioned.
“As the hajj draws near, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prepares … for the largest Islamic gathering in history,” Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq al-Rabiah mentioned in a video revealed by the ministry this week.
Rites embrace circling the Kaaba, the big black dice in Mecca’s Grand Mosque, praying on Mount Arafat and “stoning the devil” by throwing pebbles at three big concrete partitions representing Satan.
More than 2 million folks from greater than 160 international locations will attend, al-Rabiah mentioned – a dramatic improve on the 926,000 from final 12 months, when numbers had been capped at 1 million post-pandemic.
In 2019, about 2.5 million folks took half. Only 10,000 had been allowed in 2020, on the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising to just about 59,000 a 12 months later.
The hajj is among the many 5 pillars of Islam and have to be undertaken by all Muslims with the means not less than as soon as of their lives.
‘Unbelievable feeling’
Travelers from all over the world have been pouring into Jeddah’s modernized airport, a few of them utilizing streamlined visa providers to disembark from planes straight onto buses to their lodging.
Some 24,000 buses can be in service to ferry the pilgrims, in addition to 17 trains able to transferring 72,000 folks each hour, officers mentioned.
“It is an unbelievable feeling that is very emotional,” Souad bin Oueis, a 60-year-old Moroccan pilgrim, instructed the Agence France-Presse (AFP) after arriving on her first go to to Saudi Arabia alongside along with her husband.
This 12 months, the utmost age restrict has additionally been scrapped, which means hundreds of aged can be amongst these contending with Saudi summer season temperatures which are anticipated to succeed in 44 levels Celsius (111 levels Fahrenheit).
The hajj rituals start late Sunday on the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The worshippers will sleep in tents on Monday night time and spend Tuesday at Mount Arafat, the climax of the hajj, the place the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have delivered his ultimate sermon.
After casting pebbles within the “stoning of the devil” ritual Wednesday, marking the beginning of the Eid al-Adha vacation, pilgrims return to Mecca to carry out a farewell “tawaf” – circling seven instances across the Kaaba.
Heat dangers
Mecca pilgrimages are a significant supply of earnings for Saudi Arabia, which is embarking on an bold plan to overtake its largely oil-dependent financial system. The hajj and year-round Umrah pilgrimage rituals generate an estimated $12 billion yearly.
An growth undertaking that entails scaling up infrastructure and transport supporting Mecca and Medina, the place two of Islam’s holiest websites are situated, is a key a part of the financial plan as the dominion seems to extend customer numbers.
This 12 months’s summer season timing for the hajj, which follows the lunar calendar, will take a look at the endurance of worshippers through the four-day, largely outside ritual.
More than 32,000 well being employees can be readily available to assist fend off heatstroke, dehydration and exhaustion.
But extreme climate is simply one of many dangers at an occasion that has been hit by lethal incidents from stampedes to terrorist assaults.
Just eight years in the past in 2015, as many as 2,300 worshippers died in a stampede through the “stoning of the devil” ritual in Mina close to Mecca, the worst hajj catastrophe ever.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
