Muslims from around the world hurled pebbles at a giant wall
in a symbolic stoning of the devil on Sunday, the start of the riskiest part of
the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, where hundreds died in a crush four
years ago.
The kingdom stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam’s
holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, and organizing the world’s largest annual
Muslim gathering which retraces the route Prophet Mohammad took 14 centuries
ago.
Tens of thousands of security
forces and medics are deployed alongside modern technology including
surveillance drones to maintain order.
Nearly 2-1/2 million
pilgrims, mostly from abroad, have arrived for the five-day ritual, a religious
duty once in a lifetime for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it. They
are asked to follow carefully orchestrated schedules for each stage of haj, but
with so many people, panic is a constant danger.
Under close supervision and
clad in white robes signifying a state of purity, the faithful converged on
Jamarat to perform the stoning ritual from a three-storey bridge erected to
ease congestion after stampedes in previous years.
They will return to the
bridge over the next two days for more stoning before returning to Mecca to
pray at the Grand Mosque at the end of haj.
Saudi authorities have urged
pilgrims to set aside politics during the rituals, but violence in the Middle
East, including wars in Yemen, Syria, and Libya - and other global hotspots -
remain on the minds of many.
Confectioner Alaa Watad from
Syria’s Idlib province, the last major rebel enclave in the country’s civil
war, said his hometown was “drenched in blood”.
“We pray to God from the bottom of our hearts to bring relief to
us and to Syria,” said Muhammad al-Jarak, another pilgrim from Idlib.
Pakistani pilgrims,
meanwhile, expressed concern about Kashmir after Indian authorities last week
revoked the special status of the border region which has long been a
flashpoint for regional tensions.
“I prayed (in Mecca) for a
very strong Pakistani government and nation and for the whole of the Muslim
ummah (community) to be united and strong financially, morally and mentally,”
said Syed Sajjad Ali Bukhari, a pensioner living in Canada.
Avoiding A Crush
King Salman and Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman received well-wishers on Sunday afternoon at a palace
gathering attended by royals, clerics, military leaders, ministers and
distinguished guests to mark the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of
sacrifice.
Saudi Arabia has “fulfilled
its duty for the sake of Allah and welcomed the guests of Allah without
exception and provided them with all the services needed to perform their haj
ritual with ease, comfort, security and tranquillity,” the 83-year-old monarch
said in a televised speech.
The authorities redesigned
the Jamarat area after stampedes in 2004 and 2006 killed hundreds of pilgrims.
The frequency of such disasters has been greatly reduced after the government
spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding haj infrastructure and crowd
control technology.
The 2015 crush killed nearly
800 people, according to Riyadh, when two large groups of pilgrims met at
crossroads on the way to the stoning site.
Counts of repatriated bodies,
however, showed more than 2,000 people may have died, with more than 400 of
them from Iran. It was the worst disaster at haj in at least a quarter of a
century.
Saudi authorities said at the
time that the crush may have been caused by pilgrims failing to follow crowd
control rules. King Salman ordered an investigation but the results were never
announced.
Iran boycotted the haj the following year, partly in response to
the crush and following a diplomatic rift between the two countries.Iranians
are attending this year as Riyadh and Tehran continue to struggle for regional
supremacy. Tensions are particularly high following the seizure of commercial
vessels and attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz.
The narrow waterway
separating the two countries has become the focus of a standoff between Tehran
and Washington, which has beefed up its military presence in the Gulf since
May.
Pilgrimage is also the
backbone of a Saudi plan to expand tourism under a drive to diversify the
economy away from oil. The haj and year-round umrah generate billions of
dollars in revenue from worshippers’ lodging, transport, fees and gifts.
The authorities aim to
increase the number of umrah and haj pilgrims to 15 million and 5 million
respectively by 2020, and hope to double the umrah number again to 30 million
by 2030.