Turkey's eldest Hajji is happy to fulfill religious service in Mecca.***
MECCA - Ismail Fidan/Ercan Halici
Turkey's eldest hajji, 109-year-old Leyla Ozlahlan, is happy to fulfill her religious service in Mecca during Eid al-Adha.
Ozlahlan said that she arrived in Mecca together with her 78-year-old son Seyhmus, and they fulfilled their Hajj.
I am happy to see Kaaba at this age, she said.
During her religious Hajj, Leyla Ozlahlan turned around Kaaba on a wheelchair and performed her prayers. Her son Seyhmus symbolically threw stones at Devil on behalf of her mother.
The "Hajj" or pilgrimage is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to God.
The pilgrimage occurs from the 8th to 12th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12th and last month of the Islamic calendar. Because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, eleven days shorter than the Gregorian calendar used in the Western world, the Gregorian date of the Hajj changes from year to year. Ihram is the name given to the special spiritual state in which Muslims live while on the pilgrimage.
The Hajj is associated with the life of Islamic prophet Muhammad from the 7th century, but the ritual of pilgrimage to Mecca is considered by Muslims to stretch back thousands of years to the time of Abraham. Pilgrims join processions of hundreds of thousands of people, who simultaneously converge on Mecca for the week of the Hajj, and perform a series of rituals: Each person walks counter-clockwise seven times around the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building which acts as the Muslim direction of prayer, runs back and forth between the hills of Al-Safa and Al-Marwah, drinks from the Zamzam Well, goes to the plains of Mount Arafat to stand in vigil, and throws stones in a ritual Stoning of the Devil. The pilgrims then shave their heads, perform a ritual of animal sacrifice, and celebrate global festival of Eid al-Adha.
