Nearly four million Hajjis in Mecca city of Saudi Arabia are walking around Kaaba and symbolically throwing stones at Devil.***
MECCA - Erhan Halici/Ismail Fidan
Hajjis sacrificed animals on Sunday, the first day of Eid al-Adha religious holiday.
Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead.
The meat is divided into three parts. The family retains one third of the share; another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors; and the other third is given to the poor and needy.
On Monday, Hajjis walked around the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building which acts as the Muslim direction of prayer, and threw stones in a ritual Stoning of the Devil.
The biggest problem for the Hajjis, who want to perform their prayers in Kaaba, is the huge crowd and the temperature reaching 40 degrees at noon.
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.
