Two
million Muslims gathered at Saudi Arabia’s Mount Arafat on Saturday amid the
summer heat and regional tensions for a vigil to atone for their sins and seek
God’s forgiveness as part of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
Pilgrims
clad in white robes signifying a state of purity spent the night in a sprawling
encampment around the hill where Islam holds that God tested Abraham’s faith by
commanding him to sacrifice his son Ismail. It is also where Prophet Mohammad
gave his last sermon.
Other
worshippers who had been praying in the nearby Mina area ascended in buses or
on foot from before dawn. Some carried food, carpets for camping and fans to
keep cool as temperatures rose toward 40 degrees Celsius.
Zaid
Abdullah, a 30-year-old Yemeni who works in a supermarket in Saudi Arabia, said
he was praying for his own country, where war has killed tens of thousands of
people and caused the world’s worse humanitarian crisis, and for Muslims around
the globe.
“We
can tolerate the heat because our sins are greater than that,” he said as he
approached the granite hill also known as the Mount of Mercy. “We ask God to
alleviate the heat of the hereafter. As for the heat of this life, we can bear
it.”
Taxi
driver Khaled Maatouq said he was seeking an end to fighting in his native
Libya: “I pray that God unites us.”
For
others, the pilgrimage is a form of relief. Egyptian merchant Ramadan al-Jeedi
said he was grateful to accompany his mother after his father died last year.
“It’s
the greatest feeling, to feel that God the almighty chose us to be in this
place,” he said.
Saudi
Arabia has said more than two 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 the journey.
Among
them are 200 survivors and relatives of victims of the attacks on two New
Zealand mosques in March.
The
pilgrims will spend the day on Mount Arafat. By sunset they will move to the
rocky plain of Muzdalifa to gather pebbles to throw at stone columns
symbolizing the devil at Jamarat on Sunday, which marks the first day of Eid
al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice.
Iran
tensions
Saudi
Arabia stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam’s holiest sites,
Mecca and Medina, and organizing the pilgrimage.
A
perennial concern is the potential for disease spreading among pilgrims, who
spend five days in close quarters, often eating outside and sleeping on the
ground near holy sites.
The
world’s largest annual gathering of Muslims has in the past also seen
stampedes, fires and riots, with authorities sometimes struggling to respond.
Hundreds were killed in a crush in 2015, the worst disaster to strike Hajj for
at least 25 years.
Tensions
are particularly high this year between Saudi Arabia, ruled by Sunni Muslims,
and Shiite Iran.
The
seizure of commercial vessels and attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz,
a narrow waterway separating the rival countries, have unsettled shipping lanes
linking Middle Eastern oil producers to global markets.
The
area 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 kingdom’s economy away from oil. The Hajj and year-round Umrah
generate billions of dollars in revenue from worshippers’ lodging, transport,
fees and gifts.
Officials
aim to increase the number of Umrah and Hajj pilgrims to 15 million and 5
million respectively by 2020 and the Umrah number to 30 million by 2030.
