Mecca- From all over the world, over 1.5 million Muslims begin the annual hajj in western Saudi Arabia Saturday, undeterred by a stampede which last year killed around 2,300. Tens of thousands of Iranians are absent because of long-running tensions between Iranian regime and Saudi Arabia.

After preliminary rituals this week in Mecca at the Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site, the pilgrims will move on Saturday in buses, by train or even on foot in debilitating temperatures exceeding 40 C (100 F) to Mina, about five kilometres (three miles) east. They are following in the footsteps of their Prophet Mohammed who performed the same rituals about 1,400 years ago. Then they proceed to Mount Arafat, several kilometers away, for the peak of hajj on Sunday. Mina becomes their base, where an expanse of white fireproof tents can accommodate 2.6 million pilgrims. Last September 24, Mina was the scene of the worst disaster in hajj history, when the stampede occurred as pilgrims made their way to the Jamarat Bridge for a stoning ritual.

Muslims touch and pray at the door of the Kaaba

This year’s stoning will start on Monday. Officials have been issuing pilgrims with bracelets that store their personal data, after some foreign officials expressed concern about difficulties in identifying the last year stampede dead. AFP found pilgrims wearing the new bracelets which authorities aim to give to each of the more than 1.5 million faithful from abroad. But there has been no figure for the number of bracelets distributed so far. Libyan pilgrim Abdelati Abu Zayan, 44, expressed confidence in the Saudi organisation after attending the main weekly prayers at the Grand Mosque on Friday.

Muslim pilgrims from all around the world circling around the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque, in the Saudi city of Mecca (AFP)

White-clad worshippers filled the sprawling mosque, its courtyard, and spread through the surrounding streets. “It was an incredible feeling. Millions came to pray at the mosque and, thanks to God, all went well,” Zayan told AFP. Sitting on a sidewalk across from the Grand Mosque as crowds flowed past her on the way to prayer, smiling Nigerian pilgrim Hawa Chemsia, 27, said she had only heard talk of last year’s stampede “but that would not have prevented me from coming.”

Source: News Agencies, 10 Sep. 2016