Saudi Gazette

MINA — Proclaiming the greatness of Almighty Allah and the determination to defeat the evil in oneself, represented by Satan, over two million pilgrims on Friday began the ritual of stoning the Jamarat (huge pillars of stones symbolizing Satan) in Mina. Attaining a spiritual height of self-purification and transformation as if newborn babies with an intense act of atonement and shedding tears of repentance that soaked the vast plains of Arafat on Thursday, the pilgrims came back to Mina from Muzdalifah early in the morning to perform main rituals of Haj on Friday, which coincided with the beginning of the celebration of Eid Al-Adha by Muslims all over the world.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman arrived in Mina Thursday night to oversee the Kingdom’s Haj operation. He received several princes, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh and other scholars and commanders of the security forces taking part in Haj at Mina Palace on Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of the faithful attended Eid prayers at the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah. Sheikh Maher Al-Muaiqali, imam and khateeb of the Grand Mosque, and Sheikh Abdulmohsen Al-Qassim, imam and khateeb of the Prophet’s Mosque led the prayers. In their Eid sermons, the imams emphasized that Eid Al-Adha is a great symbol of Allah that tends to make the faithful totally submit to God and sacrifice everything dearer to them to realize His pleasure. They attributed the grave trials and ordeals being faced by the Islamic Ummah to the weakness of their faith in monotheism. They also reiterated that Islam is a religion of peace and the Prophet (peace be upon him) is a messenger of peace and their call is to establish a House of Peace all over the world.

According to the latest reports by the General Authority for Statistics, as many as 2,352,122 pilgrims performed the Haj this year consisting of 1,752,014 Hajis who came from outside and 600,108 domestic pilgrims.

There are five major rituals on Dhul Hijja 10, the third day of Haj, which is known as the Day of Sacrifice (Youm Al-Nahr). After reaching Mina, the first ritual was stoning at the Jamarat Al-Aqaba. Pilgrims chanted talbiyah a great deal on their way to Mina and stopped it when approaching the Jamarat. They threw seven pebbles one after another, saying Allah-o-Akbar with each throw. Then, they performed another main ritual of shaving their head or cutting the hair. The Prophet (peace be upon him) prayed three times for those shaving and then prayed only once for those cutting hair. Women need to cut hair.

By performing this ritual, everything that was forbidden to the pilgrim during Ihram now becomes permissible except for sexual relations with wives. This is called the first stage of exiting ihram (first tahallul). They then performed the ritual of slaughtering sacrificial animal at the numerous slaughterhouses established for the purpose in Muaisem area near Mina. Most pilgrims performed the ritual by obtaining a sacrifice coupon (hady) under the Kingdom’s Sacrificial Animal Utilization Program.

After this ritual, the pilgrims took off their ihram dress and put on their plain clothes. Many of the pilgrims who completed the rituals of stoning, sacrificing animals and shaving their head, proceeded to the Grand Mosque where they performed Tawaf Al-Ifadah and sa’i, the remaining two pillars of Haj. After performing these rituals, everything then becomes permissible for pilgrims, including intercourse, and this is called the second stage of tahallul.

Most pilgrims will spend the coming two or three days (Dhul Hijja 11, 12 and or 13) in Mina. According to the Prophet’s Sunnah, those who are in hurry can leave Mina Sunday before sunset while others will remain another day and will leave the Tent City after completing the stoning ritual on Monday afternoon. In the remaining two or three days of Haj, the only ritual to perform in Mina is stoning seven pebbles at each of the three Jamarat (Al-Sughra, Al-Wusta and Al-Aqaba.

Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, emir of Makkah, advisor to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and chairman of the Central Haj Committee, and Prince Abdullah Bin Bandar, deputy emir of Makkah, performed the stoning ritual early in the morning and then they proceeded to Makkah to perform Tawaf Al-Ifadah.

The pilgrims were guarded by more than 300,000 military and civil personnel to enable them do their Haj rites in ease, peace and comfort. More than 15,000 security men were stationed at the Jamarat area to manage the masses and prevent stampede enabling the guests of God to complete the stoning rite in complete ease and comfort.

Commander of the Haj forces, Gen. Khaled Al-Harbe said more than 500 cameras were installed at the Jamarat to monitor the movement of pilgrims. As many as 182 checkpoints were established in the Jamarat area to facilitate the movement of pilgrims. The huge crowds took part in the stoning rite under strict surveillance, with police tape guiding the flow of pilgrims, cameras installed everywhere and helicopters hovering overhead. Security forces sprinkled water on pilgrims as they made their way to the Jamarat Bridge under the hot sun. Some of the faithful carried umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, with temperatures surpassing 40 degree Celsius.

“Two pilgrims fainted in front of me this morning,” said Almas Khattak, a Pakistani volunteer in Mina.

At the Jamarat Bridge, an elderly woman had collapsed onto a stretcher as her relatives tried to revive her, splashing her face with water before calling for assistance.

Amin Hashkir, a 26-year-old from Casablanca in Morocco, traveled together with his sister and mother, who was unable to physically perform the stoning rite herself. “My father passed away in 2011, and we've been trying to make it here ever since to perform Haj for him," Hashkir explained on a sidewalk in Mina. "It was what he felt was missing from his life".

Hashkir's mother was also counting on her son to fulfill her dream of Haj. "My mother is sick, so I offered to throw the stones for her."

“It's different every year," said Najat Malik, 45, a Sudanese Red Crescent employee who traveled from Khartoum for Haj. "Some years there are less pilgrims because of fears and warnings of disease. But this year, I feel like there are a lot more people here."

Under the Guests’ Program of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, about 5,000 pilgrims have arrived in the Kingdom to perform the fifth pillar of Islam at his personal expense including air tickets, accommodation, transportation and the price of their sacrificial animals. The guests consisted of the relatives of the martyrs in Palestine, Egypt and Sudan in addition to Muslims from about 80 countries in the world.