Around two million Haj pilgrims and visitors thronged the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah to offer Friday prayers. All the floors and courtyards and King Abdullah Expansion Project in the Grand Mosque were full of worshipers and their rows spilled over to the courtyards, adjacent streets and terraces of buildings. In an unparalleled spiritual ambience that the annual pilgrimage witnessed, more than one million Haj pilgrims gathered at the Islam’s holiest shrine seeking the blessing and forgiveness from the Almighty Allah. In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Khaled Al-Ghamdi, imam and khateeb of the Grand Mosque, emphasized that absolute surrender to Allah and His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in tranquility and joy without any objection and boredom, is the main purpose of making Haj an obligatory ritual. In Madinah, where imam and khateeb Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Qassim delivered the Friday sermon, the worshipers included around 155,000 Haj pilgrims who arrived to visit the Prophet’s Mosque and greet the Prophet (pbuh) after completing their Haj rituals. — SPA