The Haj, one of the world’s biggest displays of mass religious devotion and duty for able-bodied Muslims, has been marred in the past by fires, hotel collapses and police clashes with protesters and deadly stampedes caused by overcrowding.
The climax of the pilgrimage is on Sunday when faithful spend the day gathered en masse on and around Mount Arafat, about 15km east of Makkah. The Eid Al Adha begins on Monday, when pilgrims begin three days of casting stones at walls in a symbolic renunciation of the devil. Saudi authorities have made renovations over the past year to ease the flow of pilgrims inside the Grand Mosque and the disaster-prone Jamarat Bridge. In January 2006, 362 people were crushed to death there, the worst Haj
tragedy in 16 years.
An extra level has been added to the bridge so pilgrims have four platforms from which to throw stones each day, according to the rites set by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) some 1,400 years ago.
Authorities will this year make clear appeals to pilgrims to throw their stones at any time of day, rather than only in the afternoon, as Saudi clerics have often insisted in the past.
An area inside the Grand Mosque where pilgrims must walk seven times between two rocky outcrops — retracing the steps of Biblical patriarch Abraham’s wife Hagar as she sought water for her son — has also been expanded to ease movement. The government says it will stop Saudis and residents in the country taking part without official Haj permits, another cause of overcrowding. Over 1.75 million Haj visas have been granted to Muslims abroad; at least 500,000 locals receive
permits too. Performing Haj outside the official Haj tour groups, local residents often set up makeshift encampments by the roadside that complicate crowd control. The government says it is also wary of militancy.
