More than 1.7 million Muslim pilgrims gathered in the valley of Mina near Mecca on Wednesday to perform the Stoning of the Devil, the final major ritual of the Hajj, on the first day of Eid al-Adha, as fears of a renewed Middle East conflict cast a shadow over the world's largest annual gathering.
Mina, Saudi Arabia © Mena Today
More than 1.7 million Muslim pilgrims gathered in the valley of Mina near Mecca on Wednesday to perform the Stoning of the Devil, the final major ritual of the Hajj, on the first day of Eid al-Adha, as fears of a renewed Middle East conflict cast a shadow over the world's largest annual gathering.
From dawn, waves of pilgrims took turns hurling pebbles at three concrete pillars symbolising Satan, re-enacting the moment Abraham drove away the devil at the three spots where he had tried to dissuade the prophet from obeying God's command to sacrifice his son Ishmael.
The ritual marks the culmination of days of physically gruelling worship, performed this year under punishing heat, temperatures on Mount Arafat, where pilgrims prayed on Tuesday in one of the Hajj's most sacred moments, reached 45 degrees Celsius.
After the stoning, pilgrims return to Mecca for a final circumambulation of the Kaaba — the black cubic structure at the heart of the Grand Mosque toward which Muslims worldwide turn to pray, completing the pilgrimage.
Loud booms were heard on Tuesday night near the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, the world's largest and the backbone of the kingdom's economy, in Dhahran, six sources told Reuters, amid an escalating war between Yemen's Iran-allied Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition.
The Museum of Moroccan Jewish Culture was inaugurated on Monday in Fez. The project was launched at the initiative of King Mohammed VI.
Lebanon's Hezbollah will provide up to $14,000 in financial assistance to families whose primary homes have been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable during this year's war with Israel, the chairman of the group's Executive Council said on Tuesday.
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