Desk Report
Published: 19 Jul 2021, 04:42 pm
Muslim pilgrims gathered at Mount Arafat on Monday (Photo: Collected)
Muslim pilgrims gathered
at Saudi Arabia's Mount Arafat on Monday in the high point of this year's hajj,
being held in downsized form and under coronavirus restrictions for the second
year running.
Just 60,000 people, all
citizens or residents of Saudi Arabia, have been selected to take part in this
year's hajj, with foreign pilgrims again barred, reports AFP.
The mask-clad faithful,
who had spent the night in camps in the Valley of Mina, converged on Mount
Arafat where it is believed the Prophet Mohammed delivered his final sermon,
for the most important of the hajj rituals.
After noon prayers,
worshippers traditionally ascend the 70-metre (230-foot) high hill and its
surrounding plain for hours of prayers and the holy Quran recitals to atone for
their sins, staying there until the evening.
After sunset they head to
Muzdalifah, halfway between Arafat and Mina, where they will sleep under the
stars before performing the symbolic "stoning of the devil".
Privileged few
Being one of the lucky few
"gives you a feeling that our God is forgiving and has chosen us to be in
this place," said Selma Mohamed Hegazi, a 45-year-old Egyptian. "God
willing, our prayers will be accepted.
"My whole body is
shivering," she told AFP as she stood among the other emotional pilgrims,
wearing the ihram, the traditional seamless white garment worn during the hajj.
Worshippers described a
sense of tranquility descending on the mountain, also known as the "Mount
of Mercy".
"To be one of only
60,000 doing hajj ....I feel like I am part of a (privileged) group that was
able to reach this place," said Baref Siraj, a 58-year-old Saudi national.
The hajj, one of the five
pillars of Islam and a must for able-bodied Muslims with the means to travel at
least once in their lifetime, is usually one of the world's largest religious
gatherings.
Hosting the hajj is a
matter of prestige for Saudi rulers, for whom the custodianship of Islam's
holiest sites is their most powerful source of political legitimacy.
But barring overseas
pilgrims has caused deep disappointment among Muslims worldwide, who typically
save for years to take part.
Participants were chosen
from more than 558,000 applicants through an online vetting system, with the event
confined to fully vaccinated adults aged 18-65 with no chronic illnesses.
Authorities are seeking to
repeat last year's successful event which took place on the smallest scale in
modern history with just 10,000 participants, but which saw no virus outbreak.
Saudi health authorities
said Sunday that not a single Covid case had been reported amongst the pilgrims
this year.
The kingdom has so far
recorded more than 509,000 coronavirus infections, including over 8,000 deaths.
Some 20 million vaccine doses have been administered in the country of over 34
million people.
The hajj, which typically
packs large crowds into congested religious sites, could have been a
super-spreader event for the virus.
But Saudi Arabia has said
it is deploying the "highest levels of health precautions" in light
of the pandemic and the emergence of new variants.
Pilgrims are being divided
into groups of just 20 to restrict potential exposure, and a "smart hajj
card" has been introduced to allow contact-free access to camps, hotels
and the buses to ferry pilgrims around religious sites.
Black-and-white robots
have been deployed to dispense bottles of sacred water from the Zamzam spring
in Mecca's Grand Mosque, built around the Kaaba, the black cubic structure
towards which Muslims around the world pray.
Ibrahim Siam, a 64-year-old
Egyptian pilgrim who comes from Dammam in the east of the country, said that
high-tech procedures introduced to manage the hajj "have made things a lot
easier."