Mohammed Khyara, 51, from Syria, was busy collecting stones for Monday’s ritual.
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Official figures issued late Saturday said the total number of pilgrims had risen to 1.8 million, with more than 1.3 million arrived from outside the kingdom.
Last year’s hajj stampede which killed roughly 2,300 people, many of them Iranians, magnified those frictions.
Ibrahim or Abraham together with his son Ismail, built the most revered structure, the Kaaba, a small square stone in the middle of the Masjid Al-Haram, where all Muslims around the world face when in prayers, he added. “And Saudi Arabia’s chief cleric recently said Iranians were not Muslims”, as Alice reports.
“These people have violated the law in Saudi Arabia”.
In recent weeks, rhetoric between the two capitals has escalated.
Saudi Arabia has launched Persian-language television broadcasts from this year’s hajj, the information minister said on Sunday, following tensions with Iran over the annual pilgrimage. In response, Saudi Arabia’s mufti said Iran’s leaders were not Muslims.
“This (Hajj) is an Islamic ritual and a part of the five pillars of Islam”.
Last year’s stampede was the worst disaster in the pilgrimage’s history. Security officials have placed 1,000 cameras at strategic locations to allow constant monitoring of events.
On Sunday, the worshipers began day-long prayers and recitals of the Holy Quran on a rocky hill known as Mount Arafat or Mount of Mercy, east of the Saudi city of Mekkha, where Prophet Muhammed gave his last Haj sermon.
Among these is the distribution of bracelets which store pilgrims’ personal data. In early July, three suicide bombers struck separate targets across Saudi Arabia, including the site in Medina where the Prophet Muhammad is believed to be buried.
Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh has annually addressed the faithful from the Namira mosque in Mount Arafat since 1981.
The ritual is being performed by the Hajj pilgrims from over 164 countries as smoothly as ever even as King Salman, who is also present in Mina, is personally monitoring the security arrangement.
“Part of the rituals also includes feeding the poor”, said Tawfik Hamid, a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. After offering pre-dawn prayers there, pilgrims are now moving to plains of Arafat where they will spend the day praying and asking for God’s forgiveness.
The Saudi Supreme Court revealed that Eid Al Adha will be on 12 September. Patience is the most important thing that someone learns from hajj.
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The stoning – expected to continue on Tuesday – coincided with Eid al-Adha, Islam’s feast of sacrifice which is celebrated by more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide.
