Holy Hajj today
News Desk || risingbd.com
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Holy Hajj starts today, Saturday (June 15). The main formalities of the Holy Hajj are being held on this day in Arafat Maidan (Mount Arafat) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
More than 1.5 million Muslim pilgrims have crowded Saudi Arabia’s Mount Arafat, the climax of a potentially record-breaking hajj pilgrimage.
Millions of Muslims responded to the call of Allah and appeared in Mecca from different parts of the world. The holy ground of Arafat is resounding with the sound of “Labaik Allahumma Labbaik”.
As dawn broke, groups of worshippers recited Koran verses on the rocky rise, where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have given his final sermon.
The ritual is the high point of the annual pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam.
More than 1.5 million Muslim pilgrims are expected to join the Hajj, one of the world’s largest religious gatherings and a source of legitimacy for the oil-rich country’s royal rulers.
Saudi authorities expect the number of pilgrims attending Hajj to exceed two million this year.
The annual pilgrimage began on Friday with crowds of robed worshippers circling the Kaaba, the black cubic structure at Mecca’s Grand Mosque.
One of the world’s largest religious gatherings, it involves a series of rituals in Mecca and its surroundings in western Saudi Arabia that take several days to complete.
The pilgrims will first perform the tawaf – circling seven times around the Kaaba.
They will then head towards Mina, a valley surrounded by craggy mountains several kilometres outside Mecca, where they will spend the night in air-conditioned tents.
The climax will come on Saturday with daylong prayers on Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon.
The pilgrimage is a moving spiritual experience for pilgrims who believe it absolves sins and brings them closer to God, while uniting the world’s more than two billion Muslims.
It is also a chance to pray for peace in many conflict-stricken Arab and Muslim countries, including Yemen and Sudan, where more than a year of war between rival generals has created the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Dhaka/AI