At least 345 pilgrims die in hajj stampede

gets larger,'' an Iranian pilgrim, Azghar Meshadi, said hours before the

stampede.

But Saudi Arabia's Sunni Muslim clerics, who follow the fundamentalist

Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, encouraged pilgrims to stick to the

midday rule.

The stoning ritual is one of the last events of the hajj pilgrimage to

Islam's holiest sites, which able-bodied Muslims with the financial means

are required by their faith to do at least once.

Many pilgrims had already finished the stoning ritual Thursday and had

gone back to Mecca to carry out a farewell circuit around the Kaaba, the

black stone cube that Muslims face when they do their daily prayers.