In his tent in the desert outside the holy city of Mecca, Suleiman Ibrahim still couldn't believe his luck. His wife, sitting nearby, broke down in tears of joy as he recounted the day they learned they would be performing Islam's hajj pilgrimage.
"The whole family started singing and congratulating me," said Ibrahim, a furniture maker from the southern Egyptian city of Sohag who was one of tens of thousands of Egyptian Muslims picked to perform the pilgrimage through a government lottery.
"Hamdiya cried then too," the 45-year-old said on Thursday, nodding to his wife.
PHOTO: AP
Ibrahim was among nearly 3 million Muslims from around the world who massed in tent cities on the outskirts of Mecca on Thursday for the start of the annual hajj. For many, it is a once in a lifetime chance to cleanse their sins in one of the most important rites of Islam.
This year's hajj takes place amid increasing worries across the Islamic world -- over the bloodshed in Iraq, violence in the Palestinian territories and a new war in Somalia. Amid the crises, tensions have increased between the two main sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites, who come together in the five days of hajj rituals centered around Mecca, birthplace of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
"We will not allow sectarian tensions from any party during the hajj season," Saudi Arabia's Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz told reporters ahead of the rituals.
"The pilgrimage is not a place for raising political banners ... or slogans that divide Muslims, whom God has ordered to be unified," Saudi Islamic Affairs Minister Sheik Salih bin Abdulaziz told pilgrims on Thursday.
But for most pilgrims the top concern in Thursday was not politics, but faith.
On Thursday morning, hundreds of thousands opened their pilgrimage in Mecca by circling Islam's holiest site, the Kaaba, the black cubic stone that Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.
"For us it is a vacation away from work and daily life to renew yourself spiritually," said Ahmed Karkoutly, a US doctor. "You feel you are part of a universe fulfilling God's will. It's a cosmic motion, orbiting the Kaaba."
Massive crowds of pilgrims packed the streets surrounding the Kaaba, some prostrating in prayer, others diving into the traditional outdoor markets to buy perfumes, fabrics, prayer beads and other souvenirs. In gleaming shopping malls overlooking the Kaaba, pilgrims checked out the goods at stores like the Body Shop or lined up at a Cinnabon.
The crowds then streamed into the tent cities outside the city, dressed in seamless white robes symbolizing the equality of mankind under God and chanting labbeik, allahum, labbeik -- Arabic for "I am here, Lord."
The heartier ones walked, carrying food and water and bags. Others packed into buses and minibuses, some riding on the roof alongside the baggage, jamming the highways in the hajj's annual epic of traffic control.
Most pilgrims went to Mina, a region in a desert valley 13km outside Mecca. But tens of thousands of others went directly to Mount Arafat, where all the pilgrims were to gather yesterday for the first major ritual of the pilgrimage.
Saudi authorities estimate nearly 3 million pilgrims will attending this year's hajj. More than 1.6 million come from abroad. The rest are Saudis or foreigners resident in the kingdom.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not