14 pilgrims die from sunstroke as Eid al-Adha celebrations start for Muslims : NPR

MINA, Saudi Arabia — Lots of pilgrims on Sunday launched into a symbolic stoning of the satan in Saudi Arabia underneath the hovering summer time warmth. The ritual marks the ultimate days of the Hajj, or Islamic pilgrimage, and the beginning of the Eid al-Adha celebrations for Muslims all over the world.

The stoning is among the many ultimate rites of the Hajj, which is among the 5 Pillars of Islam. It got here a day after greater than 1.8 million pilgrims congregated at a sacred hill, generally known as Mount Arafat, exterior the holy metropolis of Mecca, which Muslim pilgrims go to to carry out the annual five-day rituals of Hajj.

Fourteen Jordanian pilgrims have died from sunstroke in the course of the Hajj, in keeping with Jordan’s state-run Petra information company. The Overseas Ministry stated in a press release that it has coordinated with Saudi authorities to bury the useless in Saudi Arabia, or switch them to Jordan.

Mohammed Al-Abdulaali, spokesman for the Saudi Well being Ministry, informed reporters that greater than 2,760 pilgrims suffered from sunstroke and warmth stress on Sunday alone. He stated the quantity was more likely to enhance and urged attendees to keep away from the solar at peak instances and drink water. “Heat stress is the greatest challenge,” he stated.

The pilgrims left Mount Arafat on Saturday night to spend their night time in a close-by website generally known as Muzdalifa, the place they collected pebbles to make use of within the symbolic stoning of pillars representing the satan.

The pillars are in one other sacred place in Mecca, known as Mina, the place Muslims consider Ibrahim’s religion was examined when God commanded him to sacrifice his solely son Ismail. Ibrahim was ready to undergo the command, however then God stayed his hand, sparing his son. Within the Christian and Jewish variations of the story, Abraham is ordered to kill his different son, Isaac.

On Sunday morning, crowds headed on foot to the stoning areas. Some have been seen pushing disabled pilgrims on wheelchairs on a multi-lane highway resulting in the complicated housing the big pillars. Most pilgrims have been seen sweltering and carrying umbrellas to guard them towards the burning summer time solar.

An Related Press reporter noticed many pilgrims, particularly among the many aged, collapsing on the highway to the pillars due to the burning warmth. Safety forces and medics have been deployed to assist, carrying those that fainted on gurneys out of the warmth to ambulances or area hospitals. Because the temperature spiked by noon, extra folks required medical assist. The warmth had reached to 116.6 levels in Mecca, and 114.8 levels in Mina, in keeping with Saudi meteorological authorities.

Regardless of the suffocating warmth, many pilgrims expressed pleasure at having the ability to full their pilgrimage.

“Thank God, (the process) was joyful and good,” stated Abdel-Moaty Abu Ghoneima, an Egyptian pilgrim. “No one wants more than this.”

Many pilgrims will spend as much as three days in Mina, every casting seven pebbles at three pillars in a ritual to represent the casting away of evil and sin.

Whereas in Mina, they’ll go to Mecca to carry out their “tawaf,” or circumambulation, which is circling the Kaaba within the Grand Mosque counterclockwise seven instances. Then one other circumambulation, the Farewell Tawaf, will mark the tip of Hajj as pilgrims put together to depart the holy metropolis.

The rites coincide with the four-day Eid al-Adha, which implies “Feast of Sacrifice,” when Muslims with monetary means commemorate Ibrahim’s check of religion by way of slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing the meat to the poor.

Most nations marked Eid al-Adha on Sunday. Others, like Indonesia, will have a good time it Monday.

President Joe Biden in a press release wished Muslims all over the world a blessed Eid al-Adha and famous the vacation is a time of prayer, reflection and sacrifice.

“The Hajj and Eid al-Adha remind us of our equality before God and the importance of community and charity — values that speak directly to the American character,” it stated. “The United States is blessed to be home to millions of American Muslims who enrich our nation in countless ways, from medicine to technology, education, public service, the arts, and beyond.”

As soon as the Hajj is over, males are anticipated to shave their heads and take away the shroud-like white clothes worn in the course of the pilgrimage, and ladies to snip a lock of hair in an indication of renewal and rebirth.

A lot of the pilgrims then go away Mecca for town of Medina, about 210 miles away, to wish in Prophet Muhammad’s tomb, the Sacred Chamber. The tomb is a part of the prophet’s mosque, one of many three holiest websites in Islam, together with the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

All Muslims are required to make the Hajj as soon as of their lives if they’re bodily and financially ready to take action. Many rich Muslims make the pilgrimage greater than as soon as. The rituals largely commemorate the accounts of Prophet Ibrahim and his son Prophet Ismail, Ismail’s mom Hajar and Prophet Muhammad, in keeping with the Quran, Islam’s holy ebook.

Greater than 1.83 million Muslims carried out Hajj in 2024, Saudi Hajj and Umrah Minister Tawfiq bin Fawzan al-Rabiah stated in a briefing, barely lower than final 12 months’s figures when 1.84 million made the rituals.

A lot of the Hajj rituals are held outdoor with little if any shade. It’s set for the second week of Dhu al-Hijjah, the final month within the Islamic lunar calendar, so its time of the 12 months varies. And this 12 months the pilgrimage fell within the burning summer time of Saudi Arabia.

Palestinians collect close to destroyed mosque in Gaza

This 12 months’s Hajj got here towards the backdrop of the devastating Israel-Hamas battle, which has pushed the Center East to the brink of a regional battle.

Palestinians within the Gaza Strip weren’t capable of journey to Mecca for Hajj this 12 months due to the closure of the Rafah crossing in Might when Israel prolonged its floor offensive to town on the border with Egypt. They usually won’t be able to have a good time the Eid al-Adha as they used to do in earlier years.

Dozens of Palestinians gathered Sunday morning close to a destroyed mosque in Gaza’s southern metropolis of Khan Younis to carry out the Eid prayers. They have been surrounded by particles and rubble of collapsed homes. Within the close by city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, Muslims held their prayers in a school-turned shelter. Some, together with ladies and kids, went to cemeteries to go to the graves of family members.

“Today, after the ninth month, more than 37,000 martyrs, more than 87,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed,” Abdulhalim Abu Samra, a displaced Palestinian, informed the AP after wrapping up the prayers in Khan Younis. “Our people live in difficult circumstances.”

Additionally within the occupied West Financial institution, Palestinians convened for the Eid prayers in Ramallah, the seat of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. “We suffer greatly and live through difficult moments with (what’s happening to) our brothers in Gaza,” stated Mahmoud Mohana, a mosque imam.

In Yemen’s Houthi-held capital of Sanaa and in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, Muslims celebrated and prayed for the war-weary Palestinians in Gaza.

“We are happy because of Eid but our hearts are filled with anguish when we see our brothers in Palestine,” stated Bashar al-Mashhadani, imam of al-Gilani Mosque in Baghdad. “(We) urge the Arabic and Islamic countries to support and stand beside them in this ordeal.”

In Lebanon, the place the militant Hezbollah group has traded near-daily assaults with Israel, a gradual stream of tourists made their manner into the Palestine Martyrs Cemetery close to the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut early Sunday morning, bearing flowers and jugs of water for the graves of their family members, an annual custom on the primary day of Eid.