![]() ![]() “There were challenges, and I fell a few times, but God helped me to get back up,” he said of the journey, which took six months altogether.Īrshad grew up reading about the Hajj and he knew people who had done it. Then he took a boat to the United Arab Emirates and walked across the Arabian Peninsula to Mecca. So he walked from his hometown of Okara in eastern Punjab province, across the breadth of his country and Iran. He was determined to reach the Hajj on foot. ![]() Usman Arshad, a 26-year-old Pakistani student, walked nearly 3,000 miles (4,700 kilometers) for this moment. “All Muslims wish to stand in the position that we are in now.” “The Hajj is Arafat,” he said, repeating one of the prophet’s sayings as he sat with his family on a big rock. Khaled Al-Shannik, a 30-year-old shop owner from Jordan, said the Hajj was not Mecca. ![]() Still, they said they were overjoyed to be there despite the difficulties. Cellphones shut down in the heat, and pilgrims punctured water bottles and used them as portable sprinkler systems. Volunteers handed out umbrellas and drinks, and trucks packed with crates of bottled water added to the traffic chaos. With no shade or breeze, people grabbed whatever they could find to protect themselves from the sun. Giant ring-shaped sprinklers sprayed mist trying to cool the pilgrims in the heat that rapidly spiraled to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).Īs the day went on, the area surrounding Mount Arafat filled with some 1.8 million pilgrims. Others raised their arms in the universal gesture of taking a selfie to commemorate the moment. Some pondered the landscape as the light of daybreak crept across it. Some prayed, whispering their appeals to God with their palms raised open to the skies. They sat in groups on its stone ledges and in the crevasses between the big boulders. They climbed over its rough outcroppings, hauling their personal belongings with them and looking for an open spot. on Tuesday, the hill’s 70-meter-high (40 feet) summit was packed with believers. ![]()
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