On Monday, Day 3 of Haj, pilgrims returned to the tent city of Mina from Muzdalifah, where they spent Sunday night praying and collecting small pebbles for the symbolic ritual of stoning the devil.
At the break of day, pilgrims began walking into Mina toward the multi-storied Jamrat Complex. It was here that each of them threw seven pea-sized pebbles at Jamrat Al-Aqaba, which is one of the three elliptical-shaped walls representing the devil.
Assisted by hundreds of helpful security officials, the ritual was conducted in a peaceful and orderly fashion. Special assistance was provided for the elderly in carrying out the task.
“I was not sure if I would be able to carry out such a daunting task,” said Naeema Bashir, an elderly pilgrim from Karachi. “But then Allah makes things easy. I feel relieved now. May Allah accept our Haj.”
“The Saudi police managed the situation very well,” a French pilgrim, who gave his name only as Abdullah, 33, told AFP.
Saudi pilgrim Ibrahim Al-Ayed, 40, agreed. “There has been a clear improvement,” he said.
Faruk Hamloui, an Algerian who for years has guided his compatriots at Haj, said, “People learned and understood that only organization and respect for the routes designated for crowd movement help to avoid tragedies.”
It is a message repeatedly emphasized by officials.
They “stressed the need to adhere to directives and not take lightly the movement of pilgrims toward the Jamrat Complex,” Mahmoud Damanhoori, board member of a local foundation which assists Southeast Asian pilgrims, told AFP.
The ritual symbolizes Prophet Ibrahim’s stoning of the devil who appeared three times to him and to his son, Ismaeel, and tried to dissuade them from carrying out Allah’s instructions.
Monday’s ritual symbolizes the rejection of evil. It will be repeated for the next two days during which pilgrims will hurl seven pebbles each day at each of the three walls inside the Jamrat Complex.
An endless stream of pilgrims, the men dressed in the ihram, a two-piece seamless white garment, cried “Allah-o-Akbar” (God is the Greatest) as they hurled pebbles at one of the walls representing the Satan. There was no respite from the harsh weather as daytime temperatures continued to hover between 40 and 45 degrees Celsius.
Once inside the Jamrat Complex, however, pilgrims heaved a sigh of relief in the face of cool drafts of air from giant-sized humidifying fans.
The pilgrims transformed Mina into a vast sea of white as they flocked from all directions toward the Jamrat Complex.
Helicopters were constantly overhead to monitor the huge crowds with the help of more than thousands of high-tech cameras, all connected to a control room staffed by experienced security authorities.
After the stoning, pilgrims offer sacrificial meat, normally by slaughtering a sheep. At present, however, most of the sacrifices are slaughtered at a number of state-of-the-art abattoirs run by the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the meat is then sent to poor countries.
On Tuesday, color will return to Mina with delighted pilgrims donning their traditional best in celebration of the completion of what to them was the journey of a lifetime.

Source: Arab News