Annual Hajj Pilgrimage Begins...
World's biggest and massive pilgrimage.
Muslims from across the world poured into a sprawling tent city in the Saudi desert on Tuesday, on the first day of the annual Islamic hajj pilgrimage.
More than 1.5 million pilgrims streamed from the holy city of Mecca to a huge tent encampment in Mina about five kilometres (three miles) away for a day of prayer and supplication.
The hajj, a central pillar of Islam and one that able-bodied Muslims must make once in their lives, is a roughly five-day spiritual cleansing based on centuries of interpretation of the traditions of Prophet Muhammad.
Muslims traditionally visit the mosque where the Prophet Muhammad is buried in the city of Medina, and begin the hajj in Mecca with a set of rituals at the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure in the city's Grand Mosque that Muslims around the world face in prayer five times a day.
When there, Muslims circle the Kaaba counterclockwise with their hearts tilted toward it.
)
