Hajj: 7 things you don't know about the Muslim Pilgrimage - BBC News

you might be familiar with this picture thousands upon thousands of people all wearing the same clothes and gathering somewhere in Saudi Arabia this is the hatch the Muslim pilgrimage and here are seven things about it that you probably didn't know [Music] you might have seen this the big black cube the Kaaba is a huge stone structure that sits at the heart of the Grand Mosque Islam's most secret place of worship pilgrims Circle the Kaaba counterclockwise seven times at both the beginning and the end of hatch it's a ritual called OAuth pilgrims also typically travel back and forth between two hills called Safa and Marwah for also seven times it's not entirely clear why it's seven specifically but seven is a prominent number associated with the divine in many religions including Christianity and Judaism it might surprise you to know that the Hat generally has very little to do with the Prophet Mohammed it actually commemorates the life of another Prophet Abraham yes Abraham who is also a key figure in both Judaism and Christianity he was the one who rebuilt the kaaba with his son Ismail and had rituals mostly followed the struggle of Abraham his wife and son in surrendering their wills to God we've had a lot of debates in the West about Muslims face veil or niqab well one place where it's definitely not allowed is on the Hajj women are expected to cover their hair with head scoffs similar to mine but the face Bell and burka are not permitted in hat you know what else the pilgrimage industry is Saudi Arabia's second most important after oil and gas the tourism sector contributes twenty two point six billion dollars to Saudi Arabia's economy with height providing nearly half of it and the Hajj is really expensive the average price of a hatchback age ranges between four thousand dollars up to ten thousand dollars here in the UK selfies not welcomed in Hajj the Saudi authorities forbid taking photographs whether with camera or a mobile phone at some of the holy sites any violation of official instruction could lead to confiscation of your device the idea is to make pilgrimage focus entirely on their spiritual journeys but this is not easy to enforce when you have millions of people all keen to have a memory from the ones in a lifetime journey the hash takes five days and towards the end of it comes either out ha or the festival of sacrifice Muslims worldwide celebrate by slaughtering an animal usually a sheep this is another part of the ritual that relates to Prophet Abraham it commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ismail as an act of obedience to God before God intervened to provide him with Iran to sacrifice instead finally foaming hat is considered a great accomplishment for Muslims in some cultures people even add the title in front of their names to signify their accomplishments so they are hiding the height absolves Muslims of passes so before the high GTB travels to Mecca it's very common for people to ask their relatives friends and acquaintances to forgive them you

Channel: BBC News

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Keywords: hajj pilgrimage, bbc, islam hajj, bbc news, muslim, hajj, pilgrimage, news, hajj 2018, what is hajj, mecca, hajj mecca, quran, saudi arabia, makkah, 2018 hajj, hajj pilgrims, explainer, hajj explained, hajj pilgrimage to mecca

Id: VMWgeSuHKhs

Length: 3min 46sec (226 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 21 2018