adminMany pilgrims had camped overnight in the sprawling plain surrounding Mount Arafat but the majority began arriving at dawn.
Men, women, and children from 189 countries streamed to the site, some setting up small colourful tents in which they slept and prayed.
Beggars and street vendors also dotted the roads searching for generous souls among the 2,5 million believers expected to converge on the plain during the day.
“We came from Mecca. We walked from the Grand Mosque to Mina and then we took the buses to Arafat. All for the love of the prophet,” said one Egyptian man sitting on a straw mat with members of his family.
“The more tired we get, the more God will reward us,” he said.
After dawn prayers, pilgrims headed to the small hill in Arafat plain named the “Mount of Mercy” as others made themselves comfortable between its huge rocks. Many prayed, tears streaming down their faces.
It is at the foot of the hill where the Muslim Prophet Muhammad is believed to have delivered his final hajj sermon before his death.
A preacher urged pilgrims not to climb the slippery stone staircase leading up the hill, bellowing over loudspeakers: “Neither the prophet, nor his followers have ever climbed the hill. Please do not climb it.”
Pilgrims have in previous years slipped and fallen while attempting the ascent, and others have been killed in stampedes.
Yesterday, some worshippers ignored the warning and did attempt the climb, although no incidents were reported.
Amid the crowds, Syrian worshippers were seen carrying a large rebel flag, a symbol of the 19-months-long deadly uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
After sunset, the pilgrims head to Muzdalifah, between Mina and Arafat, where they collect stones to throw at the devil, one of the last rituals which takes place today and marks the first day of Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice.
The symbolic “stoning of the devil” is followed by the ritual sacrifice of an animal, usually a lamb.
During the remaining three days of the hajj, the pilgrims continue the stoning ritual before performing the circumambulation of the Kaaba shrine in Mecca and heading home.
The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam that every capable Muslim must perform at least once.
Meanwhile, there has been fresh violence in several Syrian cities, opposition activists say, just hours before the Syrian government was due to announce a final decision on an Eid al-Adha ceasefire proposed by Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League envoy.
The Syrian army fired heavy tank and rocket barrages yesterday at the Damascus suburb of Harasta, activists said, after rebels overran two army checkpoints on the edge of the town.
There were also reports of at least one explosion in the city of Hama, though further details were not immediately available.
Syria has said its military command is still studying a proposal for the ceasefire. Brahimi said in Cairo on Wednesday that both the government and most rebel groups would observe the truce for the Muslim holiday, which started yesterday and lasts four days.
Within an hour, though, Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the proposal was still being studied and that “the final position on this issue will be announced”.
A previous ceasefire arrangement in April collapsed within days, with the government and the opposition each accusing the other of breaking it.
Susan Rice, the American envoy to the UN, said that “many are duly skeptical about prospects for even a temporary ceasefire, given Assad’s records of broken promises”.
She said the US “strongly supports” Brahimi’s call for a ceasefire, but that the “government must make the first move”.
Brahimi has criss-crossed the Middle East over the past two weeks to push the warring factions and their international backers to agree to the truce — a mission that included talks with Syria’s President Assad in Damascus at the weekend.
Reuters news agency reported that Brahimi on Wednesday told the UN Security Council that Assad had accepted a truce for the holiday during the talks.
Brahimi did not specify the precise time period for a truce. Nor did the initiative include plans for international observers.
As violence in the country continued, hundreds of refugees poured into a makeshift refugee camp at Atimah overlooking the Turkish border, fleeing a week of what they said were the most intense army bombardments since the uprising began.
“Some of the bombs were so big they sucked in the air and everything crashed down, even four-storey buildings,” one refugee, a 20-year-old named Nabil, said at the camp.
“We used to have one or two rockets a day, now for the past 10 days it has become constant, we run from one shelter to another. They drop a few bombs and it’s like a massacre.”
The army relies on air power and heavy artillery to push back the rebels.
Human Rights Watch said the Syrian air force had increased its use of cluster bombs across the country in the past two weeks.
The New York-based organisation identified, through activist video footage of unexploded bomblets, three types of cluster bombs which had fallen on and around Maarat al-Numan. — Al Jazeera.
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