1.3 million pilgrims arrive in Saudi Arabia for al-Haj rituals

Saudi Arabia said that more than 1.3 million pilgrims arrived the country in order to perform al-Haj rituals for this year, which start on the 8th of Zee al-Hijra month of the Islamic Calendar, which falls on Januray 8th, 2006.

The chairman of al-Haj Research Center, Osama al-Bar, said that some one million pilgrims residents in the kingdom got permits to perform al-Haj rituals and it is expected that some other 300,000 will be arriving in Mecca without permits, and thereby total number of pilgrims will be more than 2.5 million pilgrims for this year.

Thanks to the arrangements taken by the Saudi Arabia for this year to prevent the spread of the Bird Flu disease among the pilgrims, it is expected that total number of pilgrims to be less that their number in 2005 when number of pilgrims tolled more than 2.5 million.

The pilgrims stay on the 8th day of Zee al-Hija in Yumna and then they move in the second day to perform the major Haj ritual standing on Mount Arafat. With the sunset at Arafat, the pilgrims spend their night in the Muzdalifah in preparations for the "Adha performance " the first day of Eid al-Adha holiday Standing on Arafat mountain will be on January 9th.