ARAFAT, 11 February 2003 — More than two million pilgrims yesterday stood on Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) preached his last sermon. The men and women who formed the massive stream of white scrambled onto any type of transport they could find — taxis, buses, motorcycles, cargo trucks – or just set out on foot to seek forgiveness.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, arrived in Mina to supervise the final stages of the Haj operation.

King Fahd is scheduled to receive Muslim heads of state and leaders of foreign Haj delegations who have come to perform Haj.

Local food and drinks companies distributed their products for free to the crowds, and each time distribution trucks opened their bay doors hundreds flocked to catch the drinks thrown from them.

Despite the hardships, every pilgrim Arab News spoke to told of how reaching Mount Arafat was a dream come true. “If two million Muslims from over 170 countries can come together on the plains of Arafat at the call of our dear faith, what stops them from joining hands for the better good of the Muslim world?” asked Egyptian Alawi Jaber Abdul Majid Attiyah.

“The biggest problem we face today is our lack of unity,” he added.

For Muneer Ahmad, a Pakistani national, the standing at Arafat was like the renewal of his faith.

“I feel like I’ve been born again and I’ve taken a vow to put my past behind me and start afresh and live life according to the strict tenets of Islam,” he told Arab News.

Motaz Abdul Jaleel, a young man from Riyadh, said that this was his fourth Haj, and that this year the event had been better organized than in the past.

Ismail Tyson and his group from Accra, Ghana, said they were thankful to Allah for giving them the strength “to undertake this grueling journey of a lifetime.”

Before sunset yesterday, all pilgrims left the plains of Arafat for Muzdallifah, where they camped out under the stars. The pilgrimage proceeded without incident under the watchful eyes of anti-riot police camped out at the mount. Surveillance cameras and helicopters monitored crowd movement.

A record 1.43 million foreign Muslims are performing this year’s Haj, according to official statistics.

Abdul Razaq Abu Younis, a medical staff person at Clinic 19, told Arab News that most people being dealt with by the clinics were carried to them by other pilgrims.

“We’ve treated 70 cases of heat stroke at this clinic in the last hour,” he said.

“People are fainting from exhaustion. We’ve tried to tell pilgrims to stay hydrated. The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Charitable Foundation is giving out free water to pilgrims all day and there are water fountains every few meters.

“The basic problem is that there isn’t enough shade here for everyone.”

The desert sun was not the only thing blazing yesterday afternoon at Arafat. Tempers occasionally flared. An Egyptian pilgrim helped pacify what may have turned out to be a stampede by starting to chant the Talbiyah (the traditional pilgrim chant).

The words “Labaik Allahuma Labaik, Labaik la Sharikalaka Labaik” brought instant calm upon the crowd as dozens and then hundreds and thousand joined in the chant.

Today the pilgrims move to Jamarat in Mina to stone at a pillar in a ritual symbolizing the stoning of the devil.

Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, lashed out in his Arafat sermon at enemies of the Islamic world for targeting the faith and livelihoods of Muslims.

Delivering the annual address, he called upon Muslims to hold fast to their Islamic faith.

“If the Ummah (Islamic nation) returns to its religion, no force in the world will be able to defeat it,” he said. The enemies “have been targeting the Ummah in its faith. They are aiming at its economy and are attempting to annex it to their economic system,” he said, addressing the more than two million pilgrims.

“The struggle today is religious and economic. The enemies are trying to use any pretext to attack this nation” and control its economy, Sheikh Abdul Aziz said, without mentioning US threats against Iraq.

“The Ummah is being targeted ... in its values, morals and culture,” said the mufti, the Kingdom’s top Islamic scholar.

However, the mufti said Muslims had contributed to this by abandoning the fundamentals of their faith.

“Don’t you see the tragedies that have struck the Ummah? ... Don’t you see how the enemies are gathering to wage war on you? ... This is our doing, because we abandoned our religion,” he said.

He warned against the dangers surrounding the Ummah and the efforts of its enemies to pounce on the Muslim nation to exploit their wealth and create division among them.

“Victory will not come without a return to God and unity among the ranks,” he warned.

Describing Islam as a religion of mercy and benevolence, the mufti called on Muslims to do good unto others — even if they have done harm unto them.

The Arafat sermon urged Muslims to spread the message of Islam. The mufti warned against moves to create doubts about the Islamic faith, condemning Western pressure to change the education curriculums in Muslim countries.

He urged Muslim youths to learn Islam from its original sources — the Qur’an and Sunnah (sayings and traditions of the Prophet).

Sheikh Abdul Aziz called upon Muslim media organizations to counter the smear campaign against Islam and Muslims, singling out satellite channels which spread poisonous thoughts and ideas.

He also expressed his opposition to globalization, saying it would turn Muslim countries into consumer societies.