ARAFAT: The most hallowed sight for pilgrims at Arafat is Jabal Al-Rahma, the Mount of Mercy. This is the place from which Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) preached his farewell sermon 1,426 years ago.

From a distance, the area around Jabal Al-Rahma gives off the impression of being wrapped in a light blue sheet because of the thousands of umbrella-holding pilgrims who swarm the area. The colorful umbrellas create a rainbow effect over the entire area.

Jabal Al-Rahma is a granite hill. At its 70-meter peak is a platform, in the center of which is a white pillar that can be seen from afar. The hill holds a cluster of boulders with deep crevices in them. Some of the boulders many have been artificially reinforced and supported by iron rods.

On the mount, pilgrims were reciting verses from the Holy Qur’an as tears rolled down their cheeks. Many had their arms stretched out in prayers and supplications. Others, apparently tired from their long journey, slept with their prayer beads in their hands. The very courteous Saudi security forces were on the spot to lend helping hands to elderly pilgrims who were either climbing up or coming down the hill.

At the foot of Jabal Al-Rahma, the government has erected big billboards stating that the Prophet did not climb it and pilgrims therefore do not need to do so. The instructions are in many languages, including English.

Being at Arafat on 9th Dul Hijjah of the Islamic calendar is considered the most important part of Haj. The best description of the standing at Arafat — wuqoof in Arabic — was written many years ago by Lady Evelyn Cobbold, an Englishwoman, who became a Muslim and took the name of Zainab.

“It would require a master pen to describe the scene, poignant in its intensity, of that great concourse of humanity of which I was one small unit, completely lost to their surroundings in a fervor of religious enthusiasm,” she wrote in her Haj journal. “Many of the pilgrims had tears streaming down their cheeks; others raised their faces to the sky that had witnessed this drama so often in the past centuries.

The shining eyes, the passionate appeals, the pitiful hands outstretched in prayer moved me in a way that nothing had ever done before, and I felt caught up in a strong wave of spiritual exaltation. I was one with the rest of the pilgrims in a sublime act of complete surrender to the Supreme Will which is Islam.”

That picturesque and soulful description remains true to this day. That is why journalists, year after year, cannot resist quoting it.