Hajj nears climax for world's Muslims

Mecca : Close to 1.5 million Muslims from around the world prepared on Saturday night for the climax of the annual Hajj pilgrimage at a rocky hill known as Mount Arafat.

The pilgrims will mark Sunday with day-long prayers and recitals of the Koran holy book at the spot in western Saudi Arabia where they believe their Prophet Mohammed gave his last hajjsermon.

After preliminary rituals this week in Mecca at the Grand Mosque, the pilgrims in Saudi Arabia moved east on Saturday to the tent city of Mina and Mount Arafat.

They are following in the footsteps of their prophet who performed the same rituals about 1,400 years ago.

"It's marvellous. I'm here closer to God. It's an indescribable feeling," said an Egyptian pilgrim who gave her name only as Louza, 45, as a helicopter monitored the throng.

The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which capable Muslims must perform at least once, marking the spiritual peak of their lives.

Pilgrims come from every corner of the globe but Indonesia -- the world's largest Muslim-populated nation -- has the largest quota.

Despite diverse languages and origins, they all "meet here in one place under one banner, the profession of the Muslim faith," Ashraf Zalat, 43, from Egypt, said in Mecca.

Okaz newspaper reported that, for the first time in 35 years, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's top cleric, will not deliver a sermon to the Arafat crowd on Sunday.

The paper cited health reasons for the absence of the grand mufti, who has also waded into the Saudi-Iranian row over the Hajj.