Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Wednesday expressed “gratitude to Almighty God for honoring us with the service of the Two Holy Mosques and the care of pilgrims to His Sacred House.” King Salman prayed that God accept the pilgrims’ Hajj, rituals and acts of worship. “With the advent of the blessed Eid al-Adha, we congratulate our people in this blessed homeland and our Islamic nation on this occasion, and pray to Him Almighty to make it an Eid of goodness, peace and stability for our nation and the entire world. May you all be well every year,” the king said. Since dawn on the first day of Eid al-Adha, pilgrims have begun performing the stoning ritual at Mina, casting seven pebbles at the Grand Jamarat (Jamarat al-Aqaba), amid smooth crowd movement under the prepared dispatching plan. About 1.7 million pilgrims departed to Muzdalifah after sunset on Tuesday following their standing at Arafat to perform the greatest pillar of Hajj, in safety and dressed in unified white garments. Security and service teams were deployed across the holy sites to oversee pilgrims’ movement from Arafat to Muzdalifah, where they remained until dawn on Wednesday, the morning of Eid al-Adha, in preparation for proceeding to Mina to perform the stoning of Jamarat al-Aqaba, Tawaf al-Ifadah, the sacrificial offering, and the shaving or trimming of hair, before staying in Mina for the remainder of the Hajj rites. Saudi Interior Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif said the level of security, organizational and service integration across the Hajj system, along with its advanced capabilities and preparations, reflects the scale of care provided to pilgrims and enhances the efficiency of implementing security and operational plans to ensure their safety and enable them to perform their rituals with ease and reassurance. On Tuesday, the interior minister inspected the Special Security Forces of the Presidency of State Security participating in the Hajj security forces, praising the specialized efforts carried out by the units.
