I’ve been to Saudi Arabia several times, seven times to be exact, for Hajj (and as pilgrims guide). During which I barely seen any rainpour in the country. No wonder this downpours is really news worthy even to foreign media. For the hajjis this really a problem for them. Wish them luck and are able to sort this out.
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Flooding killed at least 11 people in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port city of Jeddah on Wednesday after a heavy downpour, with more deaths feared, a civil defence official said.

The 11 victims were believed to have drowned, the official said, requesting anonymity.

The storm struck the western Saudi city in the morning, flooding streets. In one part of Jeddah, a bus could be seen submerged under several metres (yards) of water in an underpass.

A witness told AFP by telephone he had seen several bodies beside another bus that overturned in the storm.

Major roads remained gridlocked by traffic late on Wednesday after the rain stopped and floodwaters receded, witnesses said.

Photo: AP

Flood in Jakarta is common and coming as regular as rainy months. But flood in Makkah, Saudi Arabia? That’s a happenings and worrying as well. To make it worst, it happens during the boxing-day of Hajj rites.
Muslim pilgrims circled Islam’s holiest site Wednesday in their traditional white robes, with a few additions — umbrellas and face masks — as the opening of the annual hajj was complicated by torrential rains and fears of swine flu.

Saudi authorities have been planning ways for months to inhibit the spread of swine flu during the pilgrimage, which is seen as an incubator for the virus. The four-day event is one of the most crowded in the world, with more than 3 million people from every corner of the globe packed shoulder to shoulder in prayers and rites.

Now they are scrambling to deal with sudden, unexpected downpours that could worsen one of the gathering’s perennial dangers: deadly stampedes.

Via AP
Around midday, the Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest shrine, was packed with pilgrims performing the Tawaf al-Widaa, or the “farewell circling” of the Kaaba — walking seven times around the cubical structure while praying and reading the Quran, Islam’s holy book.

Many of the nearly 3 million pilgrims came by bus or on foot from the nearby plain of Mina, where they had completed the ritual known as the stoning of the devil earlier in the day. Others sat on mats along the three-mile route, reciting passages from the Quran while waiting for the crowds to ease.
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Observing hajj to Mecca for Muslims tends to make them more religiously observant and also more tolerant a huge study of Pakistani pilgrims suggests:

Muslims who undertake the hajj “return with more positive views towards people from other countries,” are more likely to say “that people of different religions are equal,” and are twice as likely as other religious Muslims to condemn Osama bin Laden, the study found.

“People become more orthodox yet more tolerant,” one of the study’s authors, Asim Ijaz Khwaja of Harvard University, said of hajjis — those who make the pilgrimage.

He described the study’s findings Monday, as this year’s annual pilgrimage reached its climax, the symbolic stoning of the devil on the festival of Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holiday that traditionally marks the end of the hajj.

Muslim hajj pilgrimage culminates on Mt. Arafat:
MOUNT ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia (AP) Creating a sea of white robes, nearly 3 million Muslims converged on a rocky desert hill outside Mecca on Sunday to perform the ritual of forgiveness marking the climax of the annual hajj.

Chants of “at thy service, my God, at thy service,” reverberated through the valley as the pilgrims stood to pray for God’s forgiveness in the most spiritual moment of the entire pilgrimage.