Watch Hajj Live Broadcast Video, also History of Hajj

watch-hajj-live-broadcast-video-and-history-of-hajj Watch Hajj live broadcast or live video 2009 and Hajj, history are available below. The day of Yawm-al ‘Arafat will fall on Today, making Friday, November 27 2009 Eidh-ul-Adha.

Nearly three million Muslim pilgrims gather for the annual Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) each year. The massive numbers of pilgrims is a spectacle that must be seen to be believed.

Watch Hajj Live Broadcast Video (Live coverage link below):

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The Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is currently the largest annual pilgrimage in the world and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a moral obligation that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to Allah (God). The pilgrimage occurs from the 7th to 13th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12th month of the Islamic calendar. Because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, eleven days shorter than the Gregorian calendar used in the Western world, the Gregorian date of the Hajj changes from year to year.

Hajj History: The Hajj is based on a pilgrimage that was ancient even in the time of Muhammad in the 7th Century. According to Hadith, elements of the Hajj trace back to the time of Abraham (Ibrahim), around 2000 BC. It is believed that the Prophet Ibrahim was ordered by God (Allah) to leave his wife Hagar and his infant son Ismael alone in the desert. While he was gone, the child became thirsty, and Hagar ran back and forth seven times searching for water for her son. The baby cried and hit the ground with his foot (some versions of the story say that an angel scraped his foot or the tip of his wing along the ground), and water miraculously sprang forth. This source of water is today called the Well of Zamzam. Nawal El Saadawi, an Egyptian Muslim writer has said that elements of the Hajj, such as kissing the black stone had pre-Islamic, pagan roots.

Prior to Muhammad’s era, each year tribes from all around the Arabian peninsula would converge on Mecca, as part of the pilgrimage. The exact faith of the tribes was not important at that time, and Christian Arabs were as likely to make the pilgrimage as the pagans. Muslim historians refer to the time before Muhammad as al-Jahiliyah, the “Days of Ignorance”, during which the Kaaba contained hundreds of idols – totems of each of the tribes of the Arabian peninsula, with idols of pagan gods such as Hubal, al-Lat, Uzza and Manat, and also some representing Jesus, and Mary.

Muhammad was known to regularly perform the Umrah, even before he began receiving revelations. Historically, Muslims would gather at various meeting points in other great cities, and then proceed en masse towards Mecca, in groups that could comprise tens of thousands of pilgrims. Two of the most famous meeting points were in Cairo and Damascus. In Cairo, the Sultan would stand atop a platform of the famous gate Bab Zuwayla, to officially watch the beginning of the annual pilgrimage.

In 632 AD, when Muhammad led his followers from Medina to Mecca, it was the first Hajj to be performed by Muslims alone, and the only Hajj ever performed by Muhammad. He cleansed the Kaaba, removed all the idols, and re-ordained the building as the house of God. It was from this point that the Hajj became one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

Watch Hajj Live Broadcast Video, also History of Hajj

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