Word: mecca
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...Isaac as sacrifice, and was restrained by an angel of the Lord. Solomon is said to have used the rock as the foundation of his temple. Herod built there the temple from which Jesus drove the money-changers. Mohammed rested by the rock after his night flight from Mecca...
...Jidda to Mecca. When his day of departure finally arrived, Ahmed set out on the road through the mountains clogged with thousands of pilgrims ("White, brown, black, yellow people, all moving together"). As they streamed along the road together-a few in cars and buses, some on mules, but most on foot-a steady chant rose in unison from the column: "Labbaika Allahumma labbaika! [Here we are, Lord, here...
Fourteen miles from Mecca, signs warned in Arabic and English: HALT-RESTRICTED AREA. MOSLEMS ONLY PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT. ToUghlooking guards armed with clubs and submachine guns inspected passports carefully to weed out any infidel. As the pilgrims rounded the last bend and saw Mecca white and dazzling in the desert sun, their chant burst into a roar: "La illaha ilia Allah, Muhammad rasulu Allah [There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah...
Ahmed stayed in Mecca eight days, living in one of the small hotels that crowd the city. Again and again he visited the Kaaba, the small cubic building that houses the sacred Black Stone-the center of the earth for Moslems. Guided by his mutawwif, Ahmed queued up to put his head in the bowl-like enclosure to kiss the Black Stone, worn away by the lips of pilgrims, and added his kiss to the kisses of centuries. He made his seven counterclockwise turns around the Kaaba, three times running and four times walking...
...Mecca to Arafat. On the eighth day came the final stage of the pilgrimage-the 15-mile walk to the valley of Arafat, where all hadjis must be present at the same time to listen to prayers recited on Mount Arafat. The temperature that day was well over 100°, and the old and weak were dropping everywhere. Tubs of water were available for dunking heat-exhaustion victims. "Even if they don't recover," said one veteran, "they are perfectly happy, because they have died on a hadj.'' The death rate for this year's pilgrimage...