The annual hajj pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam, predates the faith by centuries, tracing its roots to the biblical patriarch Abraham – revered by Muslims as a prophet and the first preacher of their religion.

And as some 2.5 million people gather in this western Saudi city for the hajj, a must for every capable Muslim at least once in a lifetime, they begin rituals said to follow millennium-old instructions by Abraham, or Ibrahim, as he is known in the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Muslims believe that a “sacred house” was built in Mecca by Adam, the father of the human race, in the same spot where Ibrahim and his son Ishmael are said to have rebuilt it and where the Kaaba, a massive cubic structure, lies.

The Koranic version of the story is that Ibrahim travelled with Hagar, the mother of their infant son Ishmael, to a barren valley and left both of them near the sacred house with some food and water that soon ran out.

Hagar’s desperate runs between the two hills of Safa and Marwa in search of sustenance have been imitated by pilgrims ever since the prophet of Islam, Mohammed, ordered his followers to perform the hajj to Mecca.   »»» The Independent (U.K.)

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