Gulf states, other countries celebrate Eidul Adha

Monitoring Desk

DUBAI: Muslims across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf and European countries are celebrating Eidul Adha with religious fervour to commemorate the sacrifice of Prophet Ibrahim (AS).

Over a billion Muslims from around the world are celebrating Eidul Adha, which is also known as the “Festival of the Sacrifice’.

In Saudi Arabia, Eid prayers were offered at Masjid-e-Nabvi and the Grand Mosque in Makkah. The pilgrims, who spent the whole night in the open sky offering prayers in Muzdalifa started moving towards Mina.

After reaching Mina, they will perform stoning at Jamarat Al-Aqba, sacrifice animals, shave their heads and then leave for Makkah to perform Tawaf Al-Ifada and Sai, two other pillars of Haj.

Eid is also being celebrated in Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar. Indonesia, Iran and Malaysia are also marking the day.

Millions of pilgrims on Tuesday crowded the rocky rise known as Mount Arafat to pray at the climax of the Hajj pilgrimage and to listen to the sermon delivered from the Nimara mosque amid a fierce Saudi Arabian summer.

Delivering the sermon, Sheikh Yusuf bin Muhammad bin Saeed made a clarion call for the Ummah to forge unity and cohesion, stressing that linguistic, racial, or ethnic differences and divisions should not lead to any discord among the Muslims.