Two million Muslims gathered at Saudi Arabia's Mount Arafat on Saturday amid the summer heat and regional tensions for a vigil to atone for their sins and seek God's forgiveness as part of the annual haj pilgrimage.
Pilgrims clad in white robes signifying a state of purity spent the night in a sprawling encampment around the hill where Islam holds that God tested Abraham's faith by commanding him to sacrifice his son Ismail.
Zaid Abdullah, a 30-year-old Yemeni who works in a supermarket in
Saudi Arabia, said he was praying for his own country, where war has killed tens of thousands of people and caused the world's worse humanitarian crisis, and for Muslims around the globe.