Pilgrims get emotional during stoning ritual

Jammarat: Pilgrims let out their frustrations and pain in the three-day stoning of the Devil ritual  in one of the fundamentals  of the Hajj. 

More than a million people stone three walls on three different days that symbolise the Devil.

“I was emotional and cried when I started throwing the stones. I thought of all the things I did because I listened the Devil in me and let him persuade me to do many wrongs,” Faisal Handasi, an Egyptian electrical engineer based in Dubai told Times of Oman.

Other pilgrims say there were there because they succumbed to the Devil’s temptations for many years and they had enough now.

“There was a voice in my mind that told me to deviate away from the right path. The stoning of the Devil is my way to say enough is enough,” Khalifa Al Bahrani, a Bahraini civil servant, said. The third and final day of the stoning of the Devil was on Monday and pilgrims then left Mina and performed the farewell Hajj in Makkah by circling the Kaaba before heading home.

“I used so much force to hit the walls to let out all the frustrations and pain that was inside me for many things I did in the past that I am not proud of,” Suleiman Al Jarrafi, a Palestinian pilgrim working in Doha, said.

The stones symbolise the small, medium and large devils representing the evil temptations  to do wrong. Muslims believe the Prophet Ibrahim started stoning a wall to deny temptations from the Devil not to sacrifice his son Ismael as commanded by God.

Later, God rewarded him to fight the Devil’s temptations by asking him to sacrifice a lamb instead and spared his son.