Muslim pilgrims leave Mecca city at start of haj

Pilgrims walk outside the Grand Mosque in Mecca December 16, 2007. Around 1.5 million Muslims from around the world are expected to arrive in Saudi Arabia for the haj pilgrimage.

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - The annual haj pilgrimage began in Mecca on Monday when hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims put on white clothes, packed their bags and left for a tented encampment on the edge of the holy city.

In central Mecca, some latecomers performed the ritual walk seven times around the Kaaba, the ancient cubic shrine which all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

More than 1.6 million pilgrims have come to Saudi Arabia from abroad for the haj, the largest regular religious gathering in the world and an obligation which all Muslims should perform at least once if they are able to.

Pilgrims from within Saudi Arabia -- Saudis or foreign workers -- mean the total often exceeds 2.5 million, posing logistical and health challenges for the authorities.

"We have to raise (health) awareness among pilgrims from some countries," Health Minister Hamad al-Manei told Al Jazeera, the Arabic broadcaster which has been permitted to cover the rites this year. Al Jazeera is usually banned.

"Some of the pilgrims coming from outside do not know Arabic. With different languages and peoples coming, of course there are difficulties," the minister said from Mecca.

The government has said it will crack down on pilgrim squatters who cause overcrowding and has taken precautions against bird flu, after recent cases where the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus killed birds in the Riyadh area.

By the evening they should all have reached the Mina area east of Mecca, the first overnight stage in an itinerary which will bring them back to Mecca later this week.

Some of them walked, carrying their bags, while others took buses moving slowly through the crowds. The road between Mecca and the nearby port of Jeddah was clogged as pilgrims packed into cars and headed for Islam's holiest city.

Pilgrims see the haj as an affirmation of Muslim unity and solidarity, bringing together people of different languages and ethnicities united only by belief in a single god.

On a personal level, many of them say they are also seeking forgiveness for sins of which they have repented.

"A good haji (pilgrim) will go home like a new-born child. All his sins are forgotten," said Nigerian sociology professor Baffa Aliyu Umar, who is on his fourth haj.

PILGRIM CRACKDOWN

The Saudi authorities are trying to crack down on the number of pilgrims who slip into the holy city without permits and add to massive crowd control problems.

On the road to Mecca from the large Red Sea port of Jeddah, police checked the papers of all drivers and passengers to make sure they had good reasons for traveling to Mecca.

Pilgrims are easy to detect because of a traditional requirement that male pilgrims put on special clothes well before they reach Mecca. A pilgrimage does not count if they enter the state of "ihram", or ritual purity, too late.

Saudi authorities say they had made every possible preparation for the pilgrimage, which King Abdullah protects and sponsors in his role as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

An innovation this year is the construction of a third level at the Jamarat Bridge, from which pilgrims throw pebbles at a concrete wall, representing defiance of the devil.

The bridge near Mina has been one of the worst bottlenecks for traffic. In January 2006, 362 people were crushed to death on the bridge, the worst haj tragedy in 16 years.

Given the political turmoil in the Middle East, the Saudis are also on the alert for any political activity by pilgrims, but the first stages this year have been largely trouble-free.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will attend the rites this year, the first time an Iranian president has done so.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz has said there was no link between this year's haj and 208 men detained in recent months for planning militant attacks.

(Editing by Michael Winfrey)