Nearly three million Muslims from around the world, raising their hands to heaven and chanting "I am here, Lord", marched through a desert valley outside Mecca in Saudi Arabia today on the first day of the annual hajj pilgrimage.
Dressed in seamless white robes symbolising the equality of mankind under God, the pilgrims were warnd today to maintain non-political rituals as they hiked through the eight-mile valley to Mina, starting a series of rituals in which they cleanse themselves of sin.
This year's hajj takes place amid increasing worries across the Islamic world over the bloodshed in Iraq , violence in the Palestinian territories and a new war in Somalia.
Amid the crises, tensions have increased between the two main sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites, who come together in the five days of hajj rituals centred on the holy city of Mecca, birthplace of Islam's Prophet Mohammed.
"We will not allow sectarian tensions from any party during the hajj season," Saudi Arabia's Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz said before the rituals.
"The pilgrimage is not a place for raising political banners ... or slogans that divide Muslims, whom God has ordered to be unified," Saudi Islamic Affairs Minister Sheikh Salih bin Abdulaziz told pilgrims today.
"The hajj is a school for teaching unity, mercy and co-operation."
For pilgrims streaming in from all continents, the hajj is a crowning moment of faith, a duty for all able-bodied Muslims to carry out at least once.
This morning, as they have for the past few days, hundreds of thousands opened their pilgrimage by circling the Kaaba, the black cubic stone in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, which Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.
Yesterday, massive crowds of pilgrims packed the streets surrounding the Kaaba, some prostrate in prayer, others diving into the traditional outdoor markets to buy perfumes, fabrics, prayer beads and other souvenirs.
More than 30,000 police and other security forces have fanned out around the holy sites to help smooth traffic around ritual sites that have been plagued with deadly stampedes.
More than 360 people were killed during last year's hajj in a stampede at Mina during a ritual symbolising the stoning of the devil, sparked when some pilgrims in the crowd stumbled over luggage.
AP