Facing the Ka’ba, the pilgrims gather in circles that get bigger and bigger (more than fifty in the courtyard), spilling over into the two floors and the rooftop of the Great Mosque and then out into the open piazzas — more than 800,000 people at the peak of the Haj. There is no sight quite like it in the world. The Great Mosque is twenty times larger than St. Peter’s Basilica and five times larger than the world’s largest soccer stadium, the Maracana, in Rio de Janeiro.

The prayer over, the pilgrims resume their circumambulation. They try to get close to the Ka’ba, and the luckier ones touch it or press themselves against it and pray — asking forgiveness for their sins, relief from their personal and family privations, and for an end to the suffering of Muslims in the trouble spots of the world. The supplicants may invoke each people by name — the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Chechyns, the Kashmiris, the victims of tsunamis or earthquakes and whoever else may be in the throes of war, occupation, oppression and suffering — and beseech the Lord to help the besieged.

The pilgrims stop at a spot called the Place of Ibrahim, where Muslims believe he used to pray and where a rock that bears a miraculous print of his feet is encased in glass. They offer a special salah and proceed to drink from an adjacent well, called the Zamzam, which sustained Ibrahim’s son Ismail as a child. So sacred is the water — the Prophet called it “food for the hungry and a cure for the sick” — that Muslims have been carrying samples of it back to their families and friends for hundreds of years, long before bottled spring water came into vogue.

Safa and Marwa

The pilgrims take a few steps east to the site where, 4,000 years ago, Ibrahim left his wife Hajera and their infant son Ismail, who was soon panting in the desert sun. Looking for water, Hajera made a frantic dash between the hills of Safa and Marwa seven times until the Angel Gabriel pointed out the miracle of water springing up from the sand under the baby’s heels. The Zamzam has flowed ever since.

Pilgrims re-enact Hajera’s run between the two hills, 500 meters (1,600 feet) apart. They go back and forth seven times as their chants fill the canopied grand rectangular hall now covering the distance — an engineering feat far grander than roofing over entire street blocks for shopping malls. The sick and the old are wheeled up and down on a ramp. Atop each mount, pilgrims turn toward the Ka’ba and, eyes fixed on it, recite the Qur’anic line, Indeed Safa and Marwa are among the signs of Allah (2:158).

The visit to the Ka’ba and Safa and Marwa completes what is known as Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, which can be performed at any time throughout the non-Haj months, as more than 2 million do every year. The Haj pilgrims, however, must press on with the third and fourth components of their journey.