Hajj

Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, obligatory once in a lifetime for every able Muslim who can undertake it, performed on fixed dates in the month of Dhu al-Hijjah. Core rites include entering ihram (a consecrated state marked by simple garments), tawaf (circling the Kaaba seven times), sa'i (walking seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwah), the standing at Arafat (wuquf, held to be the rite's spiritual center), and the symbolic stoning of pillars at Mina. The rites are tied in Islamic tradition to the narrative of Ibrahim, Hajar, and Ismail.

Hajj today is administered by Saudi Arabia through a national quota and visa system managing the several million pilgrims who attend each year. Historically, pilgrims traveled by organized caravan routes such as the Darb Zubaydah from Iraq; infrastructure along the routes and within the holy sites has been continually rebuilt and expanded across centuries.

Comparative religion sometimes groups Hajj with other circumambulation-centered pilgrimage forms — Hindu parikrama, Buddhist kora — as instances of a shared structural pattern. This is an outside analytical frame; it is not part of Hajj's own theological self-understanding, which is grounded specifically in Qur'anic instruction and the Abrahamic narrative.