Symbolic stoning of Satan marks end of Muslims' hajj pilgrimage

MINA, Saudi Arabia -- Shuffling slowly but smoothly, huge crowds of people hurled pebbles Thursday at pillars representing Satan, symbolically stoning the devil in a final ritual of their pilgrimage, while Muslims at the hajj and around the world slaughtered sheep, cows and camels to mark the Feast of the Sacrifice holiday.\nMost of the 2 million pilgrims were expected to begin carrying out the ritual later in the day, historically one of the most dangerous because of stampedes as pilgrims elbow their way close to the pillars, then return to Mecca to circle the holy Kaaba in the final ritual of the pilgrimage. Others would wait or return in the coming days, drawing out their spiritual journey through Saturday.\nAs the hajj, which climaxed Wednesday with prayers on Mount Arafat, wound down, Muslims here and around the world began celebrating Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice. The holiday, the most important on the Islamic calendar, marks Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God.\nIt began with mosques -- and in places the streets around them -- filling up for dawn prayers and hearing holiday sermons. Later, families visited the graves of loved ones, gathered for big family lunches with the meat of freshly slaughtered animals and took children dressed up in new clothes to parks.\n"I hope that next year the situation will have improved in Palestine and Iraq, so that their children can play, too," Samir Karim, a 38-year-old Syrian businessman, said at a Damascus park where he brought his four children.\nMany holiday sermons were on Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict -- issues dominating the Arab world. At a mosque in Beirut, Lebanon, Shiite Muslim cleric Sheik Ahmed Kourani blasted the U.S. occupation of Iraq and its "invasion of our lands ... seeking to humiliate us."\nIn Beirut and on the streets of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, extra police patrolled areas where people would gather to ensure smooth celebrations. Along the Nile in downtown Cairo, rows of police kept traffic moving as Egyptians flocked to waiting boats to spend the day enjoying music and a cruise to picnic sites.