The Red Bulls

"And pilgrimage to the House is incumbent upon men for the sake of Allah, upon everyone who is able to undertake the journey to it” – 3:96 Quran

The Hajj (Arabic: حج‎ hagg) is a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is one of the five basic requirements (arkan or "pillars") of Islam, a moral obligation that must be carried out at least once in the lifetime of every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to Allah (God).

The pilgrimage occurs from the 7th to 13th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12th month of the Islamic calendar. Because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, eleven days shorter than the Gregorian calendar used in the Western world, the Gregorian date of the Hajj changes from year to year. In 2009 it will be Nov. 25–29. “Ihram” is the name given to the special state in which Muslims live while on the pilgrimage.

The Hajj is associated with the life of Islamic prophet Muhammad, but the ritual of pilgrimage to Mecca is considered by Muslims to stretch back thousands of years to the time of Ibrahim (Abraham).

Pilgrims join processions of hundreds of thousands of people, who simultaneously converge on Mecca for the week of the Hajj, and perform a series of rituals: Each person walks counter-clockwise seven times about the “Ka'bah,” the cube-shaped building which acts as the Muslim direction of prayer; kisses the Black Stone in the corner of the Ka'bah; runs back and forth between the hills of Al-Safa and Al-Marwah; drinks from the Zamzam Well; goes to the plains of Mount Arafat to stand in vigil; and throws stones in a ritual Stoning of the Devil. The pilgrims then shave their heads, perform a ritual of animal sacrifice in honor of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac, and celebrate the three day global festival of Eid al-Adha.

The Hajj, currently gathering more than 2 million Muslims annually, was perhaps the greatest impetus to voluntary mobility before modern times.

Crowd-control techniques have become critical, and because of the large number of people, many of the rituals have become more stylized. But even with the crowd control techniques, there are still incidents during the Hajj. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Hajj has a website, with the message, "Be peaceful, orderly and kind. No crushing."

Pilgrims can also go to Mecca to perform the rituals at other times of the year. This is sometimes called the "lesser pilgrimage", or Umrah. However, even if they perform the Umrah, they are still obligated to perform the Hajj at some other point in their lifetimes if they have the means to do so.