{"id":529,"date":"2009-11-23T15:04:18","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T15:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/11\/hajj-tidbits.html"},"modified":"2009-11-23T15:04:18","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T15:04:18","slug":"hajj-tidbits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/11\/hajj-tidbits.html","title":{"rendered":"Hajj tidbits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preparations for Hajj continue in Saudi Arabia – with measures both great<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

On Sunday, security forces sent a clear message to would-be saboteurs by staging a huge military demonstration involving thousands of troops, armored vehicles, helicopters, and first response teams. The Saudi government has announced it will deploy more than 100,000 security and emergency personnel for hajj, which will last from Wednesday to Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

and small<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

During this year’s Haj, the government will distribute millions of bags of sterilized small stones to all pilgrims as part of the ritual stoning at the Jamarat.<\/p>\n

The plan has been initiated by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, who believes that this will ease the Haj for pilgrims and help to contain the spread of swine flu.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, the pilgrims’ preparations are of a more spiritual nature. There’s a wonderful new gallery about Life Lessons from Hajj<\/a> by Dilshad Ali that is a great read and inspiration, culled from her own recollections of performing Hajj five years ago. Check it out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparations for Hajj continue in Saudi Arabia – with measures both great: On Sunday, security forces sent a clear message to would-be saboteurs by staging a huge military demonstration involving thousands of troops, armored vehicles, helicopters, and first response teams. The Saudi government has announced it will deploy more than 100,000 security and emergency personnel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14],"tags":[40,25,26],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-read-this","category-the-pillars-of-faith","tag-hajj","tag-news","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nHajj tidbits - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hajj tidbits - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Preparations for Hajj continue in Saudi Arabia – with measures both great: On Sunday, security forces sent a clear message to would-be saboteurs by staging a huge military demonstration involving thousands of troops, armored vehicles, helicopters, and first response teams. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}