Muslim pilgrims in Mecca have circled the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, and then converged on a vast tent camp in the nearby desert, officially opening the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

The event is returning to its full capacity for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, more than 1.8 million pilgrims from all over the world have amassed in and around Mecca for the Hajj, and the number was growing as more pilgrims from inside Saudi Arabia joined, said a spokesman for the Saudi Hajj Ministry, Ayedh al-Ghweinim.

Authorities have said they expect this year to approach pre-Covid levels of more than two million.

Egyptian businessman Yehya Al-Ghanam said he was at a loss for words to describe his feelings on arriving at Mina, one of the biggest tent camps in the world, outside Mecca, where pilgrims will stay for much of the Hajj.

“Tears will fall from my eyes out of joy and happiness,” he said. “I do not sleep. I have not slept for 15 days, only an hour a day.”

The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims are required to make the five-day Hajj at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able to.

For pilgrims, it is a moving spiritual experience that absolves sins, brings them closer to God and unites the world’s more than 1.8 billion Muslims. Some spend years saving up money and waiting for a permit to embark on the journey.

The rituals during the Hajj largely commemorate the Koran’s accounts of Ibrahim, his son Ismail and Ismail’s mother Hajar.

Pilgrims have been doing the ritual circuit around the Kaaba since arriving in Mecca over recent days. As the last ones performed it on Monday, the pilgrims made their way by foot or bus to Mina.

In Mina, soldiers sprayed pilgrims with water to cool them down in the heat in the desert plain, where there is little respite from the blazing sun.

The faithful set up in their tents, resting in the rows of cubicles and praying together to prepare for the coming rituals.

On Tuesday, pilgrims will move to Mount Arafat, a desert hill where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have delivered his final sermon. Afterwards, they collect pebbles from a site known as Muzdalifa to be used in the symbolic stoning of pillars representing the devil back in Mina.

The final three days of the Hajj coincide with the Eid al-Adha holiday, when Muslims around the world slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

In 2019, more than 2.4 million pilgrims participated in the Hajj. In 2020, amid worldwide coronavirus lockdowns, Saudi Arabia limited the pilgrimage to a few thousand citizens and local residents.

Last year, just under 900,000 attended as Saudi Arabia allowed limited numbers of pilgrims from abroad.

Read relevant links: Saudi Arabia bans foreign pilgrims amid Covid-19 fears.

Saudi authorities deployed drones to watch over nearly 2 million pilgrims as they ascended Mount Arafat at the climax of the haj pilgrimage on Sunday, part of stepped up efforts to avoid a repeat of last year’s crush.

In one of the deadliest disasters to befall the annual Muslim rite in decades, the crush killed nearly 800 pilgrims, according to Riyadh, though counts by countries of repatriated bodies showed over 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians.

Chanting “here I am at thy service, O Lord,” the faithful climbed the craggy hills outside Mecca where Islam holds that God tested Abraham’s faith by commanding him to sacrifice his son Ismail and the Prophet Mohammed gave his last sermon.

“I have prayed to God to have mercy on us, give us relief and resolve Syria’s crisis,” said Um Fadi, wearing a traditional long black embroidered dress and head scarf native to her home in southern Syria.

“From the bottom of my heart, I pray that God will lift this agony from Syria and its people,” she added.

Saudi Arabia has said that 1.85 million pilgrims, most of them from outside Saudi Arabia, have arrived for the annual pilgrimage, a religious duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey.

Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam’s holiest sites and organising haj, a role that Iranian authorities have challenged this week as part of an escalating war of words over the handling of last year’s disaster.

The Grand Mufti, the kingdom’s top religious authority, warned Iran on Sunday that to disrupt the haj would be unacceptable, in comments reported by local daily al-Okaz.

“Any policy that aims to divert the haj from its proper course is un-Islamic and is a criminal policy,” he was quoted as saying.

Earlier in the week, Iran’s supreme leader accused Saudi authorities of murdering pilgrims during last year’s crush. In response, Saudi Arabia’s mufti said Iran’s leaders were not Muslims.

Pilgrims from Iran are not attending haj this year, after talks between the two Middle East powers over haj arrangements broke down in May.

The 2015 crush, in which two large groups of pilgrims arrived together at a crossroads in Mina, a few kilometres east of Mecca, on their way to performing the “stoning of the devil” ritual at Jamarat, was the worst disaster to strike the annual pilgrimage for at least 25 years.

The Saudi authorities redesigned the Jamarat area after two stampedes, one in 2004 and one in 2006, killed hundreds of pilgrims, and the frequency of such disasters has greatly reduced as the government spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding haj infrastructure and crowd control technology.

The haj ministry has said it had prepared a strict timetable for pilgrims from various countries to follow when leaving and returning to their accommodation.

Authorities have also deployed drones to reinforce a network of electronic surveillance of the crowds that would alert authorities to intervene quickly if necessary.

Saudi state news agency SPA said that Crown Prince Mohammed Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, who is also the interior minister, supervised oversight as pilgrims used buses, trains and private cars to move from their encampments in Mena to Mount Arafat.

So far, things have proceeded smoothly, SPA added.

The pilgrims will spend the day on the mountain and move by sunset to the rocky plain of Muzdalifa, where they will gather pebbles to stone columns symbolizing the devil at another location called Jamarat on Monday, which marks the first day of Eid al-Adha