Pilgrimages

Record producer Mikal Kamil recalls the first time he saw gangsta rapper Napoleon. Standing in a North Hollywood recording studio, the protege of the late Tupac Shakur held a Colt 45 malt liquor in one hand, a marijuana joint in the other, and was surrounded by about 15 members of his rowdy posse. During the introduction, Kamil was surprised to discover that Napoleon's given name, Mutah Wasin Shabazz Beale, was of Islamic origin. "You a Muslim?" Kamil asked.

Orange County Catholics marked Holy Saturday with an early morning pilgrimage to the diocesan cathedral--a reenactment of the journey that the pope wants all Roman Catholics to take this year. Led by newly appointed Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto, about 200 people rose before dawn and walked more than a mile from a La Habra church to Orange's Holy Family Cathedral, seat of the diocese. The spirited participants brought an accordion, guitars and other musical instruments for their trek.

In certain parts of England and Scotland, it's almost impossible to avoid Beatrix Potter. Her "little books," as she called them, are sold in gift shops from Land's End to John O' Groats. Whole museums and stores are devoted to the self-effacing artist-storyteller, the inventor of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.

A Shiite pilgrim sat on the sidewalk outside a Baghdad shrine, clad in black and holding a brown walking stick. He took off his slippers to rest his scratched and bloodied feet. Abu Zahra had just finished four days and 100 miles of walking, from Baghdad to the holy city of Karbala and back, and his feet were sore. But he had survived. Each year, millions of Shiites make religious pilgrimages such as this one, and each year, the death toll from violence along the way can rise into the hundreds.

The students stared at the overhead screen and read the words in unison: Labbaik. Allah humma labbaik. The Southern California Muslims repeated those words -- "Here I am, Lord. I am here to serve you" -- as they donned pilgrims' robes last week in the Saudi Arabian city of Medina, a key step on their pilgrimage to Mecca.

A thin cloud of concrete dust hangs over the reception room of the Israeli Embassy here these days. Piles of tiles, ready to be laid, are stacked in a hallway. Walls are about to be knocked down, counters replaced. The bedlam that was the visa application section has been moved 16 floors down, to a new office posted, unbelievably, "Israeli Embassy Tourism Office."

The column of young Mormon pilgrims stretched for nearly a mile as the sun set over the glacial peaks of Wyoming's Wind River mountain range. Teenagers clad in 19th-century pioneer outfits strained mightily to pull unwieldy wooden handcarts over rocky terrain while keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes. Nervous broods of sage grouse scattered as the first trekkers approached. Poised on nearby ridgelines, pronghorn antelope kept a wary vigil.

If this were Lebanon, Raef Hajjali would have returned from Saudi Arabia to a mini-parade of family and friends, a nice long rest and new social standing in the community. Relatives and neighbors would have slaughtered a sheep in celebration and decorated his home with palm fronds. "The whole town would have been waiting," he said. Instead, he and his wife, Ellen Hajjali, returned home to Altadena a few weeks ago to minimal fanfare, and he was back at work the next day. He didn't last long.

A teenage couple making a Good Friday pilgrimage to a church that is said to contain healing dirt were found shot to death along one of the most popular routes for the annual trek to the Roman Catholic shrine. "I can't recall there being an incident like this" during the annual journey, said state police Capt. Carlos Maldonado. The body of 17-year-old Richard Martinez was found on a highway before daybreak about 30 miles north of Santa Fe.

Turkish political leaders led a growing outcry against Saudi Arabia over the death of an estimated 1,426 Muslim pilgrims trampled or suffocated in a tunnel in Mecca while on a pilgrimage, or hajj, to Islam's holiest shrine. A Turkish survivor said escape routes from the tunnel were closed with wire and soldiers fled instead of aiding the 50,000 trapped and panic-stricken pilgrims. Turkey, with 550 dead and Indonesia with 122 bore the brunt of the loss.

A Shiite pilgrim sat on the sidewalk outside a Baghdad shrine, clad in black and holding a brown walking stick. He took off his slippers to rest his scratched and bloodied feet. Abu Zahra had just finished four days and 100 miles of walking, from Baghdad to the holy city of Karbala and back, and his feet were sore. But he had survived. Each year, millions of Shiites make religious pilgrimages such as this one, and each year, the death toll from violence along the way can rise into the hundreds.

More than 2 million Muslims from across the globe descended on Saudi Arabia over the weekend to perform the ancient rituals of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that is considered the spiritual pinnacle of a devout Muslim's life. As Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Hajj notes in a website on the event, the word "hajj" merely means "to set out for a place."

Nearly 3 million pilgrims chanting prayers converged in a valley just outside the holy city of Mecca at the beginning of the five-day hajj pilgrimage. Pilgrims from about 100 countries left Mecca after completing the first ritual of the hajj by circling the sacred Kaaba stone structure inside the Grand Mosque, which Muslims all over the world face during their five daily prayers. Dressed in white robes, pilgrims piled into and on top of buses on their way to a ritual of prayer and reflection in Mina, 3 miles east of Mecca.

Hamas police set up checkpoints across Gaza to prevent pilgrims from leaving for a holy Muslim ritual in Saudi Arabia, beating some who tried to dodge barriers, witnesses said. The Islamic militants who rule Gaza were upset that the pilgrims had coordinated their journey with Hamas' rival, the Palestinian Authority. The authority, based in the West Bank, is run by the Fatah movement. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah-allied forces last year, and animosity between the rivals has grown in recent months.

A passenger van packed with explosives blew up Friday at a bus station north of Baghdad where Shiite Muslim pilgrims had stopped for the night, killing at least three people and wounding dozens, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The attack occurred a day after a female suicide bomber struck Shiite pilgrims traveling to Karbala for a major religious festival, killing at least 20 people and wounding at least 75.

Dozens of Hindu pilgrims fell through a broken guardrail and scores more were trampled when thousands of devotees panicked Sunday at a remote mountaintop temple, leaving 145 dead, police said Rumors of a landslide apparently started the stampede at the shrine in the Himalayan foothills, said C.P. Verma, a senior government official in the Bilaspur district. Pilgrims gathered for celebrations at the Naina Devi Temple began running down the narrow path leading from the peak.

The government may be in Baghdad and the oil reserves in Basra, but the smaller city of Najaf, halfway between Iraq's two centers of power, has a treasure that could be the envy of them both. "Our oil here is tourism," said Abdul Hussein Abtan, the deputy provincial governor in Najaf. Najaf and its neighbor Karbala hold some of Islam's holiest monuments. If they could, Shiite Muslims from around the Middle East would flock to the city to pray at the shrine of Imam Ali, the cousin and companion of the prophet Muhammad and his rightful successor according to the Shiite branch of Islam.

If this were Lebanon, Raef Hajjali would have returned from Saudi Arabia to a mini-parade of family and friends, a nice long rest and new social standing in the community. Relatives and neighbors would have slaughtered a sheep in celebration and decorated his home with palm fronds. "The whole town would have been waiting," he said. Instead, he and his wife, Ellen Hajjali, returned home to Altadena a few weeks ago to minimal fanfare, and he was back at work the next day. He didn't last long.

Inside a cave high on a cliff in the Owens Valley desert north of Los Angeles, the Rev. Brad Karelius struggled to find words to describe "a life-changing holy encounter" he had there. Surveying the chaotic landscape of dormant volcanoes, lava beds and snow-capped peaks outside, the Episcopalian priest and philosophy professor said, "It evoked a serenity that was a gift. It was as if I'd entered a sacred space that changed me.

It's a solitary journey conducted among the multitudes, a personal communication with God alongside millions loudly having the same conversation. "I imagine it to be an ocean of people but still somehow a lonely place," said Hasan Badday just hours before he and other Muslim pilgrims from Southern California boarded buses for a vigil Tuesday on Mt. Arafat in the Saudi desert.