Today in Saudi Arabia Muslims start their traditional annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The organisers are expecting over 2 million believers

Despite a conflict between countries people from Iran and Qatar will also be able to attend the festivities. Till Thursday 1.6 million people have already arrived in Mecca.

The annual pilgrimage, also referred to as hajj, is one of the five pillars of the Islam religion and according to that each Muslin who is physically capable and can afford it should at least once in his or her life travel to Mecca – the birth place of Mohamed.

According to tradition the hajj is also a symbolic judgement day when everyone needs to defend his deeds before Allah.

The height of the festivities will be on Tuesday, when the so called "kurban bajram" day is celebrated.