Wordless Wednesday: Masked Pilgrims

The hajj--the pilgrimage to Mecca every able-bodied Muslim is required to perform at least once in a lifetime, and one of the five pillars of Islam--is a festival of rituals. It is robed in ihram, the state of sacred purity the faithfuls enter in mind and body, by means of shedding distinctions of class or race or even ego, before humbling themselves before their God, as in the photograph above from the 2006 hajj: the men shaved their heads (although the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad say nothing about the practice--at least not regarding hair on a man's head).

Some 3 million people performed the hajj in Mecca in Saudi Arabia this year. The hajj ended on Dec. 11. The Boston Globe's Big Picture has a wonderful, 41-photograph gallery of the year's pilgrimage.