A man affected by the scorching heat is helped by another Muslim pilgrim and a police officer during the Hajj pilgrimage in Mina on June 16.
One of them was Taha Assayid, a 40-year-old from Egypt. He suspects that the heat killed many people this year. He says he was hospitalized last weekend after spending a few hours in the sun trying to make it into the mosque where it's believed Prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon nearly 1,400 years ago.
Hussain, the imam and writer from Leicester, England, says he helped lead a group of about 140 pilgrims this year. He says some of the older people in the group were insistent on walking long distances to perform some of the rituals, but he had this advice for them:"You can always delegate. You can give that responsibility to someone else," he says."That education ... is definitely something we need to do more.
They’ve drawn criticism in the past over mismanagement of the Hajj after a stampede in 2015 and crane collapse killed thousands, but the kingdom took measures that have prevented such accidents since then. Egyptian pilgrim Ibrahim Omran says he has been to Mecca more than 20 times. This was the hottest he's ever seen it, he says.