Outsourcing the messier religious duties

Usually, the post office is where you send mail or pay your bills. In Saudi Arabia during the hajj, it’s where you pay for your animal sacrifice.

It costs 460 riyals, or about $120, to have a sheep slaughtered. The sacrifice, known as the hadi, is incumbent on all pilgrims, who must donate at least two-thirds of the meat to the poor.

Modern pilgrims usually have a slaughterhouse near Mecca do this for them, via the local post office.

How do you know your animal was sacrificed? By text message, of course.

Outside Saudi Post in Mina, the sprawling tent city where pilgrims live for part of the hajj, Marwan Nabil, 22, who is from Yemen, began to worry when he had not received his confirmation.