Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority approved on Thursday government plans to restructure Islam's holiest sites after 251 Muslims were killed in a stampede during this year's haj pilgrimage.
"The council agreed on the need to develop Jamarat area to protect pilgrims," said the council of senior scholars, headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, in a religious edict carried on state television.
King Fahd had issued a decree ordering the formation of a high-level committee to draft a new layout for Mecca and Mena after Sunday's disaster when pilgrims were crushed as hundreds of thousands of faithful surged toward Jamarat Bridge in Mena to throw stones at pillars representing the devil.
The haj has seen deadly stampedes almost every year. In 1990, 1,426 pilgrims were crushed to death in a pedestrian tunnel at Mecca. Last year 14 people were trampled to death.
Saudi Arabia has defended its organization of the haj and blamed the stampede on frenzied pilgrims, saying it tried to avert crowding by asking them to perform the stoning ritual in an orderly manner and at different times.
Muslims stone three pillars which they believe mark the spot where the devil appeared to biblical patriarch Abraham.