Yeah I know. Baker originally wondered why the Hajj was always at a particular time (instead of spread throughout the year, which would make the logistics much easier), but said said that (s)he understood why, because all of the Christian holidays (s)he celebrates fall on specific days too. Monty pointed out that plenty of Christian holidays fall on different dates every year depending when Easter falls. I was trying to say that the moveable feasts in Christianity are no different from the Hajj; everyone celebrates them at the same time, even if they fall on different dates every year.
Okay, my mistake. I thought you were suggesting that the Hajj was a movable event like Easter or Thanksgiving rather than a fixed event like Christmas or Halloween.
As several posters have already mentioned, the date of the Hajj is fixed. However, Muslims can and do visit Mecca and the holy sites there at other times of the year. It doesn’t count as doing the Hajj, of course. More like a Christian church group on a bus tour of Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the off-season.
As I understand it, they are the more extreme version of the standard muslim view that any depiction - of man, animals, especially religious figures - runs the risk of being converted in the minds of the misguided into a idol, an object of worship rather than a depiction.
As a result some of the most historical sites of Mecca are being torn up and replaced by hideous modernist architecture.