More than 1.83 million Muslims from around the world gathered at the sacred hill of Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia for worship and reflection on the second day of the Hajj pilgrimage.

Authorities in Pakistan say at least 52 people were killed and nearly 70 wounded after a suspected bomber blew himself up in a crowd of people celebrating the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday in the southwest of the country.

Tensions are high in India’s western Udaipur city.

India is facing major diplomatic outrage from Muslim-majority countries after two top officials in the governing Hindu nationalist party made derogatory references to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

Police say Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had lived under police protection since his 2007 sketch of the Prophet Muhammad with a dog’s body brought death threats, has died in a traffic accident.

The French embassy in Pakistan is advising all of its nationals and companies to temporarily leave the country amid violent anti-France protests by supporters of a radical Islamist political party.

Pakistani security forces swinging batons and firing teargas have moved to clear sit-ins by protesting Islamists in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and elsewhere.

PARIS – An explosion at a Saudi cemetery where American and European officials were commemorating the end of World War I wounded three people Wednesday, according to official statements. A Saudi security officer was also lightly wounded, Saudi state media quoted a local official as saying. France has urged its citizens in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim-majority countries to be “on maximum alert” amid the heightened tensions. Wednesday marked the 102nd anniversary of the armistice ending World War I and is commemorated in several European countries. In 1916, during World War I, Ottoman troops surrendered to the local troops backed by the British in Jiddah, a Red Sea port city.

Smaller demonstrations in Lebanon, Turkey and India followed on anti-France protests across the Muslim world last week that were mostly led by Islamist groups. The renewed protests came after President Macron's interview late Saturday in which he said that he understood the shock Muslims felt at caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad. “I have never said that,” Macron told the Al-Jazeera interviewer, explaining that some false translations of his words in the media showed him to support the cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad. “We condemn blasphemy of Islam and Prophet Muhammad by French President,” read a slogan scribbled on a French flag. Anti-France protests were held by Muslim groups on Friday in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, and Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state.

FILE - In this file photo dated Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020, a man walks inside a mosque in Paris, France. The president’s proposed law may mean further tinkering with the 1905 secularism law born out of a conflict with the powerful Roman Catholic clergy. Tensions have run high in the past, notably with changes to the secularism law, with a 2004 law banning headscarves in classrooms and another in 2010 banning face-coverings. In the 1970s, immigrant Muslims working in car factories, construction and other sectors were “absolutely essential to French industry,” Benaissa said. Olivier Roy, a top expert, told a parliamentary committee that most Muslims have worked to integrate into French culture.

A family lights a candle in front of the Notre Dame church in Nice, France, Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. A new suspect is in custody in the investigation into a gruesome attack by a Tunisian man who killed three people in a French church. Macron's government stood firm, and called up thousands of reserve soldiers to protect France and reinforce security at French sites abroad. Before Nice, Issaoui, who was born in 1999, arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sept. 20, France’s antiterrorism prosecutor said. Minister Luciana Lamorgese called Thursday’s attack in France “an attack on Europe.

Charlie Hebdo has lampooned dead child migrants, virus victims, dying drug addicts, world leaders, neo-Nazis, popes, bishops, Jewish leaders, and other religious, political and entertainment figures. The French government defended free speech even as it rebuked Charlie Hebdo for fanning tensions. Charlie Hebdo hasn’t backed down. Weeks later, a Pakistani youth stabbed two people outside Charlie Hebdo’s former offices, citing the republished cartoons. At the end of her testimony, she addressed a message to Charlie Hebdo’s journalists, including those sitting in the courtroom.

A man prays in the street outside the Notre Dame church in Nice, southern France, after a knife attack took place on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)PARIS – The Latest on a knife attack in Nice, France, (all times local):10:25 p.m.France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor says the Nice attacker, who was born in 1999, was not on the radar of intelligence agencies as a potential threat. The rally came on the day an attacker armed with a knife killed three people inside a church in the French city of Nice. An attacker armed with a knife killed three people in the southern French coastal city Thursday. ___11:20 a.m.An attacker armed with a knife has killed three people at a church in the southern French city of Nice.

The Prophet Muhammad cartoons upset many in the Muslim world. The Ankara Chief Prosecutor's office launched an investigation into Charlie Hebdo managers over the cartoon, Tukey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The cartoon depicted Erdogan in his underwear holding a drink and lifting the skirt of a woman wearing an Islamic dress. “I condemn this incorrigible French rag's immoral publication concerning our president,” Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay wrote on Twitter. He urged Muslim leaders to take the initiative to call for an end to this cycle of hate and violence.

French anti-terrorist state prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard holds a press conference Wednesday Oct.21, 2020 in Paris. At a national memorial at the Sorbonne University in central Paris, Macron praised history teacher Samuel Paty as the “face of the Republic” who “believed in knowledge.”Paty, 47, was murdered on Friday by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin who had become radicalized. Anzorov claimed responsibility in a text accompanied by a photograph of the victim found on his phone. Government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said it was “implicated, linked to Friday’s attack” and it was used to promote anti-republican hate speech. Authorities say it has long had an imam following the Salafist path, a rigorous interpretation of the Muslim holy book.

Demonstrations around France have been called in support of freedom of speech and to pay tribute to a French history teacher who was beheaded near Paris after discussing caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad with his class. Samuel Paty was beheaded on Friday by a 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee who was shot dead by police. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)PARIS – France's prime minister joined demonstrators on Sunday who rallied together across the country in tribute to a history teacher who was beheaded near Paris after discussing caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad with his class. The demonstrations came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump sent France a message of solidarity in the wake of the attack. Samuel Paty was beheaded on Friday in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine by a 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee who was shot dead by police.

Paty had discussed caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad with his class, leading to threats, police officials said. He also confirmed that a Twitter account under the name Abdoulakh A belonged to the suspect. A police official said the suspect was shot dead about 600 meters (yards) from where Paty died. France has offered asylum to many Chechens since the Russian military waged war against Islamist separatists in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s. This is the second time in three weeks that terror has struck France linked to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

French President Emmanuel Macron, center, is seen outside a high school after a history teacher who opened a discussion with students on caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad was beheaded, Friday, Oct. 16, 2020 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, north of Paris. Police have shot the suspected killer dead. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

(AP Photo/Michel Euler)PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron denounced what he called an “Islamist terrorist attack” against a history teacher decapitated in a Paris suburb Friday, urging the nation to stand united against extremism. The teacher had discussed caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad with his class, authorities said. The French anti-terrorism prosecutor opened an investigation concerning murder with a suspected terrorist motive, the prosecutor’s office said. Macron visited the school where the teacher worked in the town of Conflans-Saint-Honorine and met with staff after the slaying. The gruesome killing of the teacher occurred in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine while the suspect was killed by police in adjoining Eragny.