Muslims, why throw stones at 3 devils in Mecca instead of 1

One of our viewers, Polak, asks this question: “Are the three pillars (Jamarats) in Mecca: a) to accommodate the large amounts of people, or b) to symbolize the three times that Abraham was allegedly confronted by the devil? Why did Muslims change the number of Jamarats from one to three?” Polak asks a good question. Theologically speaking there is only one devil, not three. And in Petra there was only one Jamarat (pillar) at which the pilgrims threw rocks at. In Mecca today, however, there are 3 Jamarats, not one, suggesting that they must have added another two over the intervening years. So, why did they do it? I imagine it had to do with the increasing volume of pilgrims who came to Mecca, and the need to accommodate the increasingly larger crowds which were descending upon Mecca over the subsequent 13 centuries. The problem is that once you increase the number of Jamaraats, you then have to create a back-story to accommodate it, and make sense of them. So, you come up with Abraham stoning the devil three times, to symbolize his 3 confrontations with the devil. Yet, where is that story in the Qur’an, or even in the earliest traditions? They just don't exist, suggesting that the entire practice is based on legend, and nothing more. © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2021 (46,800) Music: Adding the Sun, by Kevin Macleod - from filmmusic-io