Thursday marks the beginning of the annual stampede-athon otherwise known at the Hajj. Well over three million Muslims will make this pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Every able-bodied Muslim who is capable of attending is required to do so at least once in their lifetime.
The journey is not without risk though. Over the course of the Hajj, thousands of pilgrims have met their fate either having been crushed in human stampedes or at the hands of militants.
Highlights include the infamous 1996 stampede that claimed the lives of 1,426 pilgrims. Earlier this year over 400 people met a similar fate. A complete list of incidents is available here and here.
Only time will tell what this years Running of the Muslims will bring. I would love to hear from anyone that has attended.
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Natural selection at it’s finest.
I went to the hajj. I rented a camel and dropped some acid. Then I rode full speed through the crowd with a Dmascus Sword while singing “It’s Slice-O-Matic”
That would be a hell of a place to hold Ms World
I wonder if there’s any videos of people getting trampled on Orgish or something.
Revlic, you’re a sick man ;) But not that I’ve ever been on Ogrish, I would say that’d be the place to find it.
gasmonso
Hey, I can’t help it. I was up all night listening to cannibal corpse. :P
Seriously though, I don’t feel sorry for people who die in the Hajj, I mean it’s like going to a NASCAR event, everyone really goes to see the wrecks.
Damn! Religious pilgrims unintentionally killed by fellow pilgrims during their extra-special religious ceremony… I guess gawd doesn’t really love them all that much.
Too bad, so sad.
I wanted to make a video that has some dude getting trampled then put “Not going anywhere for a while?”
GRAB A SNICKERS.
Seriously though, I don’t feel sorry for people who die in the Hajj, I mean it’s like going to a NASCAR event, everyone really goes to see the wrecks.
I agree with you Revlic, these people is the most fortuante people, they will go directly to heaven, they died in God’s house.
I don’t really understand your logic. You are blessed with the gift of life, but you juggle chainsaws on a motorcycle.
I wouldn’t say the Hajj is comparable to juggling chainsaws on a motorcycle. More like brushing your teeth on a motorcycle without a helmet. But it does go to show that having dense crowds of deeply religious people is never a good idea, even if they’re all of the same religion.
I’m going to have to agree with Mohamed. o.O
…did I just say that?
These guys are frustrated, angry, bored, repressed, etc. I’m glad they can have their fun. It’s a togetherness event with a little bit of morbid excitement thrown in – sort of like Nascar but with more of a solid community feeling. Or rubbernecking an auto accident. Leave ‘em alone. They’re having a good time feeling great, don’t be a prude.
Mohamed is right. Except about the dying in God’s house thing. Technically, it should always be in God’s house no matter where you die. But whatever.
Go ahead and post those casualties when they come in, gasmonso. I think the Muslims will find it interesting. As for me, I’m curious too.
Oh, by the way… I think the pilgrimage situation is kinda messed up, but while it’s there, we might as well take a practical approach to it, right? People dying is sad, but from a practical standpoint, this event makes sense. In that light, I think maybe it’s easier to understand the attitude of my above post.
In Saudi Arabia I’m sure the news is going to be like:
“Glory be to the 542 people who died today while embarking on the Hajj! and now, the weather.”
That’s actually kind of interesting, Revlic. What I mean is I’m curious to know what the coverage of this is like over there. People’s range of opinions/beliefs around it, etc. would be nice too. Am I the only one?
Right now, all we’ve got is Mohamed to tell us about it, and he’s not even there; he’s over in the states. But I hope he’s got some more to say anyways.
Wikipedia is full of information, as usual. Apparently, one of the rituals that is part of the Hadji involves throwing pebbles at one of three stone walls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning_of_the_Devil
Not very festive.
Well when you live in sandy shithole like the middle east I’m sure throwing rocks at something is like the superbowl to them.
They practice on their woman.
@Revlic
You’re over reacting buddy.
Israel might be a bit different than the rest of the middle east but still, the moslems here never throw stones at their women(even when commiting adultary, which according to the quran is rewarded by stoning)
Just relax, we guys over here also have interesting stuff to do.
what i don’t understand is why the hajj has to be held on a schedule. I’m no koranic scholar, but isn’t the rule just “go to mecca sometime” (slightly paraphrased)? You could end the trampling and all the other BS in a second if you said “come whenever you want”, or if crowds are a vital ingredient, then “there will be 4 hajjs this year. come when you can.”
The need for preparations and regulation is probably a large factor. I’ll bet it would be way more of a hassle to just have this constant influx of people performing all these rituals (rock throwing included), and it would probably make a constant source for criminals and people in the “protection business” to tap into. During the times of and in between the crusades, there were some orders that got lots of money and influence just by safeguarding people on pilgrimages. We wouldn’t want that to happen again, now would we?
I dunno though… maybe I’m being silly by thinking something like that could happen again in this post-modern era. Yeah, probably.
I always overreact.
/psychopathic laughter
Honestly, if your religious get togethers have a death count any higher then “2″ then you got a serious problem.
Maybe if the middle east stopped treating it’s citizens like cattle they wouldn’t stampede.
ben, perhaps the need for an organized event is for sponsorship? “Your pilgrimage for Allah is brought to you by Dasani. It’s what Muhammad would’ve drank.”
I don’t think Saudi Arabia is Snady place like you think, they have modern bulidings you don’t even find in USA, they didn’t do it themself though.
I think if somebody died when he is worshipnig god is way better than somebody who takes drugs. When they race they do the same thing like Hajer who is the wife of Abraham doing when she gone to this area carrying her son to find water, and when Ismail hit the land, the water gushed from a well, and this well still exist till now, and it will never goes dry in the middle of the desert.
you can go to this place any time, but it’s different at this time of the year, doing hej is one of the Islam pillar, if you can afford it, any other time is called OMRA.
I too think one who dies worshipping has a great death… He benefits the rest of humanity by not wasting our precious recources. If that isn’t noble i don’t know what is.
First of all, worshipping /anything/ is a waste of time, imnsho. And if you die while doing it, then you totally wasted the last moments of your life, which rises to the level of “pathetic waste of time.”
Also, to those of you who feel that one dies a “great death” if they die while worshipping… How do you respond to suicide bombers who believe that their act is a form of religious worship? An act that will grant them direct access to heaven? Is that a “great death?”
And still, it seems to me that if you are trampled to death by fellow worshippers while you are on your holy pilgrimage, then god does NOT love you. God hates you and bestows upon you an utterly pointless death.
Guys it would be very good if you research on this topic a bit before passing comments. Those people who die there are cause of accident not cause of some ones intention. I don’t think that you guys have a clue about a gathering of three million people. The admin there try to avoid these accidents, just before Hajj the spent nearly 1 Billion USD to renovate the area where Haji go to through stones. Don’t forget there are old people in this crowd which most of the time become the cause of accident.
One more thing the ritual of throwing stones at these three points is a tradition in remembrance of Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him). On these three points he picked up stones to throw at satan who was trying to stop Him (PBUH) from giving sacrifice of his son Ismail (PBUH).
I wish you guys get the chance to perform this ritual and then I’ll ask you was it a good experience or bad. I my self has performed it 4 times and want to do it again, as now I am married and it is different when you do it with your responsibilities along with you.
May Mighty Allah give you guidance and show you the right path.
@Sah:
Believe it or not, we know all of this.
No, i’m serious we do.
But when people die every year, something gotta be wrong, don’t you agree?
I can understand that it might happen occasionally when there are so many people, but not annually.
Wouldn’t you raise an eyebrow if every year christmas, a parade, or anything would cause people to die?
Brother
As a matter of fact people do die on Christmas and New Year, accidents do happen with people who get drunk while celebrating these events and they do cause accidents. Yes I understand it’s different because they really don’t have any parade or a ritual like that. A reasonable person would feel sad on this and won’t make a fun of it. I really don’t find humor in all this.
May Mighty Allah (SWT) give us all guidance and show us the right path.
shah, so your comparing religion to driving drunk? I couldnt agree more.
May Mighty Logic give us all guidance and show us the right path.
Who is talking about logic, somebody believs in billions of billions accidents for the human-being to exist.
Is it that you don’t understand evolution or that you deny it because it hits your belief system in the gonads? Evolution is not up for argument anymore, its pretty much accepted as fact. but if you wanna live your life in ignorance go ahead…
@irishthunder
Read the moslem cartoons thread(only the last 20 posts) and you’ll see how much Mohammed knows about Evolution. Hint: too little to argue about it.