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DAWAH TRACTS VOL. 1. NO. 32
HAJJ STAMPEDE:
THE
PANACEA
HAJJ STAMPEDE: THE PANACEA
The whole world was
shocked when on Thursday 24th September, 2015 news filtered out that
a large number of pilgrims had died in a stampede at Muna, Saudi Arabia, during
the stoning of the devil. The death toll stood above 2,000 at the last count.
It was not the first time. Several pilgrims had died in hajj stampedes before. A few
examples can be provided here: 346 pilgrims died in similar stampede on January
12, 2006; 251 on February 1, 2004; 14 on February 11, 2003; 35 on March 5, 2001;
118 on April 9, 1998; 270 on May 23, 1994 and 1,426 on July 2, 1990 when a
stampede occurred inside a pedestrian tunnel (Al-Ma'aisim tunnel) leading out
from Mecca towards Mina (Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_during_the_Hajj).
Yet
deaths in stampedes are not limited to Saudi Arabia alone. Exempli gratia:
96 football fans were trampled to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield,
England during the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and
Liverpool after a wall collapsed during a stampede. This tragic event occurred
in 1989.
126 people were killed in a stampede at the Ohene Djan
Stadium, Accra, Ghana on May 9, 2001. At least 93 people were killed during a crowd crush at the Kathmandu Stadium on March 12, 1988, in Kathmandu,
Nepal. On August 31, 2005, 953 people died following a stampede on Al-Aaimmah
bridge, which crosses the River Tigris in Baghdad, Iraq. At least 300 football
fans were killed in 1964 at the National Stadium in Lima, Peru.
Even America has had its own taste of stampedes
occasioning high death tolls. In 2003, a stampede in New Jersey’s Station Nightclub
resulted in 96 people dying after attempting to escape from a fire outbreak at
the American night club.
In England, 183 children died in the
Victoria Hall tragedy in Sunderland on June 16, 1883 when a stampede occurred
as thousands of children ran over one another for toys. November 22, 2010
witnessed the Phnom Penh stampede in which 347 people were killed during the
Khmer Water Festival celebrations in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
Mention must also be made of similar stampedes in India,
particularly during Hindu pilgrimages. A stampede on September 30, 2008, at the
Chamunda Devi Temple in Jodhpur, India, claimed over 224 lives. The Sabarimala
stampede occurred on January 14, 2011, on Makara Jyothi Day at Pullumedu near
Sabarimala in Kerala, India. It broke out during an annual pilgrimage, killing
106 Hindu pilgrims.
Another stampede killed 115 Indians on October 13, 2013,
during the festival of Navratri, near the Ratangarh Mata Temple in Datia
district, Madhya Pradesh. The Pratapgarh stampede which killed 63 occurred on
March 4, 2010, at Ram Janki temple of the Kripalu Maharaj Ashram in Kunda,
Uttar Pradesh, India. The Naina Devi Temple stampede in Himachal Pradesh which
occurred on August 3, 2008, killed 160 Hindu devotees. 350 people were killed
in another stampede at a religious fair at Mandher Devi temple near Wai in
Satara district of western Maharashtra on January 25, 2005. (SOURCE:
http://www.mid-day.com/articles/here-are-some-of-the-deadliest-stampedes-in-world-history/16559188)
Back home in Nigeria, at least 28
Christian faithfuls were trampled to death on Saturday, November 3rd
2013, during a stampede at the Holy Ghost Adoration Ground, Uke, Idemili North
Local Government Area of Anambra State (SOURCE:
http://tvcnews.tv/?q=article/nigeria-28-killed-200-wounded-anambra-church-stampede).
Earlier on 19th May, 2013, four churchgoers were
killed in a stampede which broke out in Accra, Ghana, during Pastor TB Joshua's church service on Sphintex Road,
Accra, as worshippers scrambled for "Holy Water " (SOURCE:
http://saharareporters.com/2013/05/19/photonews-churchgoers-killed-during-holy-water-stampede-prophet-tb-joshua%E2%80%99s-church-accra).
Nigerians will not
forget Saturday March 16, 2014 in a hurry as
immigration officials picked that date to recruit new workers. Overcrowded
stadia across the country caused simultaneous stampedes in Niger, Rivers,
Gombe, Oyo, Oshun and Lagos States which resulted in the death of more than 18
applicants. (SOURCE:
http://www.punchng.com/news/18-die-in-immigration-recruitment-exercise/).
DID SATAN PLAY ANY PART IN HAJJ TRAGEDIES?
Some mischief makers
have alleged that the Muna stampede occurred because Shaytan (Satan) decided to
stone pilgrims as they were stoning him. This is false and baseless. The data
provided above proves that the devil played no part in hajj tragedies. It shows
that stampedes cut across nations, races, colours, events and religions. The truth
is that stampedes are sometimes a corollary of failure of crowd control tactics
anywhere in the world, be it a political rally, a sports event or a religious
gathering of Muslims, Christians, Bhudists, etc.
Therefore
those who laughed at Muslims over the tragedy in Muna missed the point. Those
who alleged that Shaytan (Satan the devil) decided to cast stones back at
Muslims have short memories. If they had gone down memory lane they would have
realized that stampedes have occurred in other places before and Bhudists,
Christians, Confucians, Muslims, Americans, Britons, Ghanians, etc have fallen
victims in the past.
It is also clear from
the above statistics that the death toll in stampedes depends largely on the
number of people involved in the event. It is an open secret that hajj
exercises attract the largest gatherings in the world. In the above examples of
stampedes around the world, the death tolls were relatively proportionate to
the size of the crowd attracted to the event.
For instance, 28 died
out of about 100,000 people who were at the Holy Ghost Adoration Ground, Uke, Anambra State in 2013
while 18 died in the immigration stampedes across the country in 2014. The size
of the crowds in each stadium could not have been more than 50,000. 350 Hindu
worshippers also died out of a crowd of 300,000 at the Mandher Devi temple
massacre mentioned above in 2005.
These cannot be compared to the extraordinarily large size
of the mammoth crowds which are always involved in Saudi Arabia. That of 2015
was 2 million. In spite of the Saudi government’s decision to cut the number of
pilgrims (20% from foreign pilgrims and 50% from Saudi citizens who apply for
hajj) the country hosted 24.8 million
pilgrims from all over the world over the past 10 years.
(SOURCE:
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/features/2014/10/19/Saudi-Arabia-hosted-25m-hajj-pilgrims-in-past-10-years.html)
SHOULD MUSLIMS ENTERTAIN FEAR ABOUT HAJJ?
A reporter from the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) called hajj exercise a death trap after
the 2015 tragedy. The question that comes to mind immediately is, “Should Muslims
entertain fear about going on hajj?” This should not be so. True Muslims cannot
and should not be afraid of the religious exercise because it is ordained by
Allah and it is the fifth and last pillar of Islam.
Why
should Muslims stop going for hajj because of the stampede when ordinary
football fans have not stopped going to the stadium after so many stampedes in
different stadia around the world? Christians have not
stopped attending crusades in spite of the deaths of many of them in religious
stampedes. Neither have Bhudists called off their annual religious festivals
despite losing thousands in past stampedes.
There
also those who say, “Those pilgrims would not have died if they had remained in
Nigeria”. We should remember
that Islam has a fatalistic philosophy about life and death. The Glorious
Qur’an assures Muslims that even if some people decide to stay at home for fear
of death, they will still die if they were destined to die around that time.
“Say, even if you had remained in your homes, those for whom death was decreed
would certainly have gone to meet their death” (Qur’an 3:154).
Again it says,
“Wherever you may be, death will find you out, even if you are in towers built
up strong and high” (Qur’an 4:78) and “Say, ‘that death from which you run will
truly overtake you. Then you will be sent back to the Knower of things secret
and open, and He will tell you the things that you did’” (Qur’an 62:8).
With
verses such as those above, Muslims are strengthened to face the challenges in
their religion. Islamic history is
also replete with lessons on the inevitability of death. In one of such
stories, a rich man who was afraid of dying but who was destined to die still
died on the appointed day even though he ran from Mesopotamia to India.
According to this
story, Allah invited the angel of death (Israaiil) and asked him who about his
next victim. Israaiil told Allah that it was the turn of a rich man who was in
the palace of Prophet Sulaiman (peace be upon him) at that moment. Allah
commanded the angel to proceed to India in order to kill the rich man.
The angel was
surprised. He told Allah that the man was not in India but in Mesopotamia and
going to look for him in India would be an exercise in futility. But Allah
warned the angel to obey the divine command by going to India to kill him. He
further instructed the angel that he should not kill the rich man anywhere else
even if he sees him there.
The angel of death
took off but out of curiousity, he decided to check the man in Prophet
Sulayman’s palace, just to be sure. He transformed himself into a human being
and entered the palace. He found the rich man among other guests in front of
Prophet Sulayman.
Is this the same
person or the wrong man? He therefore focused his attention on him. He became
certain that he was the right person but there was nothing he could do since
Allah had instructed him not to touch his victim even if he saw him in other
places. Frustrated, the angel left the palace and flew straight to India.
Incidentally the rich
man had started fidgeting as soon as he saw the strange man in the palace, more
so because the man kept looking at him all the time. As soon as the strange man
left, the rich man begged Prophet Sulayman to save him from imminent danger.
“What are you afraid of?” Sulayman asked.
“Did you see the
dangerous man who left the palace just now? He must have been sent by my
enemies. They want to kill me. Let one of your jinns take me far away from
here”, the rich man answered, shivering.
“Where will you feel
safe so the jinn can take you there?” Prophet Sulayman asked again and the rich
man replied, “India!”
A jinn was immediately
commanded to take the rich man to India and he landed there within five
minutes. You can guess what happened next!
Nobody can run away
from his destiny. Nobody can decide by himself where he would be born, who his
or her parents will be, when and where he will die. Allah determines all these.
This is the meaning of Qadar in Islam.
Though the concept of
Qadar should not be misunderstood as the need to sit down idly expecting manna
from heaven. A Muslim must strive in this world and leave the rest to Allah.
Avoiding hajj cannot prolong anybody’s life. Afterall some healthy people still
died natural deaths or from accidents at home in Nigeria while pilgrims were on
hajj.
THE SAUDI ANGLE:
Even the government of
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not want pilgrims to die in their land. This
is why Saudi has taken giant strides in the past years to improve
its infrastructure. Spaces are always being expanded particularly at
the Haram. New hotels and better roads are constructed on an annual basis.
Tunnels are dug at random to make way for roads.
Electricity supply is
at its optimal performance. Saudi’s light does not blink for a second. Saudi
authorities are committed to the provision of comfort for pilgrims. To further
ensure the comfort of visitors to the kingdom, Saudi authorities have promised
that bullet trains will transport pilgrims from Makkah to Madinah as from 2016
hajj.
Some
people have alleged that the stampede occurred because a Saudi prince was
casting stones at the devil. This is false,
baseless and malicious. The video click provided is fake. The Jamrah
has an helicopter pad on its rooftops and dignitaries do not need to come by
road. There is also an underground basement where dignitaries cast their
stones. That video clip was not recorded during hajj. It is an attempt to smear
Saudi’s reputation.
Concerning the
allegation of discrimination against black pilgrims, I think we need to put our
house in order. Black vicinities in Muna camp are the dirtiest because our
people ignore sanitation rules. Our houses in Makkah and Madinah are another
example. We take our dirty habits to Saudi and those people have understood us.
We are the ones who need to change. Thousands of blacks also enter Saudi
illegally. Their quarters are the dirtiest in Makkah and Madinah. Do we blame
Saudi for that too?
THE WAY FORWARD:
1.
Saudi Arabia should
involve affected countries in the investigation of the 2015 hajj stampede.
2.
Saudi Arabia should
invite Islamic scholars and Muslim leaders around the world to an international
conference to discuss issues pertaining to hajj.
3.
In view of the fact
that stampedes are common only at the jamaraat, Islamic scholars should boldly
pontificate on the stoning exercise during hajj to determine whether or not
there is need for a radical and pragmatic review of the exercise.
4.
Saudi hajj authorities
should employ enough interpreters and translators in the major world languages
(Hausa, Swahili, English, French and Chinese to assist pilgrims during the hajj
season.
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This tract was prepared by Telly Dawah
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