The Violent History of the Hajj
January 12, 2006, 12:09 pm |
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What could possibly explain the violence that seems to occur almost yearly at the Muslim Hajj in Mecca? Thousands of Christians gather every year at the Vatican and there is no violence. One has to wonder how a ritual stoning can still be an integral part of Islam’s most holy event in the 21st century. The Muslim community has tough questions that it can only address itself. Today, the BBC reported:
More than 100 Muslim pilgrims have been killed in a crush in the stone-throwing ritual during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, officials say.
A BBC correspondent at the scene in Mina saw dozens of bodies lined up on the ground. Doctors warned that the death toll could reach 300.
Last week, a hotel hosting Muslim pilgrims in Mecca collapsed. 23 people died and 60 were injured.
According to the AP:
The hajj has suffered numerous tragedies in recent years. The worst occurred in 1990 when 1,426 pilgrims were killed in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.
In 2004, on the final day of the ceremonies, 251 people were trampled to death when the crowd panicked during the ritual stoning of the devil. Three years earlier, 35 hajj pilgrims were killed during a stampede at the same ceremony.
In 1998, about 180 pilgrims were trampled to death in the panic after several of them fell off an overpass during the ritual. Four years earlier, in 1994, some 270 pilgrims were killed in a stampede during the stoning ritual.
During an anti-U.S. demonstration staged by Iranians in 1987, some 402 people, mostly pilgrims from Iran, were killed and 649 were wounded in the crash of a Pakistani jetliner carrying hajj pilgrims Jiddah to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
As one of netWMD’s contributors put it in 2003:
A Muslim asked for an association conjured by the phrase “throwing stones” will think not of David and Goliath, but of the rituals of the haj, which require the pilgrim to throw stones on each of three successive days at first the small, then the middle and, finally, at the grand pillar erected upon the spot where the Devil stood and tried to persuade Abraham not to obey God. In Islam, the flung stone is not the weapon of the weak against the mighty; it is the weapon of the righteous in the fight against evil.
Too much righteousness; too little humility.
To paraphrase another great religion, Hinduism, “you create your own reality.” The Hindu concept of karma seems also to apply to the current state of Islam — negative karma, that is. Homicide bombings, beheadings, slavery, and ethnic cleansing are all now endemic in Muslim regions of the world. It is time for Muslims to take a hard look at the direction in which their religion is heading.
Addendum: Today’s Hajj death-toll is now estimated to be “at least 345.” This carnage is repeated almost every year in Mecca. Nothing like this ever happens when hundreds of thousands gather at the Vatican for Christmas or Easter. Neither does it happen in Israel during the high holy days. Yet Jews and Christians are continually the target of Islamist vitriol and violence. Instead of getting their own house in order, Muslims are practicing what Freud called “projection” — to the extreme.
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Related: Islam
January 12th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
When Andrew Jaffee says, “it is time for Muslims to take a hard look at the direction in which their religion is heading”, just which Muslims are you speaking of?
The Haj to Mecca draws tens of thousands of the faithful each year.
Apart from symbolically throwing stones at the devil, this Islamic multitude listen to Imams preaching about the joys and superiority of Islam and explaining Islam’s fall from grace and power because of Western perfidy, most of which has been at the hands of the Jews and Americans, though some room is made to include all infidels as having had a hand in humiliating Islam.
In the result, much of the Imams’ religious teachings and preachings to the faithful gathered at the Haj are laced with the most virulent and vile anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric which serve to stoke the fires of their religious fervor.
There are countless examples over many years of Islamic religious leaders preaching their gospel of hate and calling for the deaths of other non-Muslims, whether that preaching is done during the Haj or just regular services in Mosques in Muslim countries or if you are a Westerner, in a Mosque near you.
This is not at all the kind of message Rabbis, priests and ministers preach to their congregants.
With that, it is hard to wrap one’s mind around those Western leaders who insist on describing Islam as a religion of peace, harmony and goodwill.
The Haj is covered by the media and much of what is seen and heard by those making the Haj to Mecca reaches the eyes and ears of countless more Muslims.
Radical Islam incorporates many of the themes of Muslim victimization at the hands of the evil infidels and consequential Muslim humiliation and hatred for the West, America, Israel and Jews.
The Saudis, amongst others zealously follow Wahabbism, a radical version of Islam. The Saudis have for a great many years been carrying out a successful campaign of spreading and indoctrinating a great many more Muslims, be they in Islamic states or Western Muslim communities in the ideology of radical Islam.
The tired phrase “moderate Islam” coined by some pundit searching for some pat phrase to describe non radical Islam, is as devoid of meaning now as it was when it was first introduced.
Does Moderate Islam mean all Muslims but for the front line of radical Islam that is prepared to wage war against non-Muslims and get its hands bloody? Does it also include supporters and financiers of radical Islam?
Is the phrase, “moderate Islam” meant only to include those Muslims who seek to practice their religion in peace and show tolerance and respect for non Muslims? If so, why was the phrase “peaceful Islam” not chosen?
To be sure there are many Muslims who eschew Islamic radicalism and who would prefer to practice their faith in peace and who wish to engage with the west in mutual respect and tolerance. Unfortunately we hardly hear from them and when we do, their voices are barely a whisper against the din of radical Islam.
Western leaders continue to repeat ad nauseum that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving followers of Islam while the radical Islamists are relatively few who have high jacked Islam? Really??
These wishful thinking bromides sound great, but all the evidence points to radical Islamic ideology directing a very great many Muslims and to some extent at least, influencing and shaping the thinking of a very great many more Muslims.
It is not for Western leaders and pundits to disingenuously or wishfully declare the virtues of Islam.
It is incumbent upon those Muslims who truly are seeking to practice their religion in peace and to interact with the West with mutual respect and tolerance to prove to the West that Islam is the religion of peace, harmony and good will that Western leaders keep saying it is.
That proof will only come when such Muslims stand up themselves to reject and denounce radical Islam and gain a vast following that march against and render radical Islam irrelevant and powerless.
It seems from what has been observed over the last 50 years or so, radical Islam has gained a lot of steam and Islam is exactly where a great many Muslims want it to be and is going in the direction that a great many Muslims pray for.
So just which Muslims is Andrew Jaffee speaking of?
Cross posted - Israpundit
January 12th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
i agree to a certain extent about negative karma, but you are comparing the worst of one culture to the best of ours (I’m in Canada for example)
why dont we look at the worst of ours & worst of others? what about the war in Iraq? killing of children in the middle east? highest rates of rape in Canada/US?
why dont we look at the best of others as well?
if we compare the best of both & the worst of both, i see it to be about even.
unfortunately, the media generally points at the worst of others, not the best.
January 12th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
i forgot to add- most imams I have spoken with preach peace. Hmm, actually, all but 2 or 3 (out of 100s) i have met preach peace, unlike whats stated above.
we can also compare our state to many christians’ views in the US. why isnt their preaching getting the spotlight? Mind you, just like in Islam, most Christians are peaceful.
its a matter of perspective. to narrow down a religion of 1billion+ into a myopic view doesnt do justice.
January 12th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Bill Narvey implies I’m not critical enough of Muslims while Murtada Shah says I’m being too critical. Can’t please all the people all of the time, nor do I wish to.
To Mr. Narvey, I am talking about all Muslims, because only as a unified whole can they deal with the radical ideology that now controls their religion. Outside forces can help to some extent, but the tough choices — e.g., moving towards moderation — must be made by Islam itself. If Mr. Narvey would simply browse this site’s articles, he’ll see I’m no softy on Islamist terror.
To Mr. Shah, comparing Islam’s endemic violence to the current state of Christianity and Judaism is ridiculous. That vast majority of terrorists are now Muslims. And most of the victims are other Muslims. Iraq’s Islamist terrorists have killed at least 30,000 Muslims, mostly Shiite. Sudan’s Islamist Janjaweed have killed 50,000 Black Africans. I could continue to list the atrocities. Buddhists, Christians, and Jews aren’t doing anything similar.
January 12th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
To Publisher- I presume Andrew Jaffee
Any implication in my comment that you were soft on radical Islam or that your are not critical enough of radical Islam, was not intended at all.
The intent of my question posed at the close of my comment was not meant to go beyond the words used.
You have answered my question. I do take issue with your answer only to the extent that I do not see much chance of those Muslims who follow or are influenced by radical Islam will ever be capable of introspection, for the answers radical Islam provides are accepted as full and complete and there is no need to look further.
In essence, I agree with your overall comment.
Based on what I know, however I can only see movement in Islam towards a religion of peace and harmony if those Muslims who truly believe that is what Islam is to them and must be for all Muslims, stand together to push radical Islam away and into oblivion.
Failing that radical Islam will continue to threaten and gravely endanger the West and America and Israel in particular.
As to Murtada Shaw’s comment that seeks to draw a moral equivilence between Western Judeo-Christian society and religion and Islamic religion and societies when he says “if we compare the best of both & the worst of both, i see it to be about even.”
There is nothing even about it.
You do not see tens of thousands of Westerners, Americans or Jews filling the streets calling for the death of Muslims and Islam.
If Murtada searches long and hard enough, he probably will find a few examples, but no more of Westerners, Americans or Jews calling for the death of Muslims only because they are Muslim which is of course unadulterated racism.
One however does not have to look long and hard at all to find Muslims who engage in racism against Jews, Israelis, Americans, Christians or other non-Muslims.
It seems to have escaped Murtada’s attention that virtually all terrorism committed in the world today is Muslim terrorism. He ignores that of course while trying to stress what nobody has denied and that is that not all Muslims are terrorists.
Murtada, like so many other apologists for radical Islam seek to deflect attention away from the problems with Islam instead of admitting and confronting those problems directly.
Perhaps Murtada is embarassed that Islam is so problem riddled when it comes to its angry strident anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism which finds support in radical Islam but by Western values amounts to nothing more than vile racism.
Murtada and other like him who want Islam to discard its racist ideologies would do well to consider not wasting time on explanations, justifications and drawing moral equivilences between the West and Islam where they simply do not exist and instead stand with the non-Muslims who suffer the Islamic racist scourge and join the fight to rid the world of radical Islam so that there remains only peaceful Islam that is compatible with the West and engages in mutually respectful and tolerant relationships.
January 12th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Bill:
We’re on the same page. Your commentary is welcome. I’m looking for new authors. Please contact me by clicking on the “Contact” link at the top of this page.
- Drew
January 17th, 2006 at 10:00 am
[…] I regularly watch the NBC nightly news at 6:30 PM daily. When at least 345 Muslims were trampled to death by other Muslims at the Hajj, NBC briefly mentioned the event — it was the fifth story, not the headline, a footnote, if you will. The anchor, Brian Williams, looked a bit guilty while he swept another Muslim atrocity under the rug. Yet a U.S. airstrike aimed at killing al-Qaeda’s #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was the top headline on NBC last week. […]
June 17th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
[…] Let’s not forget the annual violence at Mecca: three-hundred trampled to death in last year’s Hajj; 1,426 killed in the 1990 Hajj; 251 in 2004; etc. There are moderate Muslim voices, but they are few and far between, and live under constant fear of reprisals from the dominant radicals. […]