Islamic Insanity > >900 hajj pilgrims dead from heat in Mecca - Allahu Akbar?

 

Relatives search for missing in Saudi Arabia as hajj death toll tops 900

Friends and family searched for missing hajj pilgrims on Wednesday as the death toll at the annual rituals, which were carried out in scorching heat, surged past 900.

Issued on: 19/06/2024 - 17:36

3 min

By:NEWS WIRES

Relatives scoured hospitals and pleaded online for news, fearing the worst after temperatures hit 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, on Monday.

About 1.8 million people from all over the world, many old and infirm, took part in the days-long, mostly outdoor pilgrimage, held this year during the oven-like Saudi summer.

An Arab diplomat told AFP that deaths among Egyptians alone had jumped to "at least 600", from more than 300 a day earlier, mostly from the unforgiving heat. 

That figure brought the total reported dead so far to 922, according to an AFP tally of figures released by various countries.

Mabrouka bint Salem Shushana of Tunisia, in her early 70s, has been missing since the climax of the pilgrimage on Saturday at Mount Arafat, her husband Mohammed told AFP on Wednesday.

Because she was unregistered and did not have an official hajj permit, she was unable to access air-conditioned facilities that allow pilgrims to cool down, he said.

"She's an old lady. She was tired. She was feeling so hot, and she had no place to sleep," he said. "I looked for her in all the hospitals. Until now I don't have a clue."

Facebook and other social media networks have been flooded with pictures of the missing and requests for information.

Those searching for news include family and friends of Ghada Mahmoud Ahmed Dawood, an Egyptian pilgrim unaccounted for since Saturday.

"I received a call from her daughter in Egypt begging me to put any post on Facebook that can help track her or find her," said one family friend based in Saudi Arabia, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to anger Saudi authorities.

"The good news is that until now we did not find her on the list of the dead people, which gives us hope she is still alive."

Searing heat

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and all Muslims with the means must complete it at least once.

Its timing is determined by the Islamic lunar calendar, shifting forward each year in the Gregorian calendar. For the past several years the mainly outdoor rituals have fallen during the sweltering Saudi summer.

According to a Saudi study published last month, temperatures in the area are rising 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) each decade.

In addition to Egypt, fatalities have also been confirmed by Jordan, Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, though in many cases authorities have not specified the cause.

A second Arab diplomat told AFP on Wednesday that Jordanian officials were looking for 20 missing pilgrims, though 80 others who were initially reported missing were located in hospitals.

An Asian diplomat told AFP there were "around 68 dead" from India and that others were missing.

"Some (died) because of natural causes and we had many old-age pilgrims. And some are due to the weather conditions, that's what we assume," he said.

Saudi Arabia has not provided information on fatalities, though it reported more than 2,700 cases of "heat exhaustion" on Sunday alone.

Last year more than 200 pilgrims were reported dead, most of them from Indonesia.

'No news'

Each year tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the hajj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly official permits.

This has become easier since 2019 when Saudi Arabia introduced a general tourism visa, said Umer Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham.

"Before, the only people who could have done that were residents of the kingdom, and they know the situation," he said. "For these tourist visa guys, it's like being on the migrant route without any idea of what to expect."

One of the Arab diplomats who spoke to AFP on Wednesday said many of the dead Egyptians were unregistered. 

Even pilgrims who have official permits can be vulnerable, including Houria Ahmad Abdallah Sharif, a 70-year-old Egyptian pilgrim who has been missing since Saturday.

After praying on Mount Arafat, she told a friend she wanted to go to a public bathroom to clean her abaya, but she never came back.

"We've searched for her from door to door and we have not found her until now," said the friend, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We know many who are still searching for their family members and relatives and they are not finding them, or if they are finding them they are finding them dead," the friend added.

(AFP)

*Good religious ritual. Allah must be proud!

Saudi Arabia Will ‘Return to Moderate, Open Islam’ – Crown Prince

This is an astonishing statement from the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia! Islam very rarely becomes less radical in countries where they are the majority and in the Kingdom, Muslims make up 100% of the population. It is usually the reverse and, consequently, the Crown Prince's life is in some danger as hard-line Muslims will not agree with a less strict Islam.

The Prince also gives us a reason for the proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. He believes that Iran wants Mecca, and, it would appear, they are trying to surround Saudi Arabia with their proxy wars and growing influence in the smaller Gulf States. The Prince's plan to soften Islam may be playing right into Iran's hands.

Aerial view of Kaaba at the Grand mosque in Mecca © Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman has vowed to restore “moderate” Islam that is open to all religions in the world. Saudi Arabia is known for its ultraconservative rule.

“We are returning to what we were before – a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world,” he said at an economic forum in Riyadh, as quoted by AFP. “We will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today,” he added. “We will end extremism very soon.”

Riyadh is known for its adherence to ultra-conservative norms of Islam and strict segregation of men and women. It has long been the only state where women are officially forbidden to drive.

Earlier this year, the crown prince accused Tehran of promoting an “extremist ideology” and having ambitions to “control the Islamic world.” Asked if there is any room for dialogue with Iran, the 31-year-old prince replied: “How can I come to an understanding with someone, or a regime, that has an anchoring belief built on an extremist ideology?”

He said that the primary objective of the “Iranian regime is to reach the focal point of Muslims [Mecca] and we will not wait until the fight is inside Saudi Arabia and we will work so that the battle is on their side, inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.”

The Saudi government enforces a strict, conservative version of Sunni Islam. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is ruled by a Sunni monarchy known as the House of Saud, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is overwhelmingly Shia. The divisions between the Sunnis and the Shia are based on a long-running religious conflict that started as a dispute over the Prophet Mohammed’s successor. While Shia Muslims believe the prophet’s cousin should have filled the role, Sunnis support the selection of Muhammad’s close friend and adviser, Abu Bakr, as the first caliph of the Islamic nation.

Diplomatic ties between the two countries were severed in 2016 after Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, following the execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister responded by accusing Iran of setting up “terrorist cells” inside the kingdom. Iran then issued a warning that “divine vengeance” would come to Saudi Arabia as a punishment for Nimr’s execution as well as for Riyadh’s bombing in Yemen and support for the Bahraini government. In February of this year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, while on a visit to Saudi ally Kuwait, said that Tehran would like to restore relations and improve ties with all its Gulf Arab neighbors.

Saudi Grand Mufti: Iranian Leaders not Muslim

By REUTERS

Saudi Grand Mufti Al-Sheikh's remarks, made to a Mecca newspaper which carried them on Tuesday, drew a swift retort from Iran's Foreign Minister.


Pilgrims at Haj ceremony in Mecca. (photo credit:REUTERS)

 DUBAI - Saudi Arabia's top religious authority said Iran's leaders were not Muslims, drawing a rebuke from Tehran in an unusually harsh exchange between the regional rivals over the running of the annual haj pilgrimage.

The war of words on the eve of the mass pilgrimage will deepen a long-running rift between the Sunni kingdom and the Shi'ite revolutionary power. They back opposing sides in Syria's civil war and a list of other conflicts across the Middle East.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message published on Monday, criticized Saudi Arabia over how it runs the haj after a crush last year killed hundreds of pilgrims. He said Saudi authorities had "murdered" some of them, describing Saudi rulers as godless and irreligious.

Responding to a question by Saudi newspaper Makkah, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said he was not surprised at Khamenei's comments.

"We have to understand that they are not Muslims ... Their main enemies are the followers of Sunnah (Sunnis)," Al al-Sheikh was quoted as saying, remarks republished by the Arab News.

He described Iranian leaders as sons of "magus", a reference to Zoroastrianism, the dominant belief in Persia until the Muslim Arab invasion of the region that is now Iran 13 centuries ago.

"BIGOTRY"

Al al-Sheikh's remarks drew an acerbic retort from Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who said they were evidence of bigotry among Saudi leaders.

"Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians & most Muslims & bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters preach," Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.

Saudi authorities normally seek to avoid public discussion of whether Shi'ites are Muslims, but implicitly recognize them as such by welcoming them to the haj, and by accepting Iranian visits to the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Tensions between the two countries have been rising since Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, itself a response to the Saudi execution of dissident Shi'ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Custodian of Islam's most revered places in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on organizing haj, one of the five pillars of Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake at least once.

Riyadh said 769 pilgrims were killed in the 2015 disaster, the highest haj death toll since a crush in 1990. Counts of fatalities by countries who repatriated bodies showed that more than 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians.

Iran blamed the 2015 disaster on organizers' incompetence. Pilgrims from Iran will be unable to attend haj, which officially starts on Sept. 11, this year after talks between the two countries on arrangements broke down in May.

The split between Islam's main sects dates to a dispute among Muslims over who would rule their community after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, and Shi'ites still regard his descendants as a line of imams blessed with divine guidance.

Today such disagreements over history remain emotive points of tension between the sects, but they are also divided over day -to-day issues including differing interpretations of Islamic law and the role and organization of the clergy.

In the Wahhabi teaching of Sunni Islam followed by the Saudi clergy and government, Shi'ite doctrine about imams is seen as incompatible with the concept of a monotheistic God.

Islam, The Religion of Peace

The History of Islamist Terrorism –

Background to the Terrorist Attack on

Prophet Muhammad’s Mosque in Medina

“The moral of the story is that no matter how often Muslims refuse to acknowledge our history, it will not hide the mess we have created that we now refuse to cleanse. Let us own up to it and stop blaming others for it.”


Black Kaaba, Mecca, where Muhammed preached

Tarek Fatah, The Toronto Sun

Monday’s suicide bombing outside the tomb of Prophet Muhammad in Medina, Saudi Arabia, sent shock waves throughout the Islamic world.

The fact a Muslim carried out this act of terror during the holy month of Ramadan has left many followers of the Islamic faith in disbelief.

Too many Muslims have fallen for the common refrain, trumpeted by Islamists, that no Muslim could carry out such an act and hence neither Islam nor Muslims can be held accountable for it in any way.

These arguments have been used every time Islamist terrorists engage in mass killings, from 9/11 in New York to the massacre in Dhaka, Bangladesh, last week.

But the facts tell us a different story regarding the turbulent history of Islam and the roles played by Muslims within it.

Academics and scholars are reluctant to discuss these historical facts for fear of being accused of bigotry and racism.

Thus ordinary Muslims, to say nothing of non-Muslims, do not commonly know them.

The result is a Muslim community unaware of its own often bloody history, going back centuries, when both our holy cities — Mecca and Medina — were attacked, ransacked and destroyed, not by the “kufaar” (non-Muslims), but by Muslim leaders.

They fought for power, using Islam as a tool to enhance or entrench their political hold on the states they created.

Fanatical, politically motivated and radicalized Muslims have never hesitated to desecrate Islam’s holy sites.

As early as October, 683 AD, the Umayyad caliph of Damascus invaded Mecca, then under the control of a rival caliph, and bombarded the ancient shrine of Black Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam.

The Kaaba, where Muhammad preached, was destroyed in the fighting. A new one was constructed.

Skipping over the centuries, we have the 1805 invasion of the Prophet’s city, Medina, by the first Saudi state.

Imbibed with a fierce zealotry, the Wahhabi warriors of Muhammad Ibn Saud overran Medina and started to destroy Islamic shrines. They even tried to destroy the magnificent dome structure over the tomb of Prophet Muhammad, removed all precious objects from his gravesite and looted the treasury of the mosque itself.

After occupying Medina these Muslims, who came from the neighbouring region of Nejd, systematically leveled the “Jannat al-Baqi” cemetery, the vast burial site adjacent to the Prophet’s mosque that housed the remains of many of the members of Muhammad’s family, close companions and central figures of early Islam, including his beloved daughter, Fatima.

These acts of sacrilege were re-enacted by a new generation of Wahabbi zealots led by Abdel-Aziz Ibn Saud during the second Saudi state, a century later.

On April 21, 1925 the rebuilt tombs and domes in Medina were once again bulldozed.

Had it not been for intervention and diplomacy by then Prince Faisal (later King), who was in command of the regular Saudi army, the Wahabbis would have destroyed Prophet Muhammad’s tomb as well.

As recently as November, 1979, radicalized Muslims from around the world, including the U.S., Pakistan and Egypt, led by Saudi fanatic Juhayman al-Otaybi, took over the Holy Kaaba and killed many people during a two-week siege.

The moral of the story is that no matter how often Muslims refuse to acknowledge our history, it will not hide the mess we have created that we now refuse to cleanse.

Let us own up to it and stop blaming others for it.

Egyptian Muslim Scholar: No connection Between Temple Mount and Islam

Arab world outraged at latest research of renowned scholar of Arabic and Islamic studies Youssef Ziedan.

By Hillel Fendel

View of Temple Mount Miriam Alster/ Flash 90

Renowned Egyptian scholar Youssef Ziedan, a specialist in Arabic and Islamic studies, has given a series of interviews to Egyptian television stations of late, the purpose of which appears to be to anger his Muslim colleagues. 

His main point has been to say that there is actually no connection between Jerusalem and ancient Islam. When Islam was founded during the 7th century, he says, Jerusalem was a holy city to the Jews, while the Mosque of Omar was not even built until 74 years after Muhammed's death. The reason it was built, Ziedan says, is because the builder wished to detract from the centrality of Mecca in Islam.

Prof. Ziedan is the director of the Manuscript Center and Museum in the Library of Alexandria. He is a public lecturer, university professor, columnist and prolific author of more than 50 books. He won the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his work Azazeel, which was also translated into Hebrew. 

Jerusalem was not known as Al-Quds (City of the Sanctuary) during Muhammad's times, Ziedan says.

"Al-Aksa is not ours," he emphasizes, "and though the word comes from the word 'extreme,' it does not refer to the far mosque on the Temple Mount, but rather to a mosque that is the "further" of two mosques in Mecca.

According to Ziedan, Muslims are purposely and falsely turning a political struggle between Israel and the Arabs into a religious one. "The religious aspect of the conflict is nonsense… The only reason why Muslims insist on the sanctity of Jerusalem is simply politics."

Sheikh Hashem Abdul Rahman Mahajeina, of the Islamic Movement in Israel, is among many to attack Prof. Ziedan. While others call Ziedan a "heretic," Mahajeina told Army Radio on Sunday simply that Ziedan was "talking nonsense…. Allah told the prophets to build a mosque in Jerusalem. It was built during Muhammed's times, and he even prayed there." He then retracted somewhat: "It's not a matter of a building, but rather the location. It could be that other nations built [the mosque], it could be it was destroyed in an earthquake… What counts is the location."

Just last week, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that it had unearthed further evidence of Jewish history in Jerusalem, from centuries before the founding of Islam. An impression of the royal seal of the Biblical King Hezekiah, who reigned between 727–698 BCE, was discovered at the foot of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. 

In a related study, the late Rabbi Shlomo Goren, a Temple Mount expert and Chief Rabbi of the IDF and later of Israel, wrote that Omar built the Dome of the Rock sanctuary to serve as a house of prayer – not for the Moslems, but for the Jews.

Prof. Ziedan's claims support knowledge long held by Jewish historians. Muslims have historically attached themselves to Jerusalem only when political expedient, beginning with Mohammed himself. In a barefaced attempt to win over the Jews living near him, the founder of Islam decided to announce that prayers would be directed towards Jerusalem – but when the Jews scorned his advances, he slaughtered many of them, and proceeded to direct his followers' prayers towards Mecca instead.

Not only did Mohammed never mention the city in the Koran, but later, when Moslems conquered the Holy Land, they totally ignored Jerusalem and established their capital in Ramle.

Today, once again, it is often overlooked that as recently as 1964, the original PLO charter did not even mention Jerusalem.

1300 Years of Arabs Welcoming Jews to Holy Land

638 C.E. – Muslim Caliph Omar liberates Jerusalem from the Byzantine Christians and welcomes Jews back to the Holy City

Muslim Caliph Omar, who liberated Jerusalem from the Byzantine Christians in 638 C.E., six years after the death of Muhammad in 632 C.E., revoked Hadrian’s 500 year-old ban on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, which the Byzantines had kept in force. Omar welcomed the Jews back to Jerusalem. The returning Jews built the Bet HaMenorot (House of Menorahs) synagogue (named for the menorahs drawn on its walls), excavated in 1998 by Professor Naveh Mazar of the Hebrew University.

Salah-e-Din

1187 C.E. – Muslim Sultan Salah-e-Din liberates Jerusalem from the European Catholic Crusaders and welcomes Jews back to the Holy City

Muslim Sultan Salah-e-Din, the great Kurdish leader, liberated Jerusalem from the European Catholic Crusaders in 1187 C.E. He suggested to Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides, who was Salah-e-Din’s doctor) that Maimonides urge Jews to return and resettle Jerusalem (as recorded by another Jewish scholar of those times, Rabbi Yehuda al-Harizi). The famous Ramban (Nachmanides) Synagogue in Jerusalem’s Old City was built by the returning Jews several decades later during the period of Mameluk Muslim rule. The synagogue bears witness to this return.

18th Century – Muslim Sheikh Dahr-el-Omar invites Jews to resettle the Galilee

Muslim Sheikh Dahr-el-Omar, who took control of Galilee from the Turks in the 18th century, told leading rabbis in Constantinople and Morocco that the period of Jewish exile was over and that Jews should return to the Land of Israel to rebuild it. From that time on, the movement for Jewish return to the Land of Israel gained momentum.

20th Century – Feisal-Frankfurter Correspondence (March 1919)


On March 23, 1918, Al Qibla, the daily newspaper of Mecca, printed the following words in support of the Balfour Declaration of 1917:

“The resources of the country [Palestine] are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants (…) we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons [abna’ihi-l-asliyin], for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles [jaliya] to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and all things connected to the land.”