Hajj

The Hajj (حج) is a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. It is an obligatory duty (fard الفرض), and constitutes one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The pilgrimage takes place on the 12^th month of the Islamic calendar, from the 7^th to the 13^th day of Dhu al-Hijjah.

The main rituals include walking seven times around the Ka'aba, touching the Black Stone, traveling seven times between Mount Safa and Mount Marwah, and symbolically stoning the Devil in Mina. The Hajj, along with the Ka'aba, the black stone, and many other aspects of Islam, are pagan in origin.

Incidents and Accidents

The Ka'aba is believed to be the "House of Allah" and the Qur'an tells us it's an "asylum of security for men", so it would seem reasonable for Allah to protect or prevent any catastrophes from occurring in his house during the Hajj. However, this is not the case.

Since 1987, officially there has been at least 3,315 deaths and another 1,500 injuries resulting from various accidents during the pilgrimage. These figures are extremely conservative, considering (for example) the 1994 stampede in Mecca. Officially only 250 people had died as a result of the stampede, and according to The Saudi Press Agency a total of 829 pilgrims had died during the pilgrimage for a variety of reasons, which included "old age, heart attacks" and "deaths that resulted because of the heavy throngs throwing pebbles on Monday." However witnesses, doctors and a senior Asian diplomat had said the death toll for the stampede alone could have been over 1,000.

Death Toll	Event	Year
200	Fire in a Tent Colony	1975
382	Grand Mosque seizure	1979
402	Mecca Massacre	1987
1,426	Stampede inside Al-Ma'asim Tunnel (most deadly stampede in history)	1990
250	Stampede at the Stoning of the Devil Ritual	1994
343	Tent Fire in Mina	1997
118	Incident on Jamarat Bridge	1998
35	Stampede at the Stoning of the Devil ritual	2001
14	Stampede at the Hajj	2003
251	Stampede during the Stoning ritual in Mina	2004
346	Stampede during the ritual Al-Jamarat on the last day of the Hajj	2006
76	Al Ghaza Hotel Collapse	2006
77	Saudi floods	2009
5	Swine Flu deaths at Hajj	2009

Other Muslim pilgrimage incidents

• 2005: Iraq pilgrims stampede deaths near 1,000 (3^rd most deadly stampede in history)

Health and Hygiene

One of the first hajj preperations for Muslim pilgrims include a vaccine against disease. The number of foreign pilgrims regularly number in the millions and the sheer number of people, as well as their close proximity to each other in crowded sites can spread quickly between the pilgrims. In 1987 an international outbreak of meningitis became a primary concern. Due to post-Hajj outbreaks globally of certain types of meningitis in previous years, it is now a visa requirement to be immunised with the ACW135Y vaccine before arrival. Other vaccines are also commonly issued with pilgrims often injected with several serums. If an outbreak were to occur on the road to Mecca, pilgrims could exacerbate the problem when they returned home and passed their infection on to others.

Performing the Hajj is also a physically exerting exercise, and many of the weaker pilgrims have died from it. In 2011, twenty pregnant women suffered from miscarriages on the first day of the rituals because of exhaustion. Dr Walid Al Omari, director of the obstetrics and paediatrics hospital in Mecca said, "The miscarriages were caused mainly by fatigue as those women had to walk a long distance… another reason is they are surrounded by a large crowd and this makes them vulnerable to pushing and physical injury".

See Also

• Paganism - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Islam and Paganism
• Accidents and Natural Disasters in the Muslim World

External links

• Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca - For further information on the Hajj
• Controversy in Egypt - Hajj and the kissing of the black stone are remnants of paganism
• Muslim Hajjis Cry ‘Death to America! and ‘Death to Israel!’ at Annual Pilgrimage