MINA, 23 January 2005 — It seems rather obvious that what you need to stone the devil are pebbles, but some pilgrims persist in lugging heavy luggage to Jamrat, and that puts officials — and other pilgrims — between a rock and a hard place.
The biggest hurdle in the smooth flow of pilgrims toward Jamrat is nothing but pilgrims who carry baggage with them.
Despite repeated pleas to pilgrims by Haj officials, hundreds and thousands of them carried luggage with them when they left for stoning the Jamrat. Security officials tried to halt the baggage before it reaches the Jamrat Bridge, but that’s easier said than done.
“It is just not possible to relieve pilgrims of their belongings and tell them to collect it while coming back after the stoning,” said one security official. “Moreover, where would you keep them safely?”
So officials offer advice.
“We try to persuade pilgrims to go to Jamrat without bags or any other things in hand except pebbles, but most of them never heed our request and go ahead,” said Khaled Al-Zahrani. “We can’t stop them all at once.”
Such pilgrims are a common sight in the valley of Mina. They carry everything from bags to a trolley — even folding chairs, umbrellas and small folding tents. Their presence reduces the speed of the pilgrims moving toward the Jamrat Bridge. Sometimes, they even hurt others, banging into them with their belongings. But they look unconcerned.
“A set of safety comprehensive rules of crowd behavior ought to be adopted, enforced and explained to the pilgrims in advance,” said Abid, an African-American from New York. “For instance, ‘one must not carry heavy bags; if the persons in front of you stop, you should stop and wait till they move. You must not push them. If there are people sitting on the floor, for instance, for prayer, you must not walk on them.’ These safety rules ought to be observed during Tawaf, Sai, stoning of the devil at Mina and while visiting the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah.” After all, the idea is to get the devil — not the other pilgrims.
“The success of any safety measures depend on the full cooperation of the pilgrims,” said Abdullah Ali Baswaid, a muallim who has overseen Haj affairs for years.
“The issue of pilgrim education must figure prominently in any policy measure to make the holy sites more pilgrim-friendly. If these pilgrims are educated and trained properly in their countries about the dos and don’ts at holy sites, the danger of stampedes or other accidents could be well-controlled,” he said.
Experts say it was not too difficult to identify the countries that could provide a little more information regarding the performance of Haj. “You rarely see pilgrims from the European countries as well as from Indonesia and Malaysia carrying luggage,” said one Haj official on the condition of anonymity. “It’s mostly pilgrims from Africa and some South Asian countries who carry heavy bags and other belongings with them while going to perform the stoning the Jamrat ritual.” Most pilgrims agree their fellows should just leave the luggage behind.
“They should not be allowed to come out of their camp with bags and other things in hands. They cause trouble for others,” said Abdul Ekram Majdi, who runs an Islamic center in France. “They should be stopped at once.”
And for the millions of Muslims who may get to perform Haj only once in a lifetime, the luggage-luggers can detract from this cherished experience. “If people are without luggage, they walk fast,” said Waliullah Sabzwari from Pakistan. “Their attention is not diverted. They concentrate on reaching Mina and stoning the devil. But once pilgrims have their belongings with them, they move slowly, hurt others by pushing them to save their bags and umbrellas and become the cause of unnecessary accidents.”
