Someone should extend this and simplify by making another [edit] ritual performed at the earliest part of the pilgrimage. That would give more people the chance to lauch some rocks at some mythical columns. + That's not the problem, it's the overcrowding (soccer games, rock concerts, etc).
How utterly foolish we humans can be in the face of obediance to unseen or imagined powers! Craziness has no solution. How can we ever hope to reconcile beliefs when they are so extreme? [rock/paper/scissors/world domination] Good thing the Saudis Oil-Kings are on our side!
At Least 345 People Die in Hajj Stampede
Ok...thanks for the feedback. I toned it down and I think it says what I mean without so much hostility ;-}.The hajj is a complex balance of safety with Islam's requirements that every able-bodied Muslim should perform the pilgrimage at least once. Saudi Arabia sets a quota of participants, allowing every nation to send 1,000 pilgrims for every 1 million in population.
The three-day stoning ritual in particular is a nightmarish problem in crowd dynamics.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims must move up the ramps onto the platform, maneuver from pillar to pillar and hit each with seven stones, then exit.
Many of the pilgrims are in a rush because of the time constraints on the ritual and their anxiety about past stampedes.
Traditionally, stoning was carried out from midday to sunset.
Shiite Muslim clerics have issued edicts allowing pilgrims to do the stoning in the morning, and some Sunni clerics have followed suit in an attempt to space out the crowds. But some clerics following Saudi Arabia's strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam urge the faithful to stick to the midday start.
I see in all countries (even our own) that religious types often use "selective memory" to justify the heinous acts of Man as being ordained from the hand of God. Like W's hotline where he asks for advice (instead of listening to his own father). How much does that kind of cell technology cost? Imagine that...I'm going to phone God now. I wonder what he'll tell *me* to do? Stone some pillars or trample people trying? Not like we don't do the same with jets and stones that use laser-targetting. Interesting parallel going on here, but crowds of that magnitude suck no matter what. Just stay home! [You know, why do they stone the pillars if they are already made of stone? Isn't that redundant? I'm also thinking if three million people all descended on a Slip concert there'd be some people squashed too (especially in the front row). Now I just compared a Slip show with Mecca. I'm wrong like that. ;-} ]
