c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) If God cuts you some slack, Saudi Arabians officials are telling Hajj pilgrims, you’d better take it.

That’s the message for the estimated 2.2 million Muslims arriving for Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that begins Friday (Dec. 29), as part of a safety campaign intended to prevent stampedes and other tragedies that have plagued the sacred journey in recent years.

“We can make use of the religious permissions as the Prophet told us to do when he said, `Allah likes to see the permissions he gives being used by the believers,” said Dr. Fouad Al-Farsy, Saudi Arabia’s minister of Hajj, in a 14-minute Hajj safety film on his ministry’s Web site.

The “permissions” Al-Farsy referred to include the old and sick being allowed to designate other pilgrims to carry out more physically demanding rites, and a wider window of time to complete a rite in which pilgrims hurl stones at three walls representing the devil.

The Jamarat, as the walls are collectively known, have been the scene of six stampedes since 1994 that, combined. have killed more than 1,000 pilgrims, including 363 during the last Hajj.

The film is one of the latest measures by Saudi authorities in an ongoing safety campaign that includes multi-billion dollar construction projects, intricate scheduling, and some theological creativity.

But with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims _ many emotional, others old and weak _ trying to pass through a small area in a short time, it’s hard to guarantee against another tragedy.

“You can be as effective in crowd control as you want, but when you have people that don’t follow basic instructions, it doesn’t make a difference,” said Nail Al-Jubeir, a spokesman with the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

Those instructions include not bringing luggage to the Jamarat, not camping on streets leading to rite sites, and not thronging the Jamarat at noon, when Islam’s Prophet Muhammad is said to have performed his stone-throwing ritual.

The Hajj commemorates several important events that pilgrims re-enact in an arduous set of rituals set out in minute detail:

_ Pilgrims circle the Kaaba, the holy sanctuary Muslims believe was built by Abraham and his son Ishmael, seven times.

_ They also run back and forth between the hills of Safa and Marwah seven times, re-enacting Hagar’s frantic search for water after Abraham abandoned her and Ishmael in the barren desert.

_ Later, they move to Mount Arafat, where Muslims believe Adam and Eve were reunited and forgiven by God. Prayers made there, it is believed, carry special weight. But stray from these details, and the pilgrimage becomes less pleasing to God.

In an effort to mimic Muhammad’s actions, many pilgrims converge at the Jamarat at noon, resulting in a gigantic, emotional throng. Last year’s tragedy occurred when pilgrims rushed toward the Jamarat at noon, some tripping over other pilgrims’ luggage and triggering a stampede.

Urged by Saudi authorities a few years ago to help relieve overcrowding, religious scholars ruled that pilgrims must not perform their stoning at noon, but have 24 hours, beginning with morning prayers that day, to complete the rite. For the last three years, Saudi authorities have released schedules that instruct which pilgrims should go to Jamarat when. The idea is to spread the large crowds over a longer period of time to avert potentially deadly bottlenecks.

But, given last year’s tragedy, the changes obviously haven’t had the desired effect.

Kifah Mustapha, an imam from Bridgeview, Ill., who doubles as a mutawaf, or Hajj guide, recently left for his ninth Hajj. He said many pilgrims are still taught that noon is the best time to perform the Jamarat rite. There needs to be more education to end that misconception, he said.

“People like to match the exact time when the Prophet did that act of worship,” Mustapha said. “People still insist. There needs to be more awareness of this. It’s the duty of the imams to educate the pilgrims about all this stuff before they leave the country.”

The Saudis have also looked to engineering to accommodate the larger crowds. In 2004, three columns were replaced by the three walls to give pilgrims bigger targets and thus spread the stone-throwers out over a wider area.

Also, a two-level bridge that led to the Jamarat, and which was where pilgrims went to throw their stones, was demolished a few days after the Jan. 12 stampede. A new six-level bridge that can accommodate 3 million people at a time is under construction; the first two completed phases will be used this Hajj.

Many Muslims, like Dr. Amin Rathore of Harvard, Mass., who made the Hajj in 2002, believe the only solution is to reduce the number of pilgrims. Islam,according to Rathore, requires Muslims to make the pilgrimage once, not repeatedly. The number of pilgrims has risen drastically over the years, from 90,000 in 1925 to 910,000 in 1995 to the nearly 2.2 million expected this year.

“Since it’s limited space and limited resources, people should refrain from going 10 or 15 times. That just adds an extra load to a place that is not built to hold that many people,” Rathore said.

If pilgrims don’t regulate themselves, the Saudis should do it for them, he said.

“The Saudi government should not issue visas beyond a certain number of people. And secondly, if somebody has already performed the Hajj, they should deny him a visa.”

KRE/JL END SACIRBEY

Editors: To obtain file photos from the Hajj, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

See related sidebar, RNS-HAJJ-ACCIDENTS, transmitted Dec. 27, 2006.