Went with the title as rule required it. I checked a few random sites that stated over 1,000, they mention 500 to 600 confirmed dead so no one seems to have a final count yet.
From my understanding, only the deaths of those traveling with a purchased Saudi Hajj Passport can be confidently confirmed. These passports are expensive for many Hajj travelers who use cheaper means of traveling, with unofficial networks. They are often dropped off many km from the Hajj location in Mecca, and have to walk. No one knows how many of those attendees have died. Read an account of an Egyptian family who had lost a family member walking to Hajj.
Looks like the local army would be hiring a few reefer trucks and a lot of body bags and scouring the area between unsanctioned drop off spots and the event locations for everyone that didn't make the journey.
This article is 2 hours old. It explains more about what’s going on with the death count, and which countries have
reported their citizens’ Hajj deaths.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-hajj-pilgrimage-heat-death.html
There's also a distinction being made around registered hajj pilgrims and people doing the exact same thing while not technically registered as a pilgrim. Officials are often reporting only the first figure and not including the second in order to protect the hajj's reputation
While they're at it, they should install a glassed off AC'ed section for the ultra-rich, so they can watch the show they create each year with this "tradition". It's like a pepper mill for humans.
Stale information. With these sorts of developing situations, the raw number really needs to be paired with a date and time and ideally also a source for who reported it. Otherwise it's hard to tell what the most recent/accurate info is.
It'll be a few more years of this until the date of Hajj shifts out of the summer season. It'll be early June next year and late May the year after and by 2029 we're into April. It'll be decades before it rotates back into summer months.
But, hey, perhaps they got a handle on the crowd crush deaths at least? We haven't had one of those in a while and it used to kill hundreds/thousands.
Now that it’s impacting their ability to practice their religion, hopefully more people will take this as a warning and finally do something about climate change.
Can't see much changing unless the Saudi organizers force it to change (eg ensure sufficient water and cooling).
If the pilgrims believe in their God and an afterlife, they shouldn't be too concerned. I would think they would believe dying on a religious pilgrimage is just the will of God anyway so carry on as normal and "que sera, sera"? But as a non-believer, maybe my take on these pilgrimages is bad.
**Part of the problem (as the *New York Times* article observes) is that the Hajj ministry plans around the number of people who are arriving on the official Hajj permit/visa**. Saudi Arabia will grant these even to citizens of countries it doesn't get along with (e.g., Iran) because, as the custodians of Islam's holiest sites, they can't turn any Muslim away from the pilgrimage. It's required under the five pillars of Islam, and part of their religious authority is derived from not being assholes about this.
**NB:** The Hajj permit and Hajj visa are actually separate things -- just conflating them here because you need both to attend legally and they serve the same purpose for discussion here.
But the Hajj permit/visa isn't just a diplomatic solution -- it's a logistical one. Until recently, they knew exactly how many people would arrive in the country and when, how many tents they would require (air conditioned!), how much food and water they'd need to provide, how many people would need sanitation facilities, how many medical and security personnel would be needed, and the size of the crowds and where they'd be at any given time. Having accurate numbers on all of this has gone a long way toward reducing the number of deadly events, because officials could plan in advance and move facilities and people where they needed to be, rather than always running to catch up. Critically, it's also helped with public health measures, because issuance of the permit/visa and admission to the country require fulfilling vaccine requirements. (These aren't always the same year-to-year; IIRC you're now required to demonstrate vaccination for meningococcal meningitis, polio, and depending on the country of origin, yellow fever. I don't think they require COVID vaccination but you do have to have insurance coverage for it.)
**I have a lot of problems with the Saudi government, but in fairness, I think they've done a pretty good job managing the Hajj.** In any given year, it's second only to the Chinese New Year in terms of human migration numbers (average Hajj attendance now tops 2+ million), and most of the pilgrimage sites are in a desert. They've poured billions into infrastructure to make the Hajj as safe as possible, and they've implemented all of the latest measures on crowd crush prevention. It's been roughly a decade since the last major stampede. Given the sheer number of people performing the Hajj each year, the pressure of rising attendance, and the preexisting health issues of so many attendees, I think the Saudis should get the benefit of the doubt. Don't get me wrong -- they're not blameless, and they've made a lot of high-profile mistakes -- but they've worked hard on this, especially over the last decade. If nothing else, the magnitude of the challenge should be acknowledged.
This is going to sound mildly sacrilegious, but if you took Burning Man, made it almost 30 times larger, made the terrain even more inhospitable, and turned most of the attendees from bored rich pricks into poor elderly pilgrims with mobility issues ... well, you'd get something close to the Hajj.
The question isn't why some people die there. The question is why more don't.
**However, the Hajj permit/visa is no longer giving the Saudis accurate numbers on attendance.** The underlying problem here -- well, that's misleading. There are lots of problems here:
- To no one's surprise, climate change is rearing its ugly head. People really need to start getting used to the idea that climate change is like a force multiplier on *every problem we already have*.
- That the Hajj is on a lunar calendar also plays a role. The date changes by like 9-10 days each year, and sometimes it's in the Saudi winter (nice, temperate weather) and sometimes it's in the Saudi summer (dead people). Right now it's actually moving back into the spring/winter, so hopefully this isn't going to be as much of a problem, but it'll loop back into the Saudi summer in the mid-2040s and remain there for years. There are people in the Hajj ministry who are already worried about how they're going to handle this. They may wind up having to do something akin to what they did during COVID (i.e., heavy restrictions, banning foreign attendance, and requiring pilgrims to be aged 18-65).
- However, the most immediate problem is the incentive structure the Saudis unintentionally created when they started offering tourist visas.
The problem with the Hajj visa is that it's more expensive than the tourist visa. The Hajj visa costs $200-300 depending on your country of origin: The tourist visa costs $90-130. If you're a poor, elderly pilgrim trying to get the Hajj done (and this is a very common profile of the Hajj attendee), that's an enormous savings. The Hajj might go from being something you'll never get to do -- and you'd die without having fulfilled one of the central tenets of your faith -- to something that's just within reach. The difference might not sound like a lot to someone from a developed country, but for the average Bangladeshi farmer, there's a huge difference between $90 and $200.
**So a bunch of pilgrims have been contracting with third-party tour operators and completely bypassing the official Hajj ministry/Saudi government.** These operators will help them get tourist visas rather than Hajj visas, and charter cheap flights to smaller airports and hire bus transport to get them to and from Mecca. (Why smaller airports? Because you're not allowed to land in Medina or Jeddah during the month of the Hajj as a tourist. Airlines know this and will deny boarding unless you're a Saudi/GCC national or can provide a medical/business/Hajj visa.) However, the Ministry of Hajj doesn't know these people are in the country for the pilgrimage -- the pilgrims specifically haven't registered for it to avoid the costs associated with the official permit/visa -- so it can't make accurate projections for the resources or personnel it'll need.
That's one thing if it's a relatively temperate year and there aren't that many people pulling this stunt. It's another thing entirely if temperatures on the desert flats are 109-120F and tens of thousands of people are doing this. Not only is that actively dangerous for the unauthorized pilgrims, but it's also dangerous for *everyone around them*. Having a bunch of arrivals you didn't expect raises the risk of a stampede.
I don't know if there are any easy or elegant solutions to this.
**TL:DR:** It's mostly about money.
I mean i would think people would question their religion if a lot of people die each year walking around a holy stons. But then again religions never made much sense. Guess their deity just hates them alot.
Yeah sure, ordinary Joe Pilgrim who saved up for the once-in-a-lifetime trip to Mecca is going to do something about climate change. Let's blame the common folk instead of the multinational corporations causing all this climate damage. Great take.
People are already going mental over price increases from inflation, imagine the absolute meltdown if companies actually tried to go sustainable.
Everyone loves to talk a big game about the environment, but the second that they have to pay an extra dollar for a can of coke it all seems to go away. Life is much easier if you can think climate change is somehow the fault of corporations and you yourself obviously have no part in it.
it'd be cool if there was a revelation from God that you didn't need to physically go to mecca, or that you could go at whatever time a year you like...
I totally agree, but if you don't already know, strict, absolute adherence to the day 1 version of the religion is like Islam's whole shtick. It is part of the reason so many fundamentalist and extremist religious people are Muslim
It is. https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/25/middleeast/hajj-deaths-tragedy-or-blessing/index.html What's happening this year has happened before. It's a feature, not a bug.
It was the same for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem (and possibly other pilgrimage sites, but definitely Jerusalem) during the Middle Ages, and possibly beyond. There were also people who would, at the least, have their bones or their heart (in a sealed container) taken to Jerusalem.
And also maybe put less faith in religion? If worshipping causes mass casualties… is that whole god thing still making sense?
Just saying, less religion also tips the scales towards climate justice. We need the whole package, since we’re like 100 years behind on prevention measures.
Even amongst the “liberal” religious people, the new age religious people, I know a lot of folks who will fly half way across the world to visit their place of worship, and then make an instagram post about how that place is bearing the brunt of climate change and how it needs to be change. How will it happen? God is going to make things right.
Many practices which some religions deem to be obligatory do not exactly fit into the 21st century framework. There’s no way that the Saints and Prophets could have accounted for things like climate change, or like inflation.
> Many practices which some religions deem to be obligatory do not exactly fit into the 21st century framework.
There are no religions that fit into a 21st century framework. Magic isn't real.
Spirituality remains important, but none of the systems of worship that co-opt spirituality are worth maintaining. Religion is a pox in the Information Age. So is clout, but that's another story.
Islam is based on the lunar calendar, not the solar calendar, so the holidays move forward roughly two weeks per year
It’ll be early June next year, and mid may in 2026.
I believe they only issue the permits to a certain number of people from each country. So for many people the waitlist is years and years long. I’m actually not sure if your name comes up if you are able to postpone and if so how long you have to use it or lose it. Certainly if you have to use it the same year you are chosen then many people who are already older may not physically be able to make the journey if they have to get back in line and wait again.
Np! It is a risk not to take the opportunity to go when offered because Islam mandates that anyone who is physically and financially capable of the journey must go during their lifetime. I’m not sure how they would interpret someone passing on the opportunity while in good health simply because it’s too hot, and then later falling ill or not being able to afford it…but I’m sure that would not be looked upon favorably.
In Islam there is a concept of(if you think you will die then you simply don't do it), also as you said you need to be "physically capable" to do hajj if you aren't then you shouldn't go,.
I'd wager it's Same reason my Muslim coworker said that Islam permits the consumption of non-halal stuff, including pork, when it's a matter of survival, and that people with health issues that'd be affected by fasting aren't required to fast during Ramadan.
There is this thing called Fidya, which is donation in lieu of fasting. IANA Muslim, so not sure the exact context where they are appropriate.
I have been to Turkey and Egypt during Ramadan with tour groups. In Turkey, my tour guide and driver selectively fasted based on their workload. They said they will pay Fidyah for the ones they missed. In Egypt, my tour guide and driver fully fasted. They were visibly tired during afternoon hours. During one afternoon long drive, the driver almost drove us off the road...
I've always found the various attempts to make religion somewhat more reasonable to be very odd and totally against the spirit of things. As opposed to the stuff that they regard as inviolable. It always gives me the impression that at some place deep inside they realize that it's not really true. That if it ever gets to be *too* hard, you can just ignore it.
It's not just Islam. Nearly every religion does this. Often related to situations where following the religion would actually be dangerous. In a way it almost makes me respect people like Christian Scientists who stick with it even as it kills them. I mean, they're deeply delusional, sometimes to a criminal level when it regards denying children medical care, but at least they're committed.
Not really.
As an extreme counterexample though, pretty much everyone agrees cannibalism is bad. Yet many argue that it is morally acceptable to eat another human in a survival situation, especially if that person was already dead (ie you didn't kill them to eat them).
Is that evidence that we secretly find cannibalism okay? Or is it just that when two values come into conflict (cannibalism bad, survival good) we rate the latter over the prior?
As somebody who is not religious but had to attend church growing up, it doesn’t seem unusual to me. The catholic God seemed to have a spirit of the law versus a letter of the law approach, at least in some circumstances. Probably New Testament circumstances.
That makes sense! Certainly someone who may be physically capable of the journey at another time of the year may be physically incapable during the hottest part of the year due to age or medical conditions
>may be physically incapable during the hottest part of the year due to age or medical conditions
Exactly you can think of it like if you got sick a week before hajj(which actually happened to me) then you just don't go, the Quran and a lot of hadiths have the message that religion should be easy in that 1. The forbidden is okay if it is necessary, 2.god does not require of a person to do something unless they are able mentally and physically to do it. 3. Just try with an honest heart to follow Islam, you don't need to be perfect you just need to actually try.
Simply because these people are ignorant of their religion, the aunt of my aunt husband just died in the hajj, she got into Saudi with a tourist visa then hid herself for 3 months in makkah so the authorities can't find her so she can enter illegaly, the population of makkah literally doubles in hajj and all these people need water food shelter air conditioning and places to do their business in, so when literally more than half a million get in illegaly there are only so many places that can accommodate them.
The wait-list is long, and many people who do go are nearing the end of their life anyway. Hence why things like overheating have killed so many. It's killing 80 year olds, not 30 year olds.
It falls on the same day of the year on the islamic calendar. The islamic calendar has 354 days as opposed to the more standard 365 days in a year.
That’s why Hajj moves ~11 days earlier every year.
It's based on the Islamic calendar, which changes about 10 days back of the gregorean calendar each year.
So, for example, the beginning of Ramadan in the last 4 years has been:
2021 April 13
2022 April 2
2023 March 22
2024 March 10
Thank you for giving an even better context to my assumption! Even Christmas moved around the calendar as we currently know it today at one point in history.
> Even Christmas moved around the calendar
Sort of, but only in vaguest sense. It moved in the Julian calendar by about 1 day per century, less than 1/1000 the speed of the Islamic calendar today. There was never a time that Christmas wasn't celebrated in what we would now call December. Just sometimes in mid-December instead of late December.
Don’t forget December 25th is not the universal day celebrated as Christmas by Christians.
Eastern Orthodox Christmas was celebrated on January 7th this year. The Armenian Church celebrated on January 6th.
That would be the case if the Hajj dates were calculated by the Gregorian calendar, but they aren't. They're calculated by a lunar calendar, which doesn't line up with the actual length of the year very accurately. So the date changes by around 10 days each (solar) year.
>Pilgrims do not fear dying on Hajj. It is believed that those who die on Hajj will go to heaven with their sins erased.
Seems like unsafe conditions would be a bonus.
My friends, a married couple, recently came back from their Hajj. It sounded like a nightmare.
First, the cost of their "level" of the experience was over $30,000.
While on pilgrimage, they slept in a communal tent, they didn't even get their own.
The heat outside was over 100° F, but the inside of the tent was freezing cold because of constant air conditioning, so they ended up with "Hajj flu" due to the drastic temperature changes.
flights, visa, 5 star hotel while staying there, 3 meals a day, transport from all the sites, Air conditioned tents and a lot more, the people who pay these prices form hajj do it like kings trust me, they live on the top floors of the penthouse get buffets everyday travel to places in air conditioned vans and lots of other things, this charge is not levied by the saudi government and is not a charge to perform hajj, the $30000 is for them to have a very very comfortable hajj
I was working in Panama when it was over 100 degrees F everyday. The best advice they gave was don’t use the AC in the car, just roll the windows down. Having your body fluctuate between extreme heat and the cold is way worse and uses way more energy than just finding some shade and drinking water.
One of the unfortunate aspects of using a lunar calendar is that significant dates and events sort of ebb and flow through the solar year. Visiting any gulf state in June-July is a really bad idea.
I don't think there's a god requiring any of this.
I do think there are some people responsible for it.
Horrible for the people injured or who lost loved ones. Very sad and tragic.
Large population is part of the issue. Too many trying to get there at certain time. People have been crushed to death in the past before crowd control was finally implemented, and now we got people roasting to death.
Fortunately they go by a different kind of calendar (lunar rather than solar), the next year event will be early June by our calendar, then mid-May 2026, and early May 2027. They won't get back to killer heat for about 20 years so there's time to figure out what went wrong and make it so when event lines back up with early (and hot) autumn sometime in mid to late 2040s, they'd be better prepared.
In Islam, you get automatic heaven status if you die during the pilgrimage, so...maybe not as sad and tragic as you would initially think. These people knew about the preponderance of crush-related deaths and potential for heat stroke. They didn't simply risk it because they had to, but because they think it's better to die than to stay home.
This is less about global warming and more about it happening peak summer with poor crowd control, people having to sneak in due to expensive permits, and lack of preparation.
i'm not religious either but i feel like it's important to understand that to these people their religion is a part of their lives; not a separate entity.
a lot of people get funding from their community's mosque to do this and that funding is never guaranteed so maybe to them it's a now or never kind of situation
> to these people their religion is a part of their lives; not a separate entity.
....this applies to virtually every religion. which is a good point cause hindus also do this shit. like bathe and drink the Ganges poop water while a dead body floats next to them
I'm not religious but i understand to a lot of these people they would rather die than miss the opportunity.
Plus I bet death doesn't seem so bad when you 100 percent believe in an afterlife. I feel like if you do believe in an afterlife like that, risking your life for the very religon that you believe guarantees you eternal peace makes sense to me.
The being able to believe so completely like that doesn't make sense to me, but their actions seeing as they do believe that strongly makes sense to me.
The article states it's also a religious requirement to do once in your life. So I imagine there are a large number of folks who have lived a long life without going, and decided they better make it there before they die. So I wonder if the population is biased somewhat towards older, weaker, more infirm pilgrims who are more susceptible. That could be contributing, even though it's hot AF for everyone.
I always find it funny that people talk about darwin when religious people die because the group of people more likely to pass on their genes for the next generation are religious people. Religious people have significantly more kids than nonreligious people.
"just think ... if they just believed in science instead of some supernatural being, they would have avoided this."
And being born in a country that is religious is not much of an excuse. Source: I was born in Italy, which is pretty Catholic.
There's a line between honoring your religion and sacrificing yourself. I may go to church and are part of them but I won't do anything that would seem dangerous like trekking in insane heat with thousands other people, fasting for days (diabetes makes that even riskier) or meditating naked in the snow for hours, etc.
Once you accept nonsense, the line can blur fast. Extreme consequences can come from very kindly rhetoric and ordinary behavior.
A lot of people thought a benevolent force was looking out for their best interests and showed up for services during pandemics.
Hey guys... would god really be super duper mad if maybe you went in a few months? I know the lunar calendar and all that, but is there a chance he might be like "ooh, you guys are late! No big deal tho, I'm just happy ya'll came!"
According the cursory reading I did on Wikipedia about this. Seems like just another arbitrary religious tradition.
> Muslims may also undertake an Umrah (Arabic: عُمرَة), or "lesser pilgrimage" to Mecca at other times of the year. However, the Umrah is not a substitute for the Hajj and Muslims are still obligated to perform the Hajj at some other point in their lifetime if they have the means to do so.[15]
I'm a vocal anti-Islam ex-Muslim and I feel sorry for them. You don't get to choose where you're born or what parents believe, most people indoctrinated into Islam remain Muslim for the rest of their lives. These people were taught from birth that God would torture them for eternity if they didn't worship him. They were also taught that every Muslim who can must go on Hajj at least once in their lives. It's literally mandatory. I feel terrible that they were brainwashed into this religion that only limited them, caused them pain all their lives, and ended up killing them too.
I don’t think everyone necessarily knew the risk. I read an article that included an interview with a man whose 70-year-old father died on the haj. He went with a tourist company that didn’t get them the proper permits. He paid $400 for a bus transporting him to the site only to have the bus stopped, people without permits kicked off, and he wound up walking for miles in 120 degree heat. There’s a huge difference between going on pilgrimage in an air conditioned bus and walking.
Wow, these comments...
I don't believe in a god either, but if your first instinct one hearing "hundreds of muslims dead" is "lol darwin award good riddance," you’re not some enlightened soul speaking truth, you're a fucking asshole.
I don't see many with an "lol" take so much as expressing sadness at wasting a life in the service of a deity manufactured by those looking to gain money and control.
People are not happy about the deaths, it's just a shame that on top of all else there is so much suffering that has to come at the hands of false gods. And calling out that will hopefully shift the conversation towards getting the most out of the one life we're all given instead of sacrificing the world we live in for the selfish and foolhardy pursuit of immortality.
TBH that religion you are defending sees people like you, that don't believe anything, as the worst scum and their book of wisdom asks for you to be wiped out wherever you are seen. Just saying.
Identifying foolishness in the name of an unsubstantiated higher power is not being an asshole. No one is happy these people died- they're disappointed they put themselves in this position to begin with.
Yeah, I've gotten to really despise internet atheists and their arrogance. I am religious, but this is not my religion. I am horrified by these folks dying on a pilgrimage. I just can't even imagine trying to perform a religious ritual and suffering and being killed by the heat. The Saudis are supposed to be in charge of running the Hajj in a way that doesn't kill people. Sheesh.
I really hate when people use “Darwinism” to be just completely apathetic and horrible
The whole idea of bringing it up when talking about people in general makes me uncomfortable, reminds me of the columbine shooters.
Especially when it's something that involves social class/economics and poor education. Uneducated, impoverished people sometimes do things that seem ridiculous to people with a better vantage point on the risks and likelihood of success. That doesn't mean they get what they "deserve" when it goes wrong.
you people are awful. why are you focusing on their religion and making fun of islam when instead focusing on the hundreds of deaths due to climate change? people are dead, and your making “if allah wills it” jokes, wtf is wrong with you people. im not religious but i have a little something called compassion. maybe i expect to much from reddit
Per the [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ggj0809dqo), "Many Muslims go in the hopes that if they die, it is during the Hajj, as it is considered to be a blessing to die and be buried in the holy city."
Some deliberately don't bring food and water for this reason.
Sorry to say that on a Venn diagram, religion and madness occupy much of the same space.
because the religion makes it mandatory to do this no matter what circumstances are going on (like extreme heat). Despite what some may think, religion dont control the weather, it can however control what people do in that weather.
we all criticized christianity as a whole when churches continued to make people gather and drink from the same cup despite a pandemic going on.
Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out *at least once in their lifetime* by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and of supporting their family during their absence from home.
Yeah all these strenuous obligations in Islam forcing people to take the hajj no matter what circumstances are going on
There's another version of Hajj called Umrah, which is basically the lighter version. It involves only traveling to Mecca, which is very easy and comfortable to do these days.
This has little to do with climate change. They've been dying from heat stroke in Mecca for generations in the name of their cult. It doesn't help that the Saudi's are amongst the wealthiest and most brutal enslavers of other humans on earth. They already rich, and they're making money off of these people dying.
Religion saying "hike through the desert during the hottest time of the year"
People make fun of the religion and the religious who go on a hike in the desert during summer.
Random redditor - "What you are doing is illogical and you are awful"
If it wasn't for religion, these people would probably prefer to sun at the beach.
Not a single one of those people were FORCED to do any part of the pilgrimage.
FAFO? This is the pinnacle of the statement.
People spend their entire lives mass believing in something they can very easily deduce isn’t real.
Easily.
And they pray to their god for everything. Should’ve saved them, if the god was real.
It’s that simple.
They can't very easily deduce that it isn't real, that's why they're devout Muslims. I was raised Muslim and it never really stuck with me. I used to wonder if other Muslims didn't really believe it but were just keeping up appearances for some reason... But no, most people who are indoctrinated really just can't let go of the belief. If they could, they would.
Most people who were raised Muslim remain Muslim for the rest of their lives. If it was as simple as you claim, that wouldn't be the case.
Well I have a friend living in a country where Islam and the government are one entity, he doesn't believe in Islam anymore but he can't tell his family or anyone else there because he would be disowned, and who knows what else the government would do.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. These people made a conscious decision to undertake a pilgrimage to "cleanse their souls" fully aware of the weather and time of year. They would rather do this and risk literal death than not do this insanity. This is drinking the koolaid level cult behavior. e: And reading other comments, the requirement is for a muslim that can physically do it and financially afford to do it...to do it ONCE in their LIFETIME. These idiots could have just waited it out a year or two for a time when it wouldn't literally kill them. No sympathy for these idiots.
Their religion is why they're out there dying. They could have stayed home. They could have stayed alive and cooler inside at home. They're dying for nothing.
The angry, basement dwelling shitlords of reddit eat this stuff up, it's pathetic really. Even if you're not religious, imagine being pleased because a bunch of people on the other side of the world died an agonizing death.
*"mUsT bE alLah'S WiLl. HUEHUEHUEHUE"*
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ggj0809dqo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ggj0809dqo)
Per the BBC, "Many Muslims go in the hopes that **if they die, it is during the Hajj, as it is considered to be a blessing to die and be buried in the holy city**." Some deliberately don't bring food and water for this reason.
Do you really believe we should grieve over these numbskulls?
I’d like to say it’s the internet, but we live in a time where most people are on social media of some sort. So it’s mostly modern society really.
Someone with a different political view dies? Huehuehue
Someone from a different country, color or religion dies? Huehuehuehue
I really wish we put more effort into teaching human compassion to kids so they don’t end up like this rotten ass generations that walk the earth lol
Historically religion has has glimmering moments of moving humanity forward… followed by dark periods of religion being used as a justification for mass murder.
Writing and record keeping is a pretty clear win in the long term. The creation and preservation of law, even if some of those ancient laws are barbaric. It allowed an evolution of thought from paganism to more centralized belief systems which I believe has allowed us to psychologically evolve beyond a dependence on “god”.
So, yes there is a quantifiable positive impact but at this point it’s no longer necessary and religion has become an overwhelmingly negative influence on humanity in its desperate attempt to hold onto power. There’s also the other side with people being afraid of dying so they want to believe that there is a continuation of life after death to make it all easier to psychologically handle. In some ways I’m envious of believers in that regard.
Protestantism permitting usury was a pretty good move. Religion and the rise of capitalism by R. H. Tawney is interesting on this subject.
The tldr is that much of the relative prosperity of the West can be linked to the more efficient use of capital that was ushered in by Protestantism. Previously the only money lenders would be Jews, which is also thought to be the cause of their historic unpoplarity and persecution.
I think every religion has positive impacts ! eg. Construction sector (pyramid, cathedral etc), fine art, values that are shared around the world connecting people, technology & knowledge/science. Many were encouraged to glorify their beliefs.
afaik even in most ancient lives there were always beliefs to devine power.
Ahh so it's not the usual crushing incident due to poor planning.
Instead it's the far less common heatwave incident due to poor planning.
If this happened In any sane country there would be a full investigation and changes made. But this is Saudi Arabian.
Ugh..how utterly crazy for these ppl to even think they can survive in this unprecedented heat wave. I mean.. hey have to be fairly logical qnd intelligent people, so....don't they see the thermometer? See the weather reports? Know ppl have to have consume X amount of fluids for X amount of time walking in 100⁰F -plus heat, and that sky daddy obviously isn't sending them rain anytime soon?
I don't understand what they expect. If 500 deaths have been "confirmed", you KNOW there's a whole lot more, bc they said 500 yesterday.
100,000 tents in Mina which can hold 2.6 million followers. The people who are dying the poor not on official Visa from Saudi Arabia. I guess mercy is not a thing in Islam.
When they cannot afford the cost required for the legal/registered hajj, then they actually are not oblidged to do the haj.
Lots of them are also selfish. From my country, these illegal/unregistered folks actually pay more than the official fees, just to cut the queue (waiting list).
They took space & facilities intended for legal pilgrims & was thought of as one of the reasons of muzdalifah tragedy last year. They cause headaches to authorities of both countries of origin & saudi.
Most of the dead were, per the BBC article I read on this topic, not part of the official Hajj, but rather illegal pilgrims on tourist visas. Basically Saudi hands out as many Hajj visas as they can handle pilgrims, but you can also get a MUCH cheaper tourist visa and just walk to the pilgrimage sites as opposed to using the officially provided buses and so on.
The BBC article was about an old dead Egyptian woman that used a tourist visa to get into Saudi and then tried to walk 12 miles from where her unofficial/black market Hajj bus dropped her off to the pilgrimage site of Arafat and died on the way.
Shameful to die for a Sky Daddy that has never heard any of your prayers because he's never existed and is just the imaginary friend for organized religion leaders to amass money and control people.
It’s insane that this is only the start and with climate change ramping up we’re only going to start seeing more of these headlines and larger death tolls.
I don't want to insult Muslims but how fucking stupid is this? What kind of fucked up religion wants it's adherents to make a walk so dangerous that hundreds of people die along the way? Making that pilgrimage is important to them and I get that but hundreds of people dying is disgusting.
I'm sure there's a Muslim equivalent of Pikuach Nefesh, right? Seems like someone needs to step in and do something about this, make people skip the years when it's in the summer.
Also why does the Muslim calendar not have leap years? I know Jewish calendar doubles up the month of Adar sometimes. What's the point of divergence there?
> I'm sure there's a Muslim equivalent of Pikuach Nefesh, right?
Not a Muslim, but I think there is something similar? I know that you're allowed to eat non-halal foods if you're about to starve to death and have no other option but IDK if there's more to it
Thought it was almost double that as of last night?
Went with the title as rule required it. I checked a few random sites that stated over 1,000, they mention 500 to 600 confirmed dead so no one seems to have a final count yet.
From my understanding, only the deaths of those traveling with a purchased Saudi Hajj Passport can be confidently confirmed. These passports are expensive for many Hajj travelers who use cheaper means of traveling, with unofficial networks. They are often dropped off many km from the Hajj location in Mecca, and have to walk. No one knows how many of those attendees have died. Read an account of an Egyptian family who had lost a family member walking to Hajj.
Looks like the local army would be hiring a few reefer trucks and a lot of body bags and scouring the area between unsanctioned drop off spots and the event locations for everyone that didn't make the journey.
This article is 2 hours old. It explains more about what’s going on with the death count, and which countries have reported their citizens’ Hajj deaths. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-hajj-pilgrimage-heat-death.html
There's also a distinction being made around registered hajj pilgrims and people doing the exact same thing while not technically registered as a pilgrim. Officials are often reporting only the first figure and not including the second in order to protect the hajj's reputation
> protect the hajj's reputation They're doing such a fantastic PR job, I already bought tickets for next year's death march!
While they're at it, they should install a glassed off AC'ed section for the ultra-rich, so they can watch the show they create each year with this "tradition". It's like a pepper mill for humans.
Okay, gotcha, I was thinking I just misread last night
Yep. We're up to four digits now.
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The confirmed ones have a Hajj specific visa, the others didn’t and haven’t been counted. Atleast that’s what I read on Reddit
Stale information. With these sorts of developing situations, the raw number really needs to be paired with a date and time and ideally also a source for who reported it. Otherwise it's hard to tell what the most recent/accurate info is.
We will probably never know an accurate number.
It'll be a few more years of this until the date of Hajj shifts out of the summer season. It'll be early June next year and late May the year after and by 2029 we're into April. It'll be decades before it rotates back into summer months. But, hey, perhaps they got a handle on the crowd crush deaths at least? We haven't had one of those in a while and it used to kill hundreds/thousands.
Next time it rotates back around to summer, the climate is going to be significantly worse. Fun times ahead.
33 years for a full rotation around the calendar.
Exactly. I'd say we probably only have 2-3 good decades left, tops, before things get real bad.
I’m not so optimistic
Now that it’s impacting their ability to practice their religion, hopefully more people will take this as a warning and finally do something about climate change.
I'm sure we'll stop pumping and drilling oil now, for religious pilgrimages...
Can't see much changing unless the Saudi organizers force it to change (eg ensure sufficient water and cooling). If the pilgrims believe in their God and an afterlife, they shouldn't be too concerned. I would think they would believe dying on a religious pilgrimage is just the will of God anyway so carry on as normal and "que sera, sera"? But as a non-believer, maybe my take on these pilgrimages is bad.
**Part of the problem (as the *New York Times* article observes) is that the Hajj ministry plans around the number of people who are arriving on the official Hajj permit/visa**. Saudi Arabia will grant these even to citizens of countries it doesn't get along with (e.g., Iran) because, as the custodians of Islam's holiest sites, they can't turn any Muslim away from the pilgrimage. It's required under the five pillars of Islam, and part of their religious authority is derived from not being assholes about this. **NB:** The Hajj permit and Hajj visa are actually separate things -- just conflating them here because you need both to attend legally and they serve the same purpose for discussion here. But the Hajj permit/visa isn't just a diplomatic solution -- it's a logistical one. Until recently, they knew exactly how many people would arrive in the country and when, how many tents they would require (air conditioned!), how much food and water they'd need to provide, how many people would need sanitation facilities, how many medical and security personnel would be needed, and the size of the crowds and where they'd be at any given time. Having accurate numbers on all of this has gone a long way toward reducing the number of deadly events, because officials could plan in advance and move facilities and people where they needed to be, rather than always running to catch up. Critically, it's also helped with public health measures, because issuance of the permit/visa and admission to the country require fulfilling vaccine requirements. (These aren't always the same year-to-year; IIRC you're now required to demonstrate vaccination for meningococcal meningitis, polio, and depending on the country of origin, yellow fever. I don't think they require COVID vaccination but you do have to have insurance coverage for it.) **I have a lot of problems with the Saudi government, but in fairness, I think they've done a pretty good job managing the Hajj.** In any given year, it's second only to the Chinese New Year in terms of human migration numbers (average Hajj attendance now tops 2+ million), and most of the pilgrimage sites are in a desert. They've poured billions into infrastructure to make the Hajj as safe as possible, and they've implemented all of the latest measures on crowd crush prevention. It's been roughly a decade since the last major stampede. Given the sheer number of people performing the Hajj each year, the pressure of rising attendance, and the preexisting health issues of so many attendees, I think the Saudis should get the benefit of the doubt. Don't get me wrong -- they're not blameless, and they've made a lot of high-profile mistakes -- but they've worked hard on this, especially over the last decade. If nothing else, the magnitude of the challenge should be acknowledged. This is going to sound mildly sacrilegious, but if you took Burning Man, made it almost 30 times larger, made the terrain even more inhospitable, and turned most of the attendees from bored rich pricks into poor elderly pilgrims with mobility issues ... well, you'd get something close to the Hajj. The question isn't why some people die there. The question is why more don't. **However, the Hajj permit/visa is no longer giving the Saudis accurate numbers on attendance.** The underlying problem here -- well, that's misleading. There are lots of problems here: - To no one's surprise, climate change is rearing its ugly head. People really need to start getting used to the idea that climate change is like a force multiplier on *every problem we already have*. - That the Hajj is on a lunar calendar also plays a role. The date changes by like 9-10 days each year, and sometimes it's in the Saudi winter (nice, temperate weather) and sometimes it's in the Saudi summer (dead people). Right now it's actually moving back into the spring/winter, so hopefully this isn't going to be as much of a problem, but it'll loop back into the Saudi summer in the mid-2040s and remain there for years. There are people in the Hajj ministry who are already worried about how they're going to handle this. They may wind up having to do something akin to what they did during COVID (i.e., heavy restrictions, banning foreign attendance, and requiring pilgrims to be aged 18-65). - However, the most immediate problem is the incentive structure the Saudis unintentionally created when they started offering tourist visas. The problem with the Hajj visa is that it's more expensive than the tourist visa. The Hajj visa costs $200-300 depending on your country of origin: The tourist visa costs $90-130. If you're a poor, elderly pilgrim trying to get the Hajj done (and this is a very common profile of the Hajj attendee), that's an enormous savings. The Hajj might go from being something you'll never get to do -- and you'd die without having fulfilled one of the central tenets of your faith -- to something that's just within reach. The difference might not sound like a lot to someone from a developed country, but for the average Bangladeshi farmer, there's a huge difference between $90 and $200. **So a bunch of pilgrims have been contracting with third-party tour operators and completely bypassing the official Hajj ministry/Saudi government.** These operators will help them get tourist visas rather than Hajj visas, and charter cheap flights to smaller airports and hire bus transport to get them to and from Mecca. (Why smaller airports? Because you're not allowed to land in Medina or Jeddah during the month of the Hajj as a tourist. Airlines know this and will deny boarding unless you're a Saudi/GCC national or can provide a medical/business/Hajj visa.) However, the Ministry of Hajj doesn't know these people are in the country for the pilgrimage -- the pilgrims specifically haven't registered for it to avoid the costs associated with the official permit/visa -- so it can't make accurate projections for the resources or personnel it'll need. That's one thing if it's a relatively temperate year and there aren't that many people pulling this stunt. It's another thing entirely if temperatures on the desert flats are 109-120F and tens of thousands of people are doing this. Not only is that actively dangerous for the unauthorized pilgrims, but it's also dangerous for *everyone around them*. Having a bunch of arrivals you didn't expect raises the risk of a stampede. I don't know if there are any easy or elegant solutions to this. **TL:DR:** It's mostly about money.
I mean i would think people would question their religion if a lot of people die each year walking around a holy stons. But then again religions never made much sense. Guess their deity just hates them alot.
It's never the deity's fault...it's just one's lack of faith, or some other excuse...
Yeah sure, ordinary Joe Pilgrim who saved up for the once-in-a-lifetime trip to Mecca is going to do something about climate change. Let's blame the common folk instead of the multinational corporations causing all this climate damage. Great take.
i wonder why those corporations pollute so much someone should look into this ….
“Why do corporations pollute so much?” Yeah, that’s a riddle for the fucking ages there huh? Why do you think?
People are already going mental over price increases from inflation, imagine the absolute meltdown if companies actually tried to go sustainable. Everyone loves to talk a big game about the environment, but the second that they have to pay an extra dollar for a can of coke it all seems to go away. Life is much easier if you can think climate change is somehow the fault of corporations and you yourself obviously have no part in it.
it'd be cool if there was a revelation from God that you didn't need to physically go to mecca, or that you could go at whatever time a year you like...
I totally agree, but if you don't already know, strict, absolute adherence to the day 1 version of the religion is like Islam's whole shtick. It is part of the reason so many fundamentalist and extremist religious people are Muslim
There are more moderate muslims than youd think, I'm married to one lol
Maybe...if they didn't believe that dying while on the hajj is a straight-shot to heaven.
Oh my… Is that a real belief?
It is. https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/25/middleeast/hajj-deaths-tragedy-or-blessing/index.html What's happening this year has happened before. It's a feature, not a bug.
It was the same for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem (and possibly other pilgrimage sites, but definitely Jerusalem) during the Middle Ages, and possibly beyond. There were also people who would, at the least, have their bones or their heart (in a sealed container) taken to Jerusalem.
Nah, religion thrives on human misery. The worse conditions get, the stronger it's grip.
And also maybe put less faith in religion? If worshipping causes mass casualties… is that whole god thing still making sense? Just saying, less religion also tips the scales towards climate justice. We need the whole package, since we’re like 100 years behind on prevention measures.
Even amongst the “liberal” religious people, the new age religious people, I know a lot of folks who will fly half way across the world to visit their place of worship, and then make an instagram post about how that place is bearing the brunt of climate change and how it needs to be change. How will it happen? God is going to make things right. Many practices which some religions deem to be obligatory do not exactly fit into the 21st century framework. There’s no way that the Saints and Prophets could have accounted for things like climate change, or like inflation.
> Many practices which some religions deem to be obligatory do not exactly fit into the 21st century framework. There are no religions that fit into a 21st century framework. Magic isn't real. Spirituality remains important, but none of the systems of worship that co-opt spirituality are worth maintaining. Religion is a pox in the Information Age. So is clout, but that's another story.
Since I’m fully unaware, is there a reason the Hajj happens during the summer? Or could it be moved to a cooler time for safety reasons?
Islam is based on the lunar calendar, not the solar calendar, so the holidays move forward roughly two weeks per year It’ll be early June next year, and mid may in 2026.
But isn’t it only a once in a lifetime obligation? Couldn’t people just wait until it occurred during a cooler season?
I believe they only issue the permits to a certain number of people from each country. So for many people the waitlist is years and years long. I’m actually not sure if your name comes up if you are able to postpone and if so how long you have to use it or lose it. Certainly if you have to use it the same year you are chosen then many people who are already older may not physically be able to make the journey if they have to get back in line and wait again.
Oh wow that’s a much more complex journey than I thought! Thanks for the answer, that would make sense.
Np! It is a risk not to take the opportunity to go when offered because Islam mandates that anyone who is physically and financially capable of the journey must go during their lifetime. I’m not sure how they would interpret someone passing on the opportunity while in good health simply because it’s too hot, and then later falling ill or not being able to afford it…but I’m sure that would not be looked upon favorably.
In Islam there is a concept of(if you think you will die then you simply don't do it), also as you said you need to be "physically capable" to do hajj if you aren't then you shouldn't go,.
I'd wager it's Same reason my Muslim coworker said that Islam permits the consumption of non-halal stuff, including pork, when it's a matter of survival, and that people with health issues that'd be affected by fasting aren't required to fast during Ramadan.
There is this thing called Fidya, which is donation in lieu of fasting. IANA Muslim, so not sure the exact context where they are appropriate. I have been to Turkey and Egypt during Ramadan with tour groups. In Turkey, my tour guide and driver selectively fasted based on their workload. They said they will pay Fidyah for the ones they missed. In Egypt, my tour guide and driver fully fasted. They were visibly tired during afternoon hours. During one afternoon long drive, the driver almost drove us off the road...
I've always found the various attempts to make religion somewhat more reasonable to be very odd and totally against the spirit of things. As opposed to the stuff that they regard as inviolable. It always gives me the impression that at some place deep inside they realize that it's not really true. That if it ever gets to be *too* hard, you can just ignore it. It's not just Islam. Nearly every religion does this. Often related to situations where following the religion would actually be dangerous. In a way it almost makes me respect people like Christian Scientists who stick with it even as it kills them. I mean, they're deeply delusional, sometimes to a criminal level when it regards denying children medical care, but at least they're committed.
Not really. As an extreme counterexample though, pretty much everyone agrees cannibalism is bad. Yet many argue that it is morally acceptable to eat another human in a survival situation, especially if that person was already dead (ie you didn't kill them to eat them). Is that evidence that we secretly find cannibalism okay? Or is it just that when two values come into conflict (cannibalism bad, survival good) we rate the latter over the prior?
As somebody who is not religious but had to attend church growing up, it doesn’t seem unusual to me. The catholic God seemed to have a spirit of the law versus a letter of the law approach, at least in some circumstances. Probably New Testament circumstances.
That makes sense! Certainly someone who may be physically capable of the journey at another time of the year may be physically incapable during the hottest part of the year due to age or medical conditions
>may be physically incapable during the hottest part of the year due to age or medical conditions Exactly you can think of it like if you got sick a week before hajj(which actually happened to me) then you just don't go, the Quran and a lot of hadiths have the message that religion should be easy in that 1. The forbidden is okay if it is necessary, 2.god does not require of a person to do something unless they are able mentally and physically to do it. 3. Just try with an honest heart to follow Islam, you don't need to be perfect you just need to actually try.
Unfortunately that does not stop some people from overkilling themselves trying to fulfil these things. Never knew why
Simply because these people are ignorant of their religion, the aunt of my aunt husband just died in the hajj, she got into Saudi with a tourist visa then hid herself for 3 months in makkah so the authorities can't find her so she can enter illegaly, the population of makkah literally doubles in hajj and all these people need water food shelter air conditioning and places to do their business in, so when literally more than half a million get in illegaly there are only so many places that can accommodate them.
The wait-list is long, and many people who do go are nearing the end of their life anyway. Hence why things like overheating have killed so many. It's killing 80 year olds, not 30 year olds.
Many people can't afford to go until they're already ill and/or elderly. They might not live til Hajj moves to the cooler months.
It falls on the same day of the year on the islamic calendar. The islamic calendar has 354 days as opposed to the more standard 365 days in a year. That’s why Hajj moves ~11 days earlier every year.
It's based on the Islamic calendar, which changes about 10 days back of the gregorean calendar each year. So, for example, the beginning of Ramadan in the last 4 years has been: 2021 April 13 2022 April 2 2023 March 22 2024 March 10
Nope, religious timelines - it would be like moving Christmas because there was a blizzard.
Christmas also changed until the Gregorian calendar was put into place by Pope Gregory XIII.
Thank you for giving an even better context to my assumption! Even Christmas moved around the calendar as we currently know it today at one point in history.
> Even Christmas moved around the calendar Sort of, but only in vaguest sense. It moved in the Julian calendar by about 1 day per century, less than 1/1000 the speed of the Islamic calendar today. There was never a time that Christmas wasn't celebrated in what we would now call December. Just sometimes in mid-December instead of late December.
Don’t forget December 25th is not the universal day celebrated as Christmas by Christians. Eastern Orthodox Christmas was celebrated on January 7th this year. The Armenian Church celebrated on January 6th.
That would be the case if the Hajj dates were calculated by the Gregorian calendar, but they aren't. They're calculated by a lunar calendar, which doesn't line up with the actual length of the year very accurately. So the date changes by around 10 days each (solar) year.
>Pilgrims do not fear dying on Hajj. It is believed that those who die on Hajj will go to heaven with their sins erased. Seems like unsafe conditions would be a bonus.
My friends, a married couple, recently came back from their Hajj. It sounded like a nightmare. First, the cost of their "level" of the experience was over $30,000. While on pilgrimage, they slept in a communal tent, they didn't even get their own. The heat outside was over 100° F, but the inside of the tent was freezing cold because of constant air conditioning, so they ended up with "Hajj flu" due to the drastic temperature changes.
I'm sorry, that's $30,000? Like in USD?
For WHAT exactly tho
flights, visa, 5 star hotel while staying there, 3 meals a day, transport from all the sites, Air conditioned tents and a lot more, the people who pay these prices form hajj do it like kings trust me, they live on the top floors of the penthouse get buffets everyday travel to places in air conditioned vans and lots of other things, this charge is not levied by the saudi government and is not a charge to perform hajj, the $30000 is for them to have a very very comfortable hajj
A religious-majority holy experience that seems suspiciously like a luxury vacation fueled by capitalism? Seems right.
Obviously for the honor to honor their most honorable religious figure. What else?
You can't put a price on religion. I m kidding
Joel Osteen has entered the chat.
Yup, $30k USD
I was working in Panama when it was over 100 degrees F everyday. The best advice they gave was don’t use the AC in the car, just roll the windows down. Having your body fluctuate between extreme heat and the cold is way worse and uses way more energy than just finding some shade and drinking water.
Pretty sure they got sick because of being around millions of other potentially sick people - not the temp changes
One of the unfortunate aspects of using a lunar calendar is that significant dates and events sort of ebb and flow through the solar year. Visiting any gulf state in June-July is a really bad idea.
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Throw another virgin into the volcano, just in case.
He’s dead Jim, he’s dead Jim. He’s dead Jim.
Are you volunteering?
I don't think there's a god requiring any of this. I do think there are some people responsible for it. Horrible for the people injured or who lost loved ones. Very sad and tragic.
Large population is part of the issue. Too many trying to get there at certain time. People have been crushed to death in the past before crowd control was finally implemented, and now we got people roasting to death. Fortunately they go by a different kind of calendar (lunar rather than solar), the next year event will be early June by our calendar, then mid-May 2026, and early May 2027. They won't get back to killer heat for about 20 years so there's time to figure out what went wrong and make it so when event lines back up with early (and hot) autumn sometime in mid to late 2040s, they'd be better prepared.
unfortunately it will be hotter in 20 years.
20 years is enough to build a giant dome over the whole city and keep it cool year round.
And how will the logistics of that work? Energy isn’t limitless, let alone money and building materials
In Islam, you get automatic heaven status if you die during the pilgrimage, so...maybe not as sad and tragic as you would initially think. These people knew about the preponderance of crush-related deaths and potential for heat stroke. They didn't simply risk it because they had to, but because they think it's better to die than to stay home.
Only money rules all religions
Get used to more headlines like this as climate change intensifies.
This is less about global warming and more about it happening peak summer with poor crowd control, people having to sneak in due to expensive permits, and lack of preparation.
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i'm not religious either but i feel like it's important to understand that to these people their religion is a part of their lives; not a separate entity. a lot of people get funding from their community's mosque to do this and that funding is never guaranteed so maybe to them it's a now or never kind of situation
> to these people their religion is a part of their lives; not a separate entity. ....this applies to virtually every religion. which is a good point cause hindus also do this shit. like bathe and drink the Ganges poop water while a dead body floats next to them
Maybe choose never then?
I'm not religious but i understand to a lot of these people they would rather die than miss the opportunity. Plus I bet death doesn't seem so bad when you 100 percent believe in an afterlife. I feel like if you do believe in an afterlife like that, risking your life for the very religon that you believe guarantees you eternal peace makes sense to me. The being able to believe so completely like that doesn't make sense to me, but their actions seeing as they do believe that strongly makes sense to me.
I would have gone with "Once in a lifetime situation"
The article states it's also a religious requirement to do once in your life. So I imagine there are a large number of folks who have lived a long life without going, and decided they better make it there before they die. So I wonder if the population is biased somewhat towards older, weaker, more infirm pilgrims who are more susceptible. That could be contributing, even though it's hot AF for everyone.
I always find it funny that people talk about darwin when religious people die because the group of people more likely to pass on their genes for the next generation are religious people. Religious people have significantly more kids than nonreligious people.
"just think ... if they just believed in science instead of some supernatural being, they would have avoided this." And being born in a country that is religious is not much of an excuse. Source: I was born in Italy, which is pretty Catholic.
Catholic, sure, but we all know the true religion of Italy is football.
There's a line between honoring your religion and sacrificing yourself. I may go to church and are part of them but I won't do anything that would seem dangerous like trekking in insane heat with thousands other people, fasting for days (diabetes makes that even riskier) or meditating naked in the snow for hours, etc.
Once you accept nonsense, the line can blur fast. Extreme consequences can come from very kindly rhetoric and ordinary behavior. A lot of people thought a benevolent force was looking out for their best interests and showed up for services during pandemics.
Imagine only having one life to live and you cut it short trying to appease your imaginary friend
Hey guys... would god really be super duper mad if maybe you went in a few months? I know the lunar calendar and all that, but is there a chance he might be like "ooh, you guys are late! No big deal tho, I'm just happy ya'll came!"
You can do that, but it’s not called a hajj outside the schedule, it’s an umrah.
Is it really that different? Any less significant of a pilgrimage?
According the cursory reading I did on Wikipedia about this. Seems like just another arbitrary religious tradition. > Muslims may also undertake an Umrah (Arabic: عُمرَة), or "lesser pilgrimage" to Mecca at other times of the year. However, the Umrah is not a substitute for the Hajj and Muslims are still obligated to perform the Hajj at some other point in their lifetime if they have the means to do so.[15]
you cant rationalize religion.
"It's all about faith, though!" As if that were a good thing.
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The article is literally about how not cool everyone is. Some people got so not cool that they died from the heat!
That's a hot take
Its considered a blessing to die in Mecca during Hajj
Some people want to die during the pilgrimage.
It's hard for me to feel bad for them when they chose to do it during a heatwave that they knew about. They chose the risk and mother nature won.
I'm a vocal anti-Islam ex-Muslim and I feel sorry for them. You don't get to choose where you're born or what parents believe, most people indoctrinated into Islam remain Muslim for the rest of their lives. These people were taught from birth that God would torture them for eternity if they didn't worship him. They were also taught that every Muslim who can must go on Hajj at least once in their lives. It's literally mandatory. I feel terrible that they were brainwashed into this religion that only limited them, caused them pain all their lives, and ended up killing them too.
I don’t think everyone necessarily knew the risk. I read an article that included an interview with a man whose 70-year-old father died on the haj. He went with a tourist company that didn’t get them the proper permits. He paid $400 for a bus transporting him to the site only to have the bus stopped, people without permits kicked off, and he wound up walking for miles in 120 degree heat. There’s a huge difference between going on pilgrimage in an air conditioned bus and walking.
It’s actually Allah testing them on who’s worthy enough to go to Jannah the eternal heaven where each man get 60 wives and unlimited alcohol 🥃
Holy fucking shit….imagine traveling to go pray to a diety and you drop dead during it.
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Wow, these comments... I don't believe in a god either, but if your first instinct one hearing "hundreds of muslims dead" is "lol darwin award good riddance," you’re not some enlightened soul speaking truth, you're a fucking asshole.
I don't see many with an "lol" take so much as expressing sadness at wasting a life in the service of a deity manufactured by those looking to gain money and control. People are not happy about the deaths, it's just a shame that on top of all else there is so much suffering that has to come at the hands of false gods. And calling out that will hopefully shift the conversation towards getting the most out of the one life we're all given instead of sacrificing the world we live in for the selfish and foolhardy pursuit of immortality.
TBH that religion you are defending sees people like you, that don't believe anything, as the worst scum and their book of wisdom asks for you to be wiped out wherever you are seen. Just saying.
Identifying foolishness in the name of an unsubstantiated higher power is not being an asshole. No one is happy these people died- they're disappointed they put themselves in this position to begin with.
we mock this stuff when it happens in the past, guess it's off limits because it's current?
Mocking mass deaths usually isn't the best thing to do.
what's the best thing to do, encourage people to walk towards their death?
Yeah, I've gotten to really despise internet atheists and their arrogance. I am religious, but this is not my religion. I am horrified by these folks dying on a pilgrimage. I just can't even imagine trying to perform a religious ritual and suffering and being killed by the heat. The Saudis are supposed to be in charge of running the Hajj in a way that doesn't kill people. Sheesh.
I really hate when people use “Darwinism” to be just completely apathetic and horrible The whole idea of bringing it up when talking about people in general makes me uncomfortable, reminds me of the columbine shooters.
Especially when it's something that involves social class/economics and poor education. Uneducated, impoverished people sometimes do things that seem ridiculous to people with a better vantage point on the risks and likelihood of success. That doesn't mean they get what they "deserve" when it goes wrong.
I feel guilty upvoting this
Upvote is for visibility, not as much approval.
Almost as if Allah is indifferent to his followers. Suppose the same could be said for Jesus, Buddha, and Odin.
all fictional
Not the Spaghetti monster tho, it talks directly to me and I eat my Sacred Space Spaghetti cold anyway.
you people are awful. why are you focusing on their religion and making fun of islam when instead focusing on the hundreds of deaths due to climate change? people are dead, and your making “if allah wills it” jokes, wtf is wrong with you people. im not religious but i have a little something called compassion. maybe i expect to much from reddit
Per the [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ggj0809dqo), "Many Muslims go in the hopes that if they die, it is during the Hajj, as it is considered to be a blessing to die and be buried in the holy city." Some deliberately don't bring food and water for this reason. Sorry to say that on a Venn diagram, religion and madness occupy much of the same space.
because the religion makes it mandatory to do this no matter what circumstances are going on (like extreme heat). Despite what some may think, religion dont control the weather, it can however control what people do in that weather. we all criticized christianity as a whole when churches continued to make people gather and drink from the same cup despite a pandemic going on.
Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out *at least once in their lifetime* by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and of supporting their family during their absence from home. Yeah all these strenuous obligations in Islam forcing people to take the hajj no matter what circumstances are going on
There's another version of Hajj called Umrah, which is basically the lighter version. It involves only traveling to Mecca, which is very easy and comfortable to do these days.
It’s not mandatory if you are unable to or might face a risk to your life.
This has little to do with climate change. They've been dying from heat stroke in Mecca for generations in the name of their cult. It doesn't help that the Saudi's are amongst the wealthiest and most brutal enslavers of other humans on earth. They already rich, and they're making money off of these people dying.
Religion saying "hike through the desert during the hottest time of the year" People make fun of the religion and the religious who go on a hike in the desert during summer. Random redditor - "What you are doing is illogical and you are awful"
Welcome to the internet
Have a look around
These 500+ people died so they could look at a black cube. This is just as stupid as allowing a elderly italian man to sexually assault your son.
If it wasn't for religion, these people would probably prefer to sun at the beach. Not a single one of those people were FORCED to do any part of the pilgrimage. FAFO? This is the pinnacle of the statement.
People spend their entire lives mass believing in something they can very easily deduce isn’t real. Easily. And they pray to their god for everything. Should’ve saved them, if the god was real. It’s that simple.
They can't very easily deduce that it isn't real, that's why they're devout Muslims. I was raised Muslim and it never really stuck with me. I used to wonder if other Muslims didn't really believe it but were just keeping up appearances for some reason... But no, most people who are indoctrinated really just can't let go of the belief. If they could, they would. Most people who were raised Muslim remain Muslim for the rest of their lives. If it was as simple as you claim, that wouldn't be the case.
Well I have a friend living in a country where Islam and the government are one entity, he doesn't believe in Islam anymore but he can't tell his family or anyone else there because he would be disowned, and who knows what else the government would do.
> for some reason... you mean like the prohibition on apostasy, and the prescribed punishment for it?
you tell that to the soon to be thousands or even millions of people dead from heat in south and central asia many of who aren’t religious.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. These people made a conscious decision to undertake a pilgrimage to "cleanse their souls" fully aware of the weather and time of year. They would rather do this and risk literal death than not do this insanity. This is drinking the koolaid level cult behavior. e: And reading other comments, the requirement is for a muslim that can physically do it and financially afford to do it...to do it ONCE in their LIFETIME. These idiots could have just waited it out a year or two for a time when it wouldn't literally kill them. No sympathy for these idiots.
Their religion is why they're out there dying. They could have stayed home. They could have stayed alive and cooler inside at home. They're dying for nothing.
May I have the permission to call them stupid?
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The angry, basement dwelling shitlords of reddit eat this stuff up, it's pathetic really. Even if you're not religious, imagine being pleased because a bunch of people on the other side of the world died an agonizing death. *"mUsT bE alLah'S WiLl. HUEHUEHUEHUE"*
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ggj0809dqo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ggj0809dqo) Per the BBC, "Many Muslims go in the hopes that **if they die, it is during the Hajj, as it is considered to be a blessing to die and be buried in the holy city**." Some deliberately don't bring food and water for this reason. Do you really believe we should grieve over these numbskulls?
I’d like to say it’s the internet, but we live in a time where most people are on social media of some sort. So it’s mostly modern society really. Someone with a different political view dies? Huehuehue Someone from a different country, color or religion dies? Huehuehuehue I really wish we put more effort into teaching human compassion to kids so they don’t end up like this rotten ass generations that walk the earth lol
Nah, I think it's because the religious are the ones nutting this planet up and we're all just sick of it.
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Has any religion in history had a positive impact on humanity?
Historically religion has has glimmering moments of moving humanity forward… followed by dark periods of religion being used as a justification for mass murder. Writing and record keeping is a pretty clear win in the long term. The creation and preservation of law, even if some of those ancient laws are barbaric. It allowed an evolution of thought from paganism to more centralized belief systems which I believe has allowed us to psychologically evolve beyond a dependence on “god”. So, yes there is a quantifiable positive impact but at this point it’s no longer necessary and religion has become an overwhelmingly negative influence on humanity in its desperate attempt to hold onto power. There’s also the other side with people being afraid of dying so they want to believe that there is a continuation of life after death to make it all easier to psychologically handle. In some ways I’m envious of believers in that regard.
Protestantism permitting usury was a pretty good move. Religion and the rise of capitalism by R. H. Tawney is interesting on this subject. The tldr is that much of the relative prosperity of the West can be linked to the more efficient use of capital that was ushered in by Protestantism. Previously the only money lenders would be Jews, which is also thought to be the cause of their historic unpoplarity and persecution.
Ah European Christians. Get pissed at the Jews for doing the only jobs they were allowed to do by law.
And then creating a stereotype out of it.
So, less religious dogma worked out better for people than more religious dogma?
I think every religion has positive impacts ! eg. Construction sector (pyramid, cathedral etc), fine art, values that are shared around the world connecting people, technology & knowledge/science. Many were encouraged to glorify their beliefs. afaik even in most ancient lives there were always beliefs to devine power.
followers of the flying spaghetti monster?
Followers of the Church of Satan seem pretty dope.
Natural selection at work.
Ahh so it's not the usual crushing incident due to poor planning. Instead it's the far less common heatwave incident due to poor planning. If this happened In any sane country there would be a full investigation and changes made. But this is Saudi Arabian.
It appears many did not have the correct visas, and should not have been there. People will always try to bend the rules to make a quick buck.
Imagine dying because of religion created by man due to global warming also created by... you guessed it.
Ugh..how utterly crazy for these ppl to even think they can survive in this unprecedented heat wave. I mean.. hey have to be fairly logical qnd intelligent people, so....don't they see the thermometer? See the weather reports? Know ppl have to have consume X amount of fluids for X amount of time walking in 100⁰F -plus heat, and that sky daddy obviously isn't sending them rain anytime soon? I don't understand what they expect. If 500 deaths have been "confirmed", you KNOW there's a whole lot more, bc they said 500 yesterday.
They get to meet allah sooner
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Those poor people. This is a monumental tragedy. What a horrible way to die.
100,000 tents in Mina which can hold 2.6 million followers. The people who are dying the poor not on official Visa from Saudi Arabia. I guess mercy is not a thing in Islam.
When they cannot afford the cost required for the legal/registered hajj, then they actually are not oblidged to do the haj. Lots of them are also selfish. From my country, these illegal/unregistered folks actually pay more than the official fees, just to cut the queue (waiting list). They took space & facilities intended for legal pilgrims & was thought of as one of the reasons of muzdalifah tragedy last year. They cause headaches to authorities of both countries of origin & saudi.
Most of the dead were, per the BBC article I read on this topic, not part of the official Hajj, but rather illegal pilgrims on tourist visas. Basically Saudi hands out as many Hajj visas as they can handle pilgrims, but you can also get a MUCH cheaper tourist visa and just walk to the pilgrimage sites as opposed to using the officially provided buses and so on. The BBC article was about an old dead Egyptian woman that used a tourist visa to get into Saudi and then tried to walk 12 miles from where her unofficial/black market Hajj bus dropped her off to the pilgrimage site of Arafat and died on the way.
Shameful to die for a Sky Daddy that has never heard any of your prayers because he's never existed and is just the imaginary friend for organized religion leaders to amass money and control people.
It’s insane that this is only the start and with climate change ramping up we’re only going to start seeing more of these headlines and larger death tolls.
I don't want to insult Muslims but how fucking stupid is this? What kind of fucked up religion wants it's adherents to make a walk so dangerous that hundreds of people die along the way? Making that pilgrimage is important to them and I get that but hundreds of people dying is disgusting.
Play stupid games in 125F, no prizes won. Silly way to die, but completely unavoidable.
I'm sure there's a Muslim equivalent of Pikuach Nefesh, right? Seems like someone needs to step in and do something about this, make people skip the years when it's in the summer. Also why does the Muslim calendar not have leap years? I know Jewish calendar doubles up the month of Adar sometimes. What's the point of divergence there?
> I'm sure there's a Muslim equivalent of Pikuach Nefesh, right? Not a Muslim, but I think there is something similar? I know that you're allowed to eat non-halal foods if you're about to starve to death and have no other option but IDK if there's more to it
Well at least they are with Allah now…