For Muslims, to die in the Hajj is a blessing; to complete the Hajj is to be reborn

For Muslims to complete the Hajj is to be reborn. To die in the Hajj is a blessing.  You are considered to have been martyred, cleansed of sin.

In the space of less than a week, during the Hajj, millions of Muslims stream along prescribed routes, undertaking the same rituals within the same narrow window of time.

Islam requires the rites of the Hajj be completed only once in a lifetime and even then only if you are able.

As a practicing Muslim, it was an almost indescribable experience. As you walk for hours among Muslims of every possible color and nationality, the physical toll of the Hajj is meant to humble you. And it does.

In spite of the five-star hotels lining the circumference of the Holy Mosque in Mecca, money gets you only so far here. At some point everyone – rich or poor – must walk.

In the press of humanity, it doesn’t take much to spark panic.

Muslims believe the rite of “stoning the devil” is a re-enactment of the temptation of the prophet Abraham by Satan on the same site.

As you throw the stones, you are conjuring your own personal demons.

Your shortcomings and temptations. All the fears that make you small.

According to Nima Elbagir of CNN “I’ve done it only once. It was one of my first big assignments when I joined CNN.

“As I stood and thought of all the times I could have – should have – been better, all around me people wept as waves of pilgrims pressed in. Some appeared almost unseeing.

“Even as I felt tears running down my cheeks, I felt the weight of that gathered mass of humanity almost overwhelm me.

“The day before I’d stood at our broadcast position looking out over the plain of Arafat as pilgrims jammed together, shoulder to shoulder, a hum of prayers ringing out. There were millions, stretching up the slopes of Mount Arafat. There’s a reason for that – the Hajj is hard.”

When pilgrims set off, they know there is a real possibility that they might not come home. Many truly hope they won’t.

But over the past nine years, the number of deaths at Hajj has lessened. That’s why Thursday’s stampede that killed hundreds has come as such a shock.

The numbers undertaking the Hajj are such that almost every Muslim around the world will feel touched by this tragedy.

Everyone will know someone who was there, someone who wanted to go, someone who’d stood on that very spot.

My family spent the morning of Eid al-Adha watching the death toll rise as we messaged and called relatives and friends.

“Where is he?”

“Has she called?”

“Are you OK?”

The same conversations will have been repeated in Muslim homes all around the world.

As the families of the victims of this tragedy struggle to come to terms with their loss, they will also be struggling to come to terms with the knowledge that the risk was always there.

As they grieve, they’ll be told these were the lucky ones.

And some will pray that they will be lucky, too.

The family of an elderly Indonesian man who died during this year’s Hajj is happy he was buried in the holy city of Mecca, his daughter said, as the Southeast Asian nation mourns hundreds of its citizens who perished in extreme heat during the annual Islamic pilgrimage.

Authorities in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, said at least 215 Indonesians are among the dead.

Heru Jumartiyah said her 86-year-old father, Ngatijo Wongso Sentono, died on June 17 in his tent in Mina, southeast of Mecca, as he waited for midday prayers.

“He was asleep and had no symptoms of sickness before. Everyone said he was healthy during the Hajj procession,” she said.

Sentono had registered for the Hajj in 2018 and traveled to Mecca with his 83-year-old wife and neighbors from the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, Jumartiyah said.

“My father was very enthusiastic about going on the Hajj. He wanted to leave immediately,” she said.

Performing Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which requires every Muslim who is physically and financially able to make the journey to the holy city of Mecca at least once in his or her life.

According to Islamic belief, to die and be buried in Mecca is considered to be a blessing, with many Muslims traveling in their old age after having saved for many years to make the pilgrimage.

“We are happy that he was buried in Mecca,” Jumartiyah said, adding that she hoped to visit her father’s grave when she eventually makes the pilgrimage.

Jumartiyah said her mother, Pariyem Prawirodinomo, is healthy and due to return to Indonesia on July 7.

Some 241,000 Indonesian pilgrims were scheduled to make the journey to Mecca this year, according to Indonesian officials – the country’s largest ever quota.

According to data from the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs, most of the Indonesians who died on the pilgrimage this year were over age 50.

It is not uncommon for Indonesia to register hundreds of deaths during each year’s Hajj – last year, 773 people died during the pilgrimage, according to records from the ministry.

Extreme heat has been named as a main factor behind the hundreds of deaths and injuries reported this year during the Hajj. Mecca, the holy city that is central for Hajj pilgrims, saw temperatures soar to a record 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51 Celsius) on Monday.

Various authorities have also said the problems have been compounded by the number of unofficial pilgrimages, with the Saudi government saying Sunday that “unauthorized” trips accounted for more than four out of five of the fatalities.

Saudi Arabia requires each pilgrim to acquire one of the 1.8 million available licenses to legally access Mecca. These licenses can cost several thousand US dollars. Unlicensed pilgrims typically don’t travel in organized tour buses with air conditioning or easy access to water and food supplies.

As part of the pilgrimage, the faithful perform a series of rituals in and around the holy city of Mecca, often involving many hours of walking in the scorching heat every day.

Some pilgrims have lamented the poor infrastructure and organization of this year’s Hajj. Even pilgrims on official tours spend the bulk of their day walking outdoors in the heat.

Some witnesses said of how they saw worshipers losing consciousness and walked past bodies covered in white cloth.

A 44-year-old Indonesian man who only wished to be referred to as Ahmad, recalled seeing many dying from the heat.

“Along the way home, I saw many pilgrims who died. Almost every few hundred meters, there was a body lying and covered with an ihrom (white fabric) cloth.”

“Every time there is a distribution of water from local residents or certain groups, it is immediately overrun by the pilgrims,” he added, saying that he didn’t see health workers or a single ambulance along the road.

n recent decades, the sheer size of Hajj crowds has been a factor in a number of deadly incidents during the pilgrimage, including a stampede that killed hundreds of people in 2015.

However, experts have warned that rising temperatures pose the deadliest threat to pilgrims as heat records tumble in the Middle East – one of the most vulnerable regions to the climate crisis – making mass gatherings riskier.

Saida Wurie said it was her parents’ lifelong dream to participate in Hajj, the religious pilgrimage that brings Muslims from around the world to Saudi Arabia each year.

They’d spent $23,000 on an all-inclusive travel package through a tour company registered in the state of Maryland.

“They saved their whole lives for this,” Wurie said.

But what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime turned tragic this week, when Wurie learned that her mother Isatu Tejan Wurie, 65, and father Alieu Dausy Wurie, 71, were among the hundreds of pilgrims who have died.

The Wuries were American citizens from Bowie, Maryland. Mrs. Wurie had recently retired as a head nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Prince George’s Count.

Wurie said she had been in close contact with her parents while they were in Saudi Arabia via a family group chat. It was in that chat, she said, that she learned that the tour company did not provide the proper transportation or credentials needed to participate in the pilgrimage. The group her parents were traveling with, which included up to 100 fellow pilgrims, lacked sufficient food and supplies for the five-to-six-day journey that is a pillar of Islam, she said.

Wurie believes her parents were not “properly prepared” for the trip by the tour operator and “did not receive what they paid for” from the company.

She last heard from her parents on Saturday, June 15, when her mother messaged that they had already been waiting for transportation for hours to take them to Mount Arafat. She believes they were located in Mina at the time. The couple ultimately opted to walk instead and sent a message to their daughter after they had been walking for over two hours.

The couple then joined fellow pilgrims and others in their tour group on Mount Arafat, where they were gathering to pray and reflect on the holy site. A man on their tour group contacted Saida Wurie to say that her parents had gone missing on Mount Arafat, after her father said that he could not continue on the journey and stopped for a break along the way. The man had continued to the top of Mount Arafat but could not find the couple upon his descent.

Wurie received death notifications from the US Consulate in Jeddah, which had obtained them from the Saudi Interior Ministry, saying her parents had died of “natural causes” on June 15. She was later advised by someone at the US Embassy that heat stroke would be considered a natural cause.

The Consulate General’s Office told her that her parents had already been buried, but have been unable to tell her exactly where.

Now, Saida and her brothers are doing everything they can to get answers and find their parents’ burial place.

“We did ask the Saudi government to hold the bodies in order for us to travel to Saudi Arabia to at least give them the proper burial with [their] children being present and to be able to identify the bodies,” she told Whitfield. “Unfortunately, they have already been buried.”

⁠She would like American diplomats to meet her and her siblings on the ground when they arrive to assist them in finding where their parents are buried and collecting their belongings, since she does not know Arabic and is not familiar with the area. As of Saturday, diplomats have not committed to meeting them in person in Saudi Arabia, she said.

The US State Department confirmed there had been “deaths of multiple US citizens in Saudi Arabia,” but declined to comment on any specifics around the Wurie family.

Extreme heat has been named as a main factor behind the hundreds of deaths and injuries reported this year during the Hajj. Mecca, the holy city that is central for Hajj pilgrims, saw temperatures soar to a record-setting 125 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday.

High temperatures for this year’s gathering had been expected, with the Saudi army deploying more than 1,600 personnel with medical units and 30 rapid response teams specifically for heatstroke. Another 5,000 health and first aid volunteers were also on duty.

The exact death toll remains unclear and is expected to rise, as countries around the world have been independently announcing the deaths of their nationals.

Concern over improper tour groups has also grown. Egypt announced it was revoking the licenses of 16 travel agencies that organize Hajj trips on Saturday, according to the state-run news agency Ahram Online.

This isn’t the first time hundreds of pilgrims have died while traveling for the Hajj, which this year attracted more than 1.8 million people. In 2015 more than 700 people were killed during a stampede in the Saudi Arabian city of Mina, just outside of Mecca. In 2006, 363 people were killed during a stampede at the site where pilgrims gathered to participate in the ‘stoning of the devil’ ritual in Mina. Last year, more than 200 people died.