Pilgrims stone Satan in most dangerous hajj rite


By Abdel Hadi al-Habtoor, AFP
Nov 06, 2011 at 09:37

MINA, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - Almost three million Muslim pilgrims massed on Sunday in a valley near the Saudi holy city of Mina to stone pillars representing Satan, the last and most dangerous rite of the annual hajj.

Hundreds of people have been trampled to death in stampedes which have blighted several previous pilgrimages to Islam's holiest sites when the faithful rush to hurl stones at huge pillars symbolising the devil.

To complete the ritual, pilgrims must throw seven pebbles at each of three 25-metre (82-foot) pillars on the first day of the three-day Eid al-Adha feast marking the end of the hajj, and another seven on each of the last two days.

"This ritual gives me moral strength. Right now I feel as though I'm defeating Satan," said Mokhtar Khan, a 29-year-old who arrived at the site with dozens of fellow Bangladeshis who chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest).

Another devotee about to perform the ritual, 25-year-old Egyptian Mohammed Husseinin, quipped that he would "feel better once I've stoned Satan, my biggest enemy."

Saudi authorities have installed a multi-level walkway through the site in a bid to avoid the trampling that caused the deaths of 364 people in 2006, 251 in 2004 and 1,426 in 1990.

So far, no major incidents have been reported among the pilgrims, which the Saudi statistics office said numbered 2.93 million this year. The figure includes 1.83 million people from abroad.

The stoning site has been "developed... (and) movement is more fluid and the organisation is better," said the Bangladeshi Khan, who is on his eighth pilgrimage in his capacity as a member of the hajj organising committee.

A large security force monitored worshippers for the stoning after the slaughtering of sheep in a ritual for Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, to recall Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's order.

Most pilgrims did not sacrifice an animal themselves, but instead bought vouchers from the Saudi authorities who then forward meat in the form of aid to poor Muslims in other countries.

After the stoning ceremony, the pilgrims go to Mecca's Great Mosque for a "farewell visit" to the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure into which is set the Black Stone, Islam's most sacred relic.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and must be performed at least once in a lifetime by all those who are able to make the journey.

Mukhtar al-Rahman, who is more than 100 years of age, told AFP that "this is the dream of my life which took a century to come true."

"The crowds have tired me and as you can see I can't stand properly because of the huge crowds flooding" into the area, the elderly Bengali said panting as he looked for a small chair to sit on.

Coping with the world's largest annual human gathering poses a security headache for Saudi Arabia -- guardian of the two holiest Muslim shrines in the cities of Mecca and Medina, the birth places of Islam.

To help prevent chaos, the authorities have numbered buses and tents in Mina and Mount Arafat, where the pilgrims spent Saturday, according to the countries from which the pilgrims have come.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has invested billions of dollars over the years to avoid the deadly stampedes that have marred the hajj in the past.

The Chinese-built Mashair Railway, also known as the Mecca Metro, is operating for the first time this year at its full capacity of 72,000 people per hour to ease congestion.

The two-track light railway connects the three holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat.

For the first time this year, the hajj is being streamed live on video-sharing website YouTube in cooperation with the Saudi government.

The stream can be seen at youtube.com/hajjlive.

The ministry of religious affairs sends 3.25 million text messages each day to the mobile phones of pilgrims to inform them of correct procedures for the hajj rites so as to "prevent that which is harmful," ministry official Sheikh Talal al-Uqail told the official SPA news agency.

Doesn't get much more civilized than that.

Nope. It doesn't.

And I'm quite sure that Satan runs with a quickness to avoid being pelted with pebbles.

Speaking of Satan, anybody in these parts read "The Islamic Antichrist" yet? Not that *I* would ever do such a thing, PBUM. Just sayin'.

Is this Occupy Mina? Did Michael Moore show up?

R.O.C.K. in the USSA wrote:Nope. It doesn't.

And I'm quite sure that Satan runs with a quickness to avoid being pelted with pebbles.

Speaking of Satan, anybody in these parts read "The Islamic Antichrist" yet? Not that *I* would ever do such a thing, PBUM. Just sayin'.

No but "God's War on Terror"? (we are not admitting to anything here) is the same line of thought. Written by former PLO "patriot".

There is a tent in the picture. Darned few have seen a shower in (forever) a while. All we need is a couple of guys crapping on a police car and wiping their butts with thier left hands (enroute to the kitchen), and we have all the proof we need.

OCCUPY MINA and MEDINA! Toss out the 1% (except the Royal Family of course, who graciously fund protests, and pension plans)!!!

R.O.C.K. in the USSA wrote:Nope. It doesn't.

And I'm quite sure that Satan runs with a quickness to avoid being pelted with pebbles.

Speaking of Satan, anybody in these parts read "The Islamic Antichrist" yet? Not that *I* would ever do such a thing, PBUM. Just sayin'.

I've read Joel Richardson's first edition of The Islamic Antichrist (Antichrist: Islam's Awaited Messiah) and after conversing with the author regarding the updates contained in the second edition, I highly recommend it.

I also highly recommend Craig Winn's, Prophet of Doom, which can be downloaded for free (text or audio -- if you don't want to read 988 pages) at his website https://www.prophetofdoom.net.

Winn spent well over 10,000 hours studying the Koran and Hadith and putting the whole thing into proper context (the way Islamic Imams do to issue proper fatwa). It is very revealing and makes you wonder how ANYONE with two brain cells to rub together would follow "allah" and his nutty "prophet."

Personally every time I get really pissed I throw a shoe at someone. Well, what's worse than that? I get testy when I run out of sheep's eyeballs and girls to throw back into a burning school because they're improperly dressed, as they do in the Kingdom of Saud.

Ooopsy...I thought this was a post concerning "The Peoples' Herb".

"This ritual gives me moral strength. [highlight=#ffff00]Right now I feel as though I'm defeating Satan,"[/highlight] said Mokhtar Khan, a 29-year-old who arrived at the site with dozens of fellow Bangladeshis who chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest).

Who woulda thunk?

Ah, Whinny, nothing starts off my day like watching the perfect justice of the Religion of Peace as a woman who has been imprisoned all her life in smothering black garment in the desert heat being buried up to her shoulders and then being stoned. Is she dead yet?

Oh, as a Made Prog, how I lust for the heady days of the Siberian work camps.

Pardon me. I must jet to OWS. Where we're having increasing criminality, vandalism, and lots of lovely assault.

It's For the Children™.

Father Prog,

You know the saying (in Arabic—how I wish Mrs Al Czarweary were here now to translate): "Practice Makes Perfect". "Moral strength" for these testosterone-ladden righteous followers of Allah comes from the oppressing and repressing of the weaker sex, namely women.

There's nothing better than throwing stones at an 82' pillar (equivalent of the broadside of a barn) when practicing to execute "justice" on a black Burqa Bag™-clad "she-devil-spawn-of-satan in 120° temperatures. Get thee behind me, satan!

Oh yes; the... "OWS". Or as I have thoughtfully korreckted and updated to be referred to as the "ABM", which stands for Astroturf Bowel Movement. I do hope you included your de-licing powder with you, and nitrite gloves—just to be safe.

Afterall, we're helping The Children™—one burning car, two broken plate glass windows, and three sexual assaults resulting in STDs—at a time.

Astroturf Bowel Movement. Very nice, Whinny; very nice. And indeed all this was astroturfed and the resemblance to a bowel movement is gobsmacking.

What I love about Occupy is that they pee and poop on everything, and the rape, and the violence, and the shooting. Now THESE are real protestors, having rubbished downtown areas for months at a time.

Compare them to the Teabaggers, who paid for their permits, left when they were supposed to, and left it cleaner than when they came. And did no property damage.

That's just WRONG, not to trash things. Where's the prog in that?

100% Infidel wrote:Ooopsy...I thought this was a post concerning "The Peoples' Herb".

This is the way they stoned the devil:



Or is it the way they got stoned by the devil ...?

I always like the slaughter after the stoning. It's fun for the whole family. Nothing quite like wallowing and frolicking in the slippery blood. Just get a good running start, belly flop and slide through the red corpuscles! Fun, fun, FUN!...and Holy too!

Northern Dallas has many apartments and balconies which are full of sheep bought in Oklahoma to be slaughtered for the Holy Month's feast. I'm told that it's most instructive to see one put into the back seat of a Mercedes. We do not know if the burqa-clad women had to walk on the outside like hoplites.

Father Prog Theocritus wrote:What I love about Occupy is that they pee and poop on everything, and the rape, and the violence, and the shooting. Now THESE are real protestors, having rubbished downtown areas for months at a time.

Compare them to the Teabaggers, who paid for their permits, left when they were supposed to, and left it cleaner than when they came. And did no property damage.

That's just WRONG, not to trash things. Where's the prog in that?

Father Prog,

That's why the Astroturfers have all the "street cred", whereas the TEA-baggers are are just howlin' in the wind lunatics, fringe crazies who deserve every bit of laughter and disrespect that Bill Ma 'haha' her can dish out.

Where have you ever heard of a protest where they go to Village Hall to fill out all the required permits to have a "protest", and then *cough* PAY for it? Is there anything so delegitimizing than that?

And what, pray tell, serious protest rally would leave the place cleaner than when they arrived?! Is any group that does that deserve to be taken seriously?! Where's the passion? The fire(s)? The burning cars for change? I concur: it is WRONG! No PAIN; no GAIN.

Father Prog wrote: We do not know if the burqa-clad women had to walk on the outside like hoplites.

But we DO know they would crawl on broken glass if their man-handlers ordered them to do so.

Yes. In WWII the Muslim women walked in front of the men instead of behind, because that's where the land mines were. The religion of blow them into pieces.

You're right: it's just not a protest unless there is damage to innocents' property, great inconvenience, a smutty vandalization of everything, and all done by people who would scratch the paint on a car they couldn't afford and then blame the person who could for working to get it.

Laika the Space Dog wrote:I always like the slaughter after the stoning. It's fun for the whole family. Nothing quite like wallowing and frolicking in the slippery blood. Just get a good running start, belly flop and slide through the red corpuscles! Fun, fun, FUN!...and Holy too!

And don't forget the afterhours festivities. The blood never stops flowing, and the fun never ends!

Father Prog Theocritus wrote:You're right: it's just not a protest unless there is damage to innocents' property, great inconvenience, a smutty vandalization of everything, and all done by people who would scratch the paint on a car they couldn't afford and then blame the person who could for working to get it.

Now, THAT'S the sort of Proglogik™ and COMMON SENSE I can wrap my feigned intellect around!

And those crazy teabaggers are protesting All American Muslim.

Hell...Oops...I mean "Heaven's to Betsy"...Just look at the glorious photos in this topic. They bleed the true Red, White, and Blue. Well....mostly Red. As a matter of fact lots of slippery Red. Rivers of Red. A Sea of Red...and Death to The Infidels. Death to America! Allah forbid! I just had the "Chris Matthews Effect". Must. Calm. Down. Too Excited!

What happens when the mooslems finally kill Amerikkka? Then who will they scream "DEATH" to next?

Yes, all the RED for blood, and all the GREEN they take from the rich Amerikkkans for the foreign oil. It's beginning to look a LOT like Christmas!

Laika the Space Dog wrote:I always like the slaughter after the stoning. It's fun for the whole family. Nothing quite like wallowing and frolicking in the slippery blood. Just get a good running start, belly flop and slide through the red corpuscles! Fun, fun, FUN!...and Holy too!

I will concede that the spectacle is quite beautiful: juxtaposing all those colors against the lovely red, red kroovy (real horrorshow, me droogies!). But a chelloveck like myself would hate to stain his $450 shoes (my least expensive pair) by walking through the aftermath of such a morally unoffensive, cultural ritual. Not to mention all the bloody carbon footprints. Blood contains carbon, doesn't it?

Dear Pamphleteer, if people can pay more for faded and torn jeans and make a fashion statement, you can do the same with blood stains on your expensive Italian shoes. Why not?

I must confess to a certain subterranean excitement in watching the beheadings. After all, it's been so long since we had a real purge and as you know, all together now, "It's not a purge until the gutters run red!"

We need to improve some on the killing methods though; we need a one-shot-stop for Teabaggers. I had thought that the cholera which will be forthcoming from the OWS people might do it but unfortunately the Teabaggers are rather more, er, hygienic than the OWS people.

Here's an idea: let's have a litmus test for a prog: do you piss and shit on other people's property because it's there? If so, you're a prog.

If you then complain that you're owed your tantrum, you're a made prog.