Aidil Adha was here...

Today, Muslims all over the world celebrate Aidil Adha or the Completion of the Haj celebration with the offer of sacrifice at the Mount of Arafat where the Prophet (pbuh) said His final sermon or Khutbah. Here the faithful in the millions gather on this final day of the Haj and today the News said that there was a stampede and over 2020 people were recorded dead. How tragic! Only a week ago a large crane had collapsed and killed some 200 people in Mekah where they were performing the Tawaf and i will google more accurate information now:

On 11 September 2015, a crawler crane toppled over onto the Masjid al-Haram, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. 118 people were killed and 394 injured.^[3][4][5]The city was preparing for the Hajj pilgrimage.^[6][7][8]

Fifteen Indians, ten Malaysians, twenty-two Bangladeshis, fifteen Iranians, forty-two Indonesians,^{[9][10][11][12]} six Nigerians, and fifty-one Pakistanis were injured.^[13] Eleven Pakistanis, eleven Indians and two Britons were among the dead.^[14] The accident has been cited as the deadliest crane collapse in modern history, with the previous most deadly incident being the collapse of a construction crane in New York City in 2008, killing seven people.^{[15] Wikipedia.}

Some one thousand people have been evacuated following a fire at the eighth floor of a hotel housing pilgrims from Asia in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Civil Defense agency said that at least two people were hurt in the blaze that engulfed the hotel early Thursday.

The agency would not disclose either the nationality of the pilgrims, or the cause of the incident.

The fire occurred at a time when thousands of Muslim pilgrims are pouring into the holy city to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

At least 717 Haj pilgrims were reported killed and nearly 805 others injured in a stampede in Mina in Makkah province in western Saudi Arabia on Thursday morning where two million pigrims from across the world have gathered for the annual Haj pilgrimage.

According to a local report, the incident took place around 5 am (local time) as thousands of Haj pilgrims rushed through the Street 204 in Mina to participate in the 'stoning of the devil' ritual in Jamarat.

Jamarat is carried out on Eid al-Adha or the Feast of Sacrifice, and it  symbolises the rejection of sin and temptation. 

The stampede took place at the Street 204 in Mina, which is one of the two main roads that leads to camp Jamarat, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil by hurling pebbles. The pilgrims were allowed to continue towards the Jamrat complex for 'stoning of the devil' ritual after the civil defences forces cleared the bodies and took away the injured.

y Johnlee Varghese

| Updated: September 24, 2015 18:19 IST  International Business Times.

What is going on? Why the violent deaths in the vicinity of the House of the Lord? The Holy land under siege? Perhaps just accidents and they do happen, accidents do. But i feel a little disturbed by the incidents even before the second one occurred. The Saudi King and countrymen are most probably also thinking beyond mere accidents by now and i hope that they do too. The blind eye cast at the carnage in Syria today by the Saudi government would piss off any God for that matter; not only Allah! The wanton acts of killing and brutalizing the people of Palestine, man women and child is unforgivable and yet the Saudi government plays minimal role in putting an end to this crimes against humanity. Something is not right when tons of meat is  being slaughtered and most wasted while in most African countries there is starvation and malnutrition of millions of man women and child, what is the sacrifice for? The amount of money changing hands itself is sacrilege when one takes a closer look at what it cost to do the haj and who is profiting from it big time.

My niece in Balik Pulau and I am sure ll over the country has already started saving accounts for her kids, one to three year old so they can do the haj when they get to by my age and that is if they are lucky. Their grandmother is till waiting faithfully with apprehensions whether she would get her chance this year or the next or the year after. Ironically i will never get invited to my Lord's House even if my eldest son lives a stone's throw from the Kaabah. That's karma, another story maybe will tell in the future when the subject arises. I dram of walking there through the continent of India and so forth but too late now as my physical condition is unpredictable; don't have what it takes or so it seems. But a man as they say can propose and God disposes.

On this Holy day of Aidil Adha, I wish all my family and relatives and Muslim friends all over the world, Happy Haj!