How many Americans really know about Islam?
During college, I took a Comparative World Religion course and my friend Taufique tried to make me read the Quran. He said it was the most beautiful book ever written. Maybe one day I'll read it, but not today
In my youth, these were my 5 basic takeaways from Islam:
Always pray toward Mecca.
There is no other god but Allah.
You MUST do Hajj once in your life.
Do NOT blaspheme Muhammad.
Sunnis were the "good" Muslims, they loved peace. Shiites were the "bad" Muslims, they loved the sword.
Why would I say good vs. bad Muslims? Taufique used to preach that Islam is the religion of natural harmony and the Shiites had perverted the prophet's message.
Now some of you are asking, what is the Hajj? Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca, the Holy City in Saudi Arabia. All able-bodied Muslims must do the Hajj once in their lifetimes. Hajj is serious business, it is your time to connect with Allah and walk the steps of Muhammad. (Muhammad led the Hajj in the year 632.) It is not the time for a family vacation or for tomfoolery.
Now here's the logistical problem with the Hajj. There are about 2 billion followers of Islam, if the average life expectancy in the Middle East is about 75 years, that means about 27 million pilgrims should flood into Saudi Arabia every year.
But let me tell you a secret, the Rich Saudi Princes don't like poor Muslims pouring across their borders every year. What I didn't realize until last week is that Saudi Arabia places limits on legal Hajjes. They have Hajj Quotas.
What happened last week? Over a thousand pilgrims died during the Hajj. According to Yahoo!'"Saudi Health Minister Fahd bin Abdurrahman Al-Jalajel said that 83% of the 1,301 fatalities were unauthorized pilgrims."
I had never heard of an 'unauthorized pilgrim.' And the Saudi Health Minister seemed to blame the VICTIMS for being in Saudi Arabia in the first place.
Now you may argue, "it was 125 degrees, what do you expect?" Listen, as mentioned before, the Hajj has been occurring, almost annually, for the last 1,400 years, Saudi Arabia should have the drill down by now, but they don't. And they really don't have any excuses. Even though they are an absolute monarchy, their government system is Unitary Islamic. For over a hundred years, Saudi Arabia should have been improving the paths to Mecca, instead the House of Saud has poured billions into half-realized, mega-structures across the country.
That red dot is Mecca. In theory, 75% of Muslims live on this map. Driving from Cairo to Mecca is about the same distance as Kansas City to New York. Certainly a long drive, but not an impossibility. Does the Saudi Government want you to hop in a car, program Google Maps, and make that road trip? They do not. How do I know? Let's talk about Google Maps for a second.
The above map is a satellite view of Mecca. You want the street view of Mecca? You can't have it. Not that Google doesn't want to give it to you, they certainly have the technology, the Saudi government won't allow it.
For a city with 2 million visitors in a single week every year, it is patently absurd that there's no Google Maps for Saudi Arabia.
And here's the crux of the article. All Hajjes from outside the country are controlled by the Saudi Government, you just can't show up at Mecca. You need to book a trip through a government approved Tour Company. And you just can't show up at the Saudi Border, you need a Hajj Visa.
According to the government of Indonesia, 2024 was the year the most Indonesians were able to go to Hajj. That number was 220,000. Total number of Indonesian Muslims? 240,000,000. Quick math shows that's about one in a thousand, which is about the ratio allowed by the Saudi Government for Muslim majority countries
Hajj packages from the United States start at $5,000 per person. Recent criticism of Saudi Arabia's foreign quota system hasn't fixed the problem, it simply shifted the problem.
2 million people live in Mecca and you may argue that the Hajj deaths were the fault of Global Warming. Ah, ah, ah, not so fast. The news clearly reported that over a thousand PILGRIMS died, not Saudi Citizens.
If you give the Saudi Government a pass and blame the Sun for those deaths, how do you explain?
The 2015 Hajj Stampede that killed over 2,000?
The 1990 Hajj Stampede that killed over 1,400?
The 2004 Hajj Stampede that killed over 200?
There have been NINE major incidents at Hajj in the last generation. There shouldn't be an inherent risk to performing the Hajj.
You know why this year's Hajj Disaster is already out of the news cycle in the United States? Because we collectively don't care about Saudi Arabia. If a thousand people died in the heat in a place like Chicago, and their bodies were just strewn along the roadside, like in Mecca, there would be a national outcry and people would question the local government, then the state government, then President Biden (depending on your political affiliation.) That story would grind on for weeks.
Here's the front of Al Jazeera right now. Notice the Hajj story is gone there, too. Why isn't it the lead story in neighboring Qatar? Because Qatar is the richest country in the Middle East. They don't have any trouble paying the fare.
If 27 million Muslims should be going a year, but only around 2 million are allowed, that's less than 10% of what the Quran dictates. Hajj is not supposed to be the equivalent of a ride on the Virgin Galactic or a climb on Mt. Everest if you don't live in Saudi Arabia.
Your argument is that Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 envisions the ability to accommodate 30 million pilgrims a year in only 6 short years? I don't believe that for a second. Maybe, MAYBE, if the expansion of Mecca was the only thing on Salman's construction list, but he has a prioritized list of 5 Giga Projects, with no one to build them. Saudi Arabia has the largest population of Slave Labor in the Middle East. They would need to TRIPLE that number just to finish HALF those projects. And I haven't even mentioned "The Line."
Al Jazeera gets the last word: "Visits to the holiest sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina for Hajj, and the year-round Umrah pilgrimage, previously earned Saudi Arabia about $12bn a year, according to official data."