Pebble casting and Hajj 2015’s Jamaraat casualties (1)

THE world has been assailed with a multiplicity of shenanigans and religious juridical and ideological declarations over the twin tragedies that rocked Hajj 2015 in Saudi Arabia. The first was the crane crash recorded in the Holy Ka’bah before the movement of pilgrims to the Holy Sanctuaries while the second was witnessed during the casting of pebbles as a symbol of remembrance of Allah at the designated area known as Jamaraat.

While the former has not really exposed the Saudi Hajj authorities to much external verbal and written attacks, the latter seems to have generated comments, criticisms and, in some cases, unveiled attacks on Muslims by writers in various parts of the globe. However, there has been little objective attention to some of the most salient aspects of the question especially the rationale for and the juridical implication of the pebble casting rite as well as the Saudi factor in the preponderant nature of this year’s casualties.

This article is an attempt to beam a search light on these two issues. In order to achieve an appreciable level of coherence and logicality through a sequential narration, I chose to start and end the piece with a discussion on the Saudi factor in order to conveniently situate the jurisprudential dimension of my argument in the heart of the essay.

It is not out of place to allude from the onset to Article Four of a particular official Hajj operational instrument, which contains a provision entitled Grouping for Stoning Rites at Jamaraat.

It reads in part, “In view of the importance attached to the grouping of pilgrims for stoning at Jamaraat and its implication for pilgrims’ safety during the performance of the stoning rites especially with regard to the crowd and stampede, the Hajj Ministry is pleased to emphasise the need for ‘various national Hajj authorities’ to employ all possible means to keep to the schedules prepared by the Ministry of Hajj for the purpose of grouping the pilgrims for advancement to Jamaraat for the stoning rites, as indicated on-line…”

It is easily derivable from the above excerpt that the issue of safety is paramount in the estimation of the Saudi Hajj authorities, which is why Hajj coordinators from various countries are regularly assigned some roles in facilitating full implementation of the provision. At this juncture, the leadership of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) deserves plaudits for its uncompromising stance with regard to this and other Hajj-related regulations of similar nature.

For instance, the helm’s man of the Commission, Barrister Abdullah Mukhtar was widely reported in the media as emphasising the need to move to the Holy Sanctuaries according to the official schedule of movements. Mukhtar was pointblank assuring that the Commission would not hesitate to sanction erring pilgrim who disregards the pebble casting schedule. The essence of alluding to this is to disabuse the minds of those who deliberately cast aspersions on both the Saudi and other various national Hajj authorities on account of what is regarded as ‘avoidable casualties’.

At least, if nothing else is achieved, this piece of information will serve to render invalid the growing thinking that the pebble casting rite is hellish and infernal and should not have been made central and integral to Hajj obligations. It is now common knowledge that Nigeria’s Amir-ul-Hajj to Hajj 2015 who incidentally is the Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano was both aggrieved and disturbed by the huge fatalities recorded during the exercise this year.

On October 3, 2015, virtually all major Nigerian dailies featured the story where the revered Emir was quoted as saying, “it will be part of my recommendation to the Federal government that, if we cannot get accommodation close to ‘Jamrat’ where the Arabs reside in Mina, then this year may be the last time we will sleep in Mina and Muzdalifa because we want to stone the devil. Besides, that if one deliberately refuses to even perform the stoning of the devil rituals, all he needs to do is just to slaughter a ram. So, if this is the situation, why do we go and suffer and die instead of sacrificing a ram.”

There were two notable immediate but somewhat monosyllabic responses to the Emir’s unveiled pronouncement in the Nigerian media. The two were published in The Nation of October 5, 2015. One was the voice of the President of the Ansar-ud-Deen Society of Nigeria, Alhaji Abdul-Lateef Femi Okunnu who described the pronouncement as the revered Emir’s personal opinion and articulated the expected role of Amir-ul-Hajj in making recommendation to the leadership of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) where such an issue shall later be presented for discussion.

The other was the voice of a spiritual head of a Lagos-based Muslim organization who described Alhaji Sanusi as a traditional ruler venturing into an area of Islamic expertise. This obviously is a gaffe exposing its author as unfamiliar with Sanusi’s scholarship in Islamic Jurisprudence and other Arabic sciences. Although a traditional ruler, Sanusi is arguably more competent and qualified to pronounce on Islamic matters than most of the contemporary Islamic scholars in Nigeria, even though the position he attempted to promote in this connection seems somewhat bizarre.

Consequently, Dr. Ahmad Gumi joined the conversation and declared, as published in The Nigerian Pilot of October 11, 2015, “Nobody can stop any pilgrim from the stoning of devil not even the Saudi Authority,” adding that it depends on the ability of a pilgrim who him or herself can or assign someone to slaughter in exchange for the stoning. Concerning Emir Sanusi’s clamour for a better location for Nigerian pilgrims in Muna, Gumi argued that, “People are complaining about Africans. Other nations when they stay close to Africans, they complain of noise making and behaviours. Some don’t wear hijabs, men and women doing all sorts of things. So, these are the reasons why we cannot bargain for very good choice of area but rich Nigerians and those government officials they get accommodation very close to the Arafat.”

One cannot but offer a laudatory and approving remark on Gumi’s view. However, one must not fail to point out an injurious dimension of the view as evident in its support to the Saudi complaints about Black Africans thereby insinuating rather unconsciously that Nigerian pilgrims are being deliberately accommodated at their present station in Muna owing to their ways of life such as noise-making and indiscriminate intermingling of men and women, among others, and therefore may not be relocated to any better spot, as being advocated by Sanusi. What a flammable conjecture of a calamitous causative! This way, Dr. Gumi invariably subscribes to Emir Sanusi’s thinking that the remoteness of the Nigerian camps in Muna to the Jamaraat, was a factor in the fatal stampede. What about the Iranian pilgrims who are located far-afield from Nigerians and yet did not find the stampede less fatal than Nigerians? Any critical mind familiar with the terrain, its logistics and operational mechanisms shall find no strain in characterizing the problem as having more to do with Hajj authorities’ anticipatory capacities and individual pilgrims’ adherence or disregard to movement schedule or performance regulations for the Sanctuaries. This writer can reveal from experience that few notable State Hajj coordinators especially from Southwestern Nigeria normally lead the performance of the pebble casting rite, rather brazenly, defiantly and unabashedly, outside the time officially stipulated for their groups.

•Ahmad Rufai is Acting Dean, Faculty of Education, Sokoto State University
TO BE CONTINUED