And yet geography was not taught properly in school and the layperson’s knowledge is full of holes. I had been telling my patients that I was to be going to the pilgrimage to Mecca, and they might as well have put holes in my head with the following. At home a couple discusses where Mecca is, the wife says it was in India, the husband says that it was in Iraq and the mother volunteers Egypt. Finally the college educated husband looks up the encyclopedia and realizes that it is Saudi Arabia. Physicians are taught to remain impassive but this one time my shock was writ large on my face and in the next visit the sheepish couple came armed with their own little survey. They had asked 60 other people, one of who was a schoolteacher and only one person, not the schoolteacher, knew that Mecca was in Saudi Arabia!

This when Mecca is the holiest place to a billion plus of the world’s population, and Mecca has been a noun in the English language for ages. With disbelief at this ignorance I headed toward the land where my belief took shape, for a journey each Muslim is especially invited for. Quite the Divine invitation!

It is no wonder that the cool breeze of Medina is echoed in poem after poem, it is as though serenity and love first touch and then encircle you as you walk in Masjid-e-Nabawi [the Prophet’s (pbuh) mosque]. And there is no green quite like that of the dome of the Prophet’s (pbuh) mosque. And the pillars within are tastefully done in a light gray and cream encircled near the top third with shiny brass.

My first call and connection with the Almighty came in Medina. Much to my chagrin prayer was lacking in concentration and I complained in prostration that I had traveled thousands of miles and what an untold tragedy it was that my eyes were dry. In the very next unit of prayer, I was suddenly overcome, as was my single unprepared-for-the-flood tissue. I felt overawed by both the alacrity of acceptance of my prayer as well as the volume and duration of my tears.

In the restricted hours in which women are allowed to go to the Prophet’s (pbuh) grave and pray in Riadh-ul-Jannah [the area between the grave of the Prophet (pbuh) and the pulpit that he used, which shall be raised as is to Heaven on the Day of Judgment] the Saudi government has organized it such that as soon as a certain number of women fill Riadh-ul-Jannah, the rest are held back by a cordon, and allowed entry only after the earlier batch has finished praying.

My second connection came after Arafat. I have wanted to understand the Arabic of the Qur’an and had worked on it a little before Hajj. Arafat is Hajj, so goes a Hadith. After Dhuhr proceeded with the long wish list for myself as well as all the requests of friends and family that I had written in a little red diary. The sea of humanity in Muzdalifa certainly calls to mind what the Day of Judgment is likely to be. It is amazing that the buses tires do not drive over the people that seem to be sleeping unconcerned in the middle of parking lots and roads. Upon leaving Muzdalifa after Fajr I opened the Qur’an and I suddenly felt what a blind person must feel when given sight. I could understand much more of the Qur’an than I had previously. It seemed almost eerie.

Put off by the manner in which Islam was taught in my childhood in Pakistan where there was always talk of punishment and Hell, I have tended to ignore punishment of the grave as lore and hysteria. In Mina though on the first day when the big devil is to be stoned by all 1.4 million people between dhuhr and maghrib, my ignorance was decimated by a stark simulation of that awful time that the deceased suffers soon after burial.

It is reprehensible that the Saudi government has been entirely lackadaisical about any kind of organization on this the most deadly day of Hajj. Year after year after year. In Masjid-e-Nabawi, there is order for a few thousand women. In Jamarat (stoning) there is a free-for-all for all of the million and a half that went this year and more that have gone previously. There is no entry area, no exit, no cordon, no police, and no organizers. I had already made the connection between the two sheets of white cloth that is the ahraam for men and the two sheets that are a coffin for all Muslims.

As the bus turned the corner and I saw the multitude going toward Jamarat my knees felt weak sitting down and I envisioned the Day of Judgment. And then the azabul-qabr (punishment of the grave) that I had scoffed at suddenly happened to me in the wild crowd at Jamarat. I was crushed simultaneously at both shoulders and I screamed “Oh Allah I cannot breathe!”

Prior to going to Jamarat we were reminded about what we had read in all the books: do not go after your shoe should you lose it. I had barely gotten myself together after the simulated azabul-qabr when I saw my friend going down, whirlpool like into the crowd. I screamed her name and we pulled her up. She was reflexively going after her shoe.

The 250 that died that day in Jamarat were from Pakistan, India and Africa, most probably not a part of an organized tour group, and from the list of names on PTV most were from the villages of Pakistan. That we know of no American or European Muslim died that day. Insult to injury, the Saudi Hajj minister, Prince Naif says in an interview to the Saudi Gazette that the Hajj was very well organized and the deaths in Jamarat were simply the Will of God.

The Pakistan Link had a photo of Saudi police standing idly at Jamarat to fend off a terrorist attack. What about the deaths of the 250 that undoubtedly died due to the passive terrorism, read gross negligence, unleashed by the Saudi government? There are after all dozens of places all over the world where there are tremendous crowds, but simple organization, allowing a certain number in, having defined entry and exit areas and live and continual education by official guides can prevent needless deaths.

Dawn reported that Saudi Arabia made US $1.38 billion during Hajj this year. We must also not forget Saudi Arabia’s large oil reserves. From time immemorial people have been getting crushed and dying in Jamarat.

Potential Hajis are told that theirs is a special invitation by Allah and that they must not bad mouth the Hajj experience for they are likely not to be invited again, besides it serving as a disincentive to people, whence it is a mandatory ritual for all Muslims. And I certainly agree and feel very blessed that He chose me for this journey of a lifetime. He also told us to “enjoin what is just and forbid what is wrong” (31:17) and that killing one person is like killing all of humanity and saving one is like saving all of humanity.

Hajj is to be a reminder of death and the Day of Judgment. I feel assured that the Saudi government will have to account, on that very Day that the Hajj commemorates, for all the hundreds of thousands that have died during Jamarat died preventable deaths. There must be a class-action lawsuit against the Saudi government recompensing all the relatives of the dead and more importantly defining what steps it has taken to ensure that not a single soul dies in the future. This is not rocket science. The police that was languishing on the edge of Jamarat needs to be trained to direct the crowd for it takes barely two minutes to throw seven stones, the crowd needs to enter, stone and leave, the last from the opposite end of the entry area.

If this is done in an organized manner it is possible to have the majority stone between dhuhr and maghrib, and if it is not possible then Ijtehaad (reinterpretation of religious law in light of current reality) needs to be done, for more sacred than following minute religious tradition is the sanctity of human life. The Muslim Ummah will be collectively held liable not for stoning during makrooh (not recommended) hours but for the needless deaths of the thousands that continue to die every year. For its silent but wholly participatory conspiracy.

This writer contacted the higher echelons of the Pakistan government and asked for a contact in the Hajj ministry as well as the name of a lawyer that would help file a case against the Saudi government in the International Court of Justice. I was glibly informed that Saudi Arabia was a friendly government and that the Pakistani government could give no such information. Mortified I wondered about the ethics of it all. Ethics notwithstanding said the Pakistani government.

So the fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia is getting away with bloody murder, no pun intended, just because of the blind eye lent by all the friendly Muslim governments. As far as Pakistan is concerned what are a few hundred poor villagers compared to the oil-rich behemoth that Saudi Arabia is. And when was might not right?

I have been reminded that if I was to file a case in the International Court of Justice, I can kiss a visa to Saudi Arabia an eternal goodbye. And I am sad to say that that thought has stopped me dead in my tracks, for there is no place in the whole world that I would rather be than the Kaaba. For there it was: my crowning glory. It was tawaaf-ul-widaa (the goodbye circumambulation) which we elected to do just before fajr on the top floor from where the view is breathtaking. On this day almost all the 1.4 million were in the Kaaba. After the fajr adhaan in sunnat while in prostration I quoted to God one of the last verses of Surah Yasin “Verily when He intends a thing His Command is be and it is” (36:82) with the supplication that He should do just that for me. Right after in the fard prayer, Imam Sudesi owner of that awesome voice, read Surah Fateha and then the last four verses of Surah Yasin of which the above is the second verse. I am still overcome, for it seemed to me that out of a million and a half people God had responded to pathetic little me!

It was with much sadness that I tore myself away from the Kaaba, for I was leaving the House of God. And then that verse came to mind “We have created Man and we know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him for We are closer to him than his jugular vein” (50:16) Yes I was leaving the House of God but I was not so sad anymore, convinced that He was coming with me.

Mahjabeen Islam is a physician practicing in Toledo Ohio. Her email address is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com