Pay up or be roasted
Riyadh — The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, an AFP tally said on Thursday, more than half of them unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia. The new deaths reported Thursday included 58 from Egypt, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that of 658 total dead from that country, 630 were unregistered.
All told around 10 countries have reported 1,081 deaths during the annual pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam which all Muslims with the means must complete at least once. The figures have come via official statements or from diplomats working on their countries’ responses.
We’re told Allah is merciful. If that’s true why doesn’t he (and he is a he) update the five pillars? Why doesn’t he tell his slaves to stay home if Mecca is too hot?
The national meteorological center reported a high of 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit) earlier this week at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Egyptian officials reached by CBS News would not confirm the figures stated by the AFP, but dozens of videos posted on social media in recent days showed bodies lying on the streets around the Grand Mosque.
Wait, it gets worse.
Every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the hajj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly official permits. Saudi authorities reported clearing hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca earlier this month, but it appears many still participated in the main rites which began last Friday. This group was more vulnerable to the heat because, without official permits, they could not access air-conditioned spaces provided by Saudi authorities for the 1.8 million authorized pilgrims to cool down after hours of walking and praying outside.
Isn’t that lovely? Saudi Arabia parlays its ownership of Mecca into a cash machine, but the haj is one of the 5 pillars so people are determined to go so they skip the permits so cash-greedy Saudi Arabia lets them be cooked in the streets. No $$$ no air conditioned spaces for you.
Well that’s the problem, not just with Allah but with gods in general. For some reason they’re extremely reticent, and only speak through actual living human beings, but then that leaves the problem of which actual living human being is really speaking for a god, and which is just bullshitting. Joseph Smith, Mohamed, Jesus, Moses–how do we know if they were actually talking to god? If a god really wanted to be effective, it would just show its face in the sky and shout out “Don’t go to Mecca in the middle of summer, you fucking morons! The heat’ll kill you. Also, quit burning up so many fossil fuels. You’re ruining my creation!”
And Lo, it came to pass that Allah appeared to the faithful as they dreamed, asleep, and said, “trouble yourselves not, for I am good to my people. Mecca is within your heart, and if you have love for me, then you are already there.” Then the people were filled with joy, for they and their loved ones wouldn’t die on a fifty degree day in a queue in Saudi Arabia.
Saving lives, I am.
When Richard Burton infiltrated the Haj in 1853, the road to Mecca was swarming with bandits who robbed and killed pilgrims with impunity. The faithful formed large caravans and even then had to fight through.