Abstract
The great Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, named the Hajj, is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world. Besides the Islamic creed, daily prayers, almsgiving, and fasting during Ramadan, the Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is a religious duty: every able-bodied Muslim is obliged to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in her/his lifetime. In 2009 more than three million pilgrims approached Mecca to perform Hajj. Most of the rites performed by the pilgrims during the Hajj are related to important incidents of the life of Abraham. They are performed at certain places in Mecca and the region east of Mecca. In the past decades several severe stampedes with hundreds of casualties have occurred. One of the most dangerous rituals is the stoning of the devil at the Jamarat Bridge in the Mena valley. Since 2000 there has been increased, ongoing improvement of the infrastructure of the locations of rites (particularly the Jamarat Bridge) at the operational level. These improvements aim to avoid crowd disasters by modern crowd-control measures. This chapter outlines some of these improvements.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Al-Haboubi, M. (2003). A new layout design for the Jamarat area (Stoning the Devil). The Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, 28(2), 131–142.
Armstrong, K. (2001a). Islam: A short history. Quezon City: Phoenix House.
Armstrong, K. (2001b). Muhammad: A biography of the prophet. Quezon City: Phoenix House.
Baxter, E. (2010). 15 % increase in Saudi pilgrims in 2010. Arabian Business. Retrieved July 19, 2010, from www.arabianbusiness.com/582928-15-increase-in-saudi-pilgrims-in-2010
BBC News. (2004). Hundreds killed in Hajj stampede. Retrieved September 17, 2012, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3448779.stm
Bianchi, R. (2004). Guests of God: Pilgrimage and politics in the Islamic world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Central Department of Statistics & Information, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. (2010). The number of pilgrims for the Years From 1416H. (1995G.) to 1430H. (2009G.). Retrieved June 25, 2010, from www.cdsi.gov.sa/showcatalog.aspx?lid=26&cgid=1002
Dar Al-Handasah. (2012). Jamarat Pedestrian bridge. Retrieved September 17, 2012, from www.dargroup.com
Guillaume, A. (1955). The life of Muhammad. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haase, K. (2006). Scheduling of Hajjis Groups in Hajj 1427H. Specialized Architectural, Engineering & Technical Reviewed Magazine issued by Ministry of Municipal & Rural Affairs. 10, 49–61.
Haase, K. (2007). Scheduling and re-scheduling the departure and stoning times of the hajjis in 1428H. Specialized Architectural, Engineering & Technical Reviewed Magazine issued by Ministry of Municipal & Rural Affairs, 11, 86–92.
Haneef, S. (2005). What everyone should know about Islam and Muslims. New Delhi: Islamic Book Service.
Hawting, G. (2003). Kà ba. In J. D. McAuliffe (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (pp. 75a–80a). Leiden: Brill.
Helbing, D., Johansson, A., & Al-Abideen, H. (2007). The dynamics of crowed disasters: An empirical study. Physical Review E, 75(4), 046109.
Johansson, A. (2009). Data-driven modeling of pedestrian crowds. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller.
Johansson, A., Helbing, D., Al-Abideen, H., & Al-Bosta, S. (2008). From crowd dynamics to crowd safety: A video-based analysis. Advances in Complex Systems, 11(4), 497–527.
Levenson, J. (2004). The conversion of Abraham to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In H. Najman & J. Newman (Eds.), The idea of Biblical interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel (pp. 3–40). Leiden: Brill.
Memish, Z., Stephens, G., Steffen, R., & Ahmed, Q. (2012). Emergence of medicine for mass gatherings: Lessons from the Hajj. The Lancet Infectious Disease 2, 12(1), 56–65.
Metcalf, B. (1990). The pilgrimage remembered: South Asian accounts of the Hajj. In D. F. Eickelman & J. Piscatori (Eds.), Muslim travellers: Pilgrimage, migration, and the religious imagination (pp. 85–107). London: Routledge.
Peters, F. (1993). A reader on classical Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Peters, F. (1994). The Hajj: The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and the holy places. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Salahuddin, M. (1986). The political role of the Hajj. In Z. Khan & Y. Zaki (Eds.), Hajj in focus (pp. 41–54). London: Open Press.
Selim, S., & Al-Rabeh, A. (2001). On the modeling of pedestrian flow on the Jamarat Bridge. Transportation Science, 25(4), 257–263.
Shariati, A. (2005). Hajj: Reflection on its rituals. North Haledon: Islamic Publications International.
Still, K. (2001). Crowd dynamics. Ph. D. thesis, Department of Mathematics, University of Warwick
Trojanow, I., & Morrison, R. (2007). Mumbai to Mecca: A pilgrimage to the holy site of Islam. London: Haus Publishing.
Watt, W. (2008). Makka – The pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods. In P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, & W. P. Heinrichs (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam (pp. 177–179). Leiden: Brill.
Wensinck, A. (2008). Kà ba. In P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, & W. P. Heinrichs (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam (Vol. 4, pp. 584–585). Leiden: Brill.
Wilson, C. (1996). Atlas of holy places and sacred sites. London: Dorling Kindersley Publishers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Müller, S. (2015). Spaces of Rites and Locations of Risk: The Great Pilgrimage to Mecca. In: Brunn, S. (eds) The Changing World Religion Map. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_42
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_42
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9375-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9376-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)