Waves of H1N1 swine flu spread by some three million pilgrims travelling to and from Mecca for next month’s haj threaten to pile pressure on healthcare systems around the world, disease experts said on Thursday.

“No region can be considered free from risk,” said the U.S. and Arab experts, including Saudia Arabia’s deputy minister for preventative medicine, in a study in the journal Science.  The pilgrimage itself, in the last week of November, provides perfect conditions for the spread of the H1N1 flu virus, which is transmitted in droplets and by physical contact.

“The density of pilgrims, the nature of the rituals, and the shoulder-to-shoulder contact recommended during prayers provide a perfect transmission atmosphere,” wrote Shahul Ebrahim of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Ziad Memish of Saudi Arabia’s health ministry.

Around 3 million pilgrims from more than 160 countries take part in the haj in the holy city of Mecca most years, including up to 2 million who travel from abroad.  Memish and Ebrahim also said that after the event, around 45,000 pilgrims from Europe and more than 15,000 from North America will pass though major global airline hubs on their way home, further increasing the risk of spreading the virus.

Read the full story here.

(Photo: Flu shot, 26 Oct 2009/Ralph Orlowski)

Several Muslim countries have imposed restrictions on the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia because of worries about a major outbreak of H1N1 flu.

Here are some details from our Factbox:

* EGYPT:
– The most populous Arab state has decided to restrict umra and haj pilgrims to those over 25 and under 65. Egypt also plans to inoculate pilgrims against the H1N1 virus.
– Egypt was the first Arab country to say that the haj and the ritual of umra were a threat to its citizens’ lives.

* IRAQ:
– The health ministry says haj travel is forbidden for sick people, pregnant women, people above 65 years of age, children under 12 and obese people.
– It says it has assigned 330 doctors to go with people on the haj. While there, Iraqis will be assigned to 18 compounds where food will be prepared for them and in each compound there will be a clinic. Before going on haj one must have a checkup.

* MOROCCO:
– Morocco plans no restriction on travel for haj if the situation does not deteriorate in Saudi Arabia but has made it mandatory for its more than 30,000 pilgrims to get the anti-flu vaccine.
– Authorities will allow pilgrims to travel for haj only when they have had their passports stamped by health officials to prove they have had their vaccination, officials said.

* OMAN:
– Oman issued an order on July 6 telling high-risk groups to postpone haj.

* TUNISIA:
– Tunisia has barred its citizens from making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca for the first time because of a lack of swine flu vaccines, the government said earlier this month.
– The Ministry of Religious Affairs said a batch of H1N1 flu jabs would not arrive before mid-October, too late to ensure candidates for the pilgrimage, or haj, are vaccinated.
– Tunisia is the first country formally to cancel the pilgrimage.

(Photo: Swine flu precautions in Kuala Lumpur, 29 July 2009/Bazuki Muhammad)

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

Standing behind a wall of pearls and prayer beads in a shop in Mecca, souvenir dealer Mohammad Hamdi says business has never been so bad.  Shops, hotels and tour operators in Islam’s holiest city in western Saudi Arabia are counting the losses as many pilgrims, worried about swine flu, stay at home.

The haj, one of the world’s biggest religious gatherings, is still two months away but there has already been a marked fall in visitors for the minor pilgrimage known as umra, which can be done at any time of the year.

“In previous years people were buying a lot but now only a few come which is hitting sales,” said Hamdi, from Egypt. Hotel occupancy rates during the last ten days of the fasting month of Ramadan, when many perform umra, fell by more than a third to 55 percent compared to last year, said Walid Abu Sabaa, head of the tourism and hotels committee at the Mecca chamber of commerce.

Read the full story here. See also our two factboxes:

FACTBOX-Saudi measures to tackle flu at pilgrimage

FACTBOX: Countries impose restrictions on Mecca pilgrimage

(Photos: At left, Muslims circle the Kabaa at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, 16 Sept 2009. At right, pilgrim to the Grand Mosque carries son wearing mask against swine flu, 15 Sept 2009/Fahad Shadeed)

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

One of the many rumours that swirled around Michael Jackson in the final years of his life was that he had secretly converted to Islam and taken the name Mikaeel. The “King of Pop” does not seem to have spoken about this publicly himself, and that scene in Bahrain when he went shopping badly disguised in an Arab woman’s abaya could be put down to his well-known penchant for dressing up. So unless there is some statement in his will or documentary evidence in his estate, his funeral expected this week may be the last time to test whether this rumour has any basis in fact.

(Photo: Veiled Jackson greets security guard as he enters shopping mall in Manama, Bahrain with veiled child, 25 Jan 2006/Hamad Mohammed)

The Jacksons are Jehovah’s Witnesses and could be expected to bury Michael in the tradition of that faith. When he announced the death, his brother Jermaine — a Muslim — ended with the words: “May Allah be with you, Michael, always.” Jermaine said in 2007 he was trying to convince Michael to convert.

The post-mortem period hasn’t looked very Muslim so far. Traditions vary, but in Islamic funeral practices in general, autopsies and cremation are out and the body should be buried quickly, usually in a day or two. Jackson is reported to have asked for cremation in his will and his family has asked for a second autopsy after the first one failed to pinpoint the cause of death without long toxicology tests.

Jehovah’s Witnesses prefer short and simple funerals, usually with a Scripture reading, and warn adherents against funerals with emotional outbursts ranging “from frantic wailing and shouting in the presence of the corpse to joyous festivities after the burial. Unrestrained feasting, drunkenness, and dancing to loud music often characterize such funeral celebrations.”

The focal point of an Islamic funeral is the funeral prayer called the salat al-janazah. An imam facing Mecca leads the faithful in saying the prayer, punctuated by declarations of Allahu Akbar. The corpse of the deceased is placed perpendicular to the qibla, the direction of Mecca in which all worshippers are standing, rather than in the same direction as the faithful as usual in a Christian funeral.

The funeral service could be in the Jehovah’s Witness style, it could be Islamic or it could be a mix of the two (maybe even with borrowings from other traditions as well). If Michael Jackson’s artistic career is anything to go by, the third option wouldn’t be a surprise at all.

(Photo: Sikhs pray at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, 17 Sept 2001/Rajesh Bhambi)

Are some holy sites so holy or so unique that they shouldn’t be copied? Should monuments like the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican or the Western Wall in Jerusalem have a kind of copyright so nobody can replicate them elsewhere?

It seems unlikely that believers of any faith would undertake such a project, if for no other reason that most holy sites are quite complex, with artwork that would be very expensive to reproduce. But some Sikhs in India are building what looks like a copy of the Golden Temple, their religion’s holiest shrine, in Sangrur, 265 miles (427 km) southeast of the temple in Amritsar. The project has sparked off a debate in the Sikh community and the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), which maintains gurdwaras in India’s Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh states, has protested against it and called on the religion’s five high priests to intervene. The Sikhs building the new gurdwara deny they’re copying the famous temple, simply giving a facelift to their dilapidated gurdwara.

As Mumbai’s DNA daily put it: “Imitation is sometimes not the most acceptable form of flattery.”

Here’s an IBN-CNN video on the dispute, accompanied by a written report with more background.

(Photo: Pilgrims on the plains of Arafat, 7 Dec 2008/Saudi Press Agency)

Muslims taking part in the annual haj pilgrimage often say they have no words to describe the spiritual experience they have. Their practical struggles with the logistics are another thing altogether.

Many multi-billion-dollar improvements have been carried out over the past few years to improve safety for  pilgrims, expand the Grand Mosque and build tent cities in several areas where pilgrims have to stay for a day or more. The logistics of the haj are the main challenge that both pilgrims and the organizers face during the few days in which pilgrims are required to travel back and forth to several places to perform the rituals. There have been stampedes, fires and other accidents in the past as Muslims from around the world answered the call made by the Prophet Mohammad more than 1,400 years ago.

The benefits were clear at this year’s haj, in which over two million pilgrims have taken part without any major incident. There is still room for improvement, though, and my preference is for a train system to help pilgrims get around to perform the rituals tracking the Prophet’s steps.

So many pilgrims walk between the buses and trucks carrying fellow pilgrims to the different sites that both those on foot and those on wheels end up spending the same time to reach their destinations. Trains could solve such problems and also reduce the chance of accidents like those that often take place on the routes connecting cities around Mecca.

(Photo: Pilgrims outside Mecca, 7 Dec 2008/Ahmed Jadallah)

Several developers, construction and logistics firms around the Gulf spring to mind when one imagines improvements that could also include more organised spaces to park buses and other vehicles once they offload their passengers at tent cities.

Housing could also be improved. Many pilgrims walk long distances and then sleep rough on the road side or on the plains, in mostly hot desert weather. The problem becomes worse in the summer when  temperatures reach up to 50 degrees Celsius.

Various transport projects have been mooted in the Saudi press. To my mind there is enough time to achieve a lot so pilgrims won’t have to hike around so much in the August heat. The dates of haj are based on the lunar calendar and shift forward by about 10 days a year, so the Saudis have about a decade to get all this done.

One person who would probably welcome better transport is our Cairo bureau chief Jonathan Wright, who wrote one vivid post from the haj last year entitled “On the haj, be fit and bring sturdy sandals.”

Have you been on the haj or are you online from the Mecca area right now? What improvements would you suggest?

Here are some of our videos from the haj:

Pilgrims pray for forgiveness:

Pilgrims stone the devil:

(Photo:Anti-government protesters at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, 21 Nov 2008Kerek Wongsa)

David Fox of our Asia Desk in Singapore found this interesting faith story amid the protests at Bangkok’s international airport:

BANGKOK - Hundreds of Thai Muslims on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca were spending a third night sleeping rough at Bangkok’s international airport on Thursday, victims of anti-government protests that have paralysed air travel.

Around 700 haj pilgrims, many elderly and frail but hoping to complete one of Islam’s most important pillars of faith before they die, prepared to camp out for a third night in the terminal building at Suvarnabhumi airport.

“Some of them have saved all their lives for this,” said Muhammed Yusouf, a haj tour guide accompanying the pilgrims, many of whom would be travelling by plane for the first time.

“If they miss this opportunity, they might not get a second chance.”

Read the full story here.

(Photo:Muslim pilgrims pack the Grand Mosque in Mecca during Ramadan, 19 Sept 2008/SPA)

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah looks determined to get his proposal for an unprecedented Muslim- Christian-Jewish dialogue off the ground. A three-day conference in Mecca to discuss this ended with a soaring declaration of goodwill and benevolent intent. Saudi media reported that Muslim clerics from around the world had supported the call and confirmed that dialogue with other faiths was legitimate in Islam.

The official Saudi Press agency said the meeting recommended holding “conferences, forums and discussion groups between the followers of the prophetic messages and relevant civilisations, cultures and philosophies to which academics, media and religious leaders will be invited”. Given the gazillions Riyadh must be earning with oil at $140 a barrel, it may not be long before we see all sorts of petrodollar-funded “dialogue sessions” being held here and there.

Interfaith dialogue is a good thing, but the recent rising chorus of calls for more such talk hasn’t just emerged out of a vacuum. There is already a decades-long history of dialogue sessions that essentially exchanged pleasantries and generated warm feelings but did little to actually reduce misunderstanding and mistrust. The latest generation of initiatives — for example the Common Word consultations and the “Painful Verses” book we’ve blogged about here — takes the disappointment with earlier efforts as its starting point and aims to tackle the issues that earlier dialogues tended to avoid.

So where is King Abdullah on the timeline of interfaith dialogue? Up there at the cutting edge? Or a decade or so behind the times? It’s hard to say if we only have some official reports of his comments to go by. But there are a few red flags popping up in the mostly positive reporting, suggesting that whatever he comes up with may not amount to real progress.

For example, the Sunni-Shi’ite harmony message supposedly sent by the presence of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani looked a lot thinner when journalists looked beyond centre stage. “Some Shi’ites said that, despite the presence of Iran’s Rafsanjani, few of their number were invited to the Mecca meeting. None came from Europe or North America and one from Saudi Arabia’s own Shi’ite minority which complains that it is given second class status,” our Riyadh bureau chief Andrew Hammond wrote.

Riazat Butt, religion correspondent for the Guardian, covered the conference and heard one of the classic Muslim views that goes against Abdullah’s position and turned some non-Muslims off dialogue with the muftis years ago. She wrote: “Abdullah’s understanding of interfaith dialogue differs from the one held by the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al al-Sheikh, who said dialogue with other religions was a way to bring non-Muslims into Islam. The cleric, who is the highest official of religious law, told the delegates that converting people to Islam was the ultimate goal of dialogue, a point made several times. “It is the opportunity to disseminate the principles of Islam. Islam advocates dialogue among people, especially calling them to the path of Allah.”

The grand mufti also contradicted Abdullah on dialogue with Jews, who the king has suggested could come to Saudi Arabia for talks on what would be an unprecedented visit. As Butt (right) wrote, “Several clerics, including the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, said it was almost impossible to talk to them because of the situation in the occupied territories. ‘How can you negotiate with someone who is against you all the time? They seem to be against us in every way so I don’t know how we’re supposed to have dialogue.’ Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi said he would only talk to Jews who denounced Zionism and he urged Muslims to talk to Buddhists, Hindus and atheists. His impromptu speech, lasting 15 minutes, garnered the loudest applause, proving his popularity among fellow clerics even if the west views him with suspicion.”

After having a front-row seat at the Mecca meeting, Butt was quite sceptical about the prospects for Abdullah’s initiative. But the attention this idea has been getting at the Vatican and among Jews shows there is a lot of official interest in it. If the Saudis start organising these interfaith talks, do you think they will actually produce more than nice words? Will they reflect what Saudi clerics actually think?

There were interesting words on interfaith dialogue from Mecca and Rome today and London yesterday. Efforts to improve contacts and understanding among the main monotheist religions have been gaining steam recently and we’re starting to see some concrete steps. But, as a meeting in Mecca showed, the road ahead could still be quite rocky.

The Mecca meeting, organised by the Saudi-based Muslim World League, is supposed to draw up guidelines for the inter-faith dialogue that Saudi King Abdullah says he wants with Christianity and Islam. “You are meeting here today to say to the world with pride that we are a fair, honest, humanitarian and moral voice, a voice for living together and dialogue,” the monarch said in a high-minded speech.

But former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the few prominent Shi’ites at the conference, rained on his parade with broadsides against the United States and Israel. But he also said: “To have a dialogue with other religions we need to start talking among ourselves. The call needs to be directed at ourselves first of all, and all the sects need to agree on shared points. As a Muslim and a Shi’ite … I say the things we agree on are many.”

That may have been a reaction to a statement this week by a group of independent Saudi clerics saying that Shi’ites, including Lebanese group Hezbollah, were posturing against Israel to hide an anti-Sunni agenda.

On the same day Abdullah spoke, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran said his Vatican department for inter-religious dialogue was drawing up its own guidelines for Catholic dialogue with non-Christian religions. He told Vatican Radio (here in Italian) the guidelines for priests and lay people would be based on the Ten Commandments, which he called “a kind of universal grammar that all believers can use in their relations with God and their neighbour.” This approach neatly links Christians with Jews and Muslims such as the “Common Word” scholars who’ve called for a dialogue based on the principle of love of God and neighbour.

In London, Lambeth Palace issued a statement on Tuesday about an ecumenical meeting that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams convened on June 1-2 to discuss ways to deepen Christian-Muslim dialogue. More than 40 participants discussed the “Common Word” initiative and “what degree of consensus might be possible as we look forward,” he said. The list of participants shows most of the Christian churches addressed by the “Common Word” letter were present. The statement said: “Delegates at the Consultation were heartened by the great variety of initiatives, some by Muslims and some by Christians, that were taking place at many different levels - many with a well-established track record. A great emphasis was placed on the need to ensure that the results of these encounters were more widely disseminated and influenced the education and formation of young people. The Archbishop agreed to take forward further work, particularly in response to A Common Word.”

There have been several other stories about interfaith dialogue recently, including the following:

• Cardinal Tauran gave a speech in London last month where he said: “There is a change of climate [in interreligious dialogue] now. It is more open minded, there is greater cordiality.” Here are reports in The Times and the Guardian and the speech text in Zenit.
• Tauran also attended the sixth Doha Conference of Interfaith Dialogue in May.
• French bishops issue a document on dialogue entitled “How do Christians and Muslims speak of God?” (here in French). Rev. Christophe Roucou, the bishops’ conference specialist for relations with Islam, comments in this La Croix interview (in French).

Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government has just published a study called “Estimating the Impact of the Haj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam’s Global Gathering.” The pilgrimage is often described as the highpoint of a Muslim’s religious life. Media reporting usually stresses the experiences of the people taking part in it. But what is the longer-term effect of participating in such a massive and moving pilgrimage? This study, based on data from over 1,600 applicants to Pakistan’s haj visa allocation lottery in 2006, had some interesting conclusions:

Our findings show that … the Haj has quite a remarkable effect in shaping the views of Pakistani pilgrims. It induces a shift from localized beliefs and practices towards global Islamic practice, increases tolerance, and leads to more favorable attitudes toward women. We find no evidence that by raising cohesion within the Muslim community, the Haj threatens non-Muslims. On the contrary, the Haj makes pilgrims more peacefully inclined, and increased tolerance extends to adherents of other religions.

The evidence suggests that these changes are more a result of exposure to and interaction with Hajis from around the world, rather than religious instruction or a changed social role of pilgrims upon return.

Click here to download the PDF of the whole study.

(hat tip to The God Blog)

So what exactly were more than two million Muslim pilgrims doing on the plain of Arafat outside Mecca on the afternoon of December 18, also known as the 9th of Dhul Hijja? I was there too, among them, so I should know, shouldn’t I? I must have seen many thousands of them close up on the haj this year, looked into their faces and tried to guess what they were thinking.

The conventional wisdom is that they were praying, at least the ones who were staying still and not engaged in the more mundane tasks of life, such as setting up tents, fetching water for their families, or waiting to get a free breakfast from the charity container truck. Activities of that kind accounted for quite a proportion of the total, especially people walking, walking by the tens of thousands, walking to explore, walking to find better places to sit, walking to find lost friends and relatives or just walking because it was a change from sitting, where they might be buffeted by the feet and bags of passing pedestrians, or asphyxiated by the exhaust of giant buses, or troubled by the accumulating piles of rubbish as people threw down orange peel, biscuit wrappers, milk cartons and discarded flipflops. Of those who were sitting, quite a number were chatting with their friends and neighbours and, judging by the snippets of conversation I overheard, much of the talk was of the basic logistics of surviving the day. How far is it to Mohamed’s tent? Which lavatories do you think are the best? How much are the bananas?

Now there were some people praying, or at least going through the motions of praying. Maybe their eyes were closed or their hands were cupped in that distinctive manner, or their lips were moving silently, or they were rocking rhythmically from side to side. If you found someone with the time to talk, they would invariably tell you that they had prayed and that this was one of their reasons for being there. I might add that they were talking about personal prayers, to Muslims something quite distinct from the formal prayers which they say five times a day at set times. In the formal prayers you can’t slip in one for your sick grandmother. That’s a separate operation, with distinct rules. Most of the pilgrims spent at least five hours on the plain, about the minimum to qualify as a certified haji. But interestingly, prayer on the plain is not obligatory. The best explanation I heard came from a Sudanese carpenter who had performed the pilgrimage many times. He said that prayer on the plain on that particular day was especially effective, so it was wise to take advantage of the opportunity. That seems to be a view close to the traditional consensus.

I bring all this up because it illustrates the problems facing a journalist trying to say what is going on in the minds of others, especially in the minds of millions of people. There’s a natural tendency to go for the easy option – ‘millions of people spent the afternoon in prayer’. That gives a very misleading impression of people on their knees, silent, for hours on end. There’s also a tendency for someone brought up in Europe, as I was, to impose the norms of their culture onto others.

But the haj is unlike anything I am aware of that would be familiar to Europeans or Americans. It is essentially an elaborate performance, a series of acts and spoken words spread over many days which, taken together, fulfill a religious obligation. If the pilgrim omits one of the acts, his pilgrimage is incomplete and God might not accept it as valid. Enthusiasm in the evangelical sense is not part of the package. I did see some people who were highly emotional – the men who wept when they touched the Kaaba, for example. But there were many others – frustratingly many, from the point of view of a journalist seeking colourful language – who seemed to have a rather humdrum dutiful approach to their hajj. The most common answer to the question ‘Why are you making the pilgrimage?’ was ‘Because it is a religious duty’. Few said anything emotional, mystical or inspirational. Asked what the highlight or the ‘best part’ had been, many mentioned logistical aspects, such as the new crowd control measures, which made it easier to move around.

I came to the conclusion that people performed the pilgrimage for a whole variety of reasons, including of course belief in its obligatory nature and because they are want to worship God ‘from close up’. But there are clearly other reasons too – peer pressure and to acquire social prestige are two of the most obvious. A surprisingly large number were already multiple hajis, many coming for their fourth, fifth, even 20th time, although they know that once in a lifetime is enough. What is that was so compelling that they felt the need to come back time and again? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I come back from the haj convinced more than ever that journalists must think twice before they jump to conclusions about what people are thinking, and even before they take at face value what people say they are thinking.