Arab Rituals - According to scholars and historians, the Hajj rites have stopped more than 40 times throughout history for several different reasons, including political turmoil, natural disasters, outbreaks of epidemics, economic depression and other causes.
The important question that many people think of today is, "Will the ritual pilgrimages stop again this year due to the outbreak of the new virus Corona known as nCoV-2019, especially since it has not yet been contained?"
What are the chances of the pilgrimage season for the current year 2020 in the event that the Corona virus is not completely contained around the world by next July?
The most important years of pilgrimage to history have stopped
865 CE massacre at the level of Arafa:
- Corresponding to 251 AH, the heroes of the Hajj, after witnessing the massacre at the level of Arafat, where Ismail bin Youssef Al-Alawi and those with him attacked the crowds of the pilgrims, and they killed large numbers
930 CE Carmatians and theft of black stone
- Corresponding to 317 AH, Carmatians raided a heinous crime on the Sacred Mosque and killed those in it and stole the Black Stone and were absent for 22 years and did not return to its place except in 339 AH, where Carmatians believed that the pilgrimage is one of the rituals of pre-Islamic and idolatry.
983 AD disputes between Bani Abbas and Bani Ubaid
- Corresponding to 372 AH, it was said that no one from Iraq this year went to the year 380 AH because of the discord and differences between the successors of Bani Abbas and the successors of Egypt Bani Ubaid.
1037 m pilgrims from Egypt only
- Corresponding to 428 AH, no pilgrims from Iraq and pilgrims from Egypt and others.
1253AD Baghdadis return after 10 years
- Corresponding to 650 AH, the people of Baghdad returned to Hajj after an expectation of 10 years, following the death of the victorious caliph
1257 AD, no one from the Hijaz pilgrimage
- Corresponding to 655 AH, none of the people of the Hijaz performed pilgrimage, nor did the banner of the kings of the Kings be taken to anyone in Mecca.
1814 AD The plague
- About 8,000 people died in the country of Hijaz due to the plague.
1831 AD An Indian pandemic kills three quarters of the pilgrims
- Corresponding to 1246 AH, an outbreak occurred during the Hajj season, an epidemic believed to have come from India, and three quarters of the pilgrims died due to it.
1837 AD Epidemic outbreaks
- Pilgrimage seasons saw epidemics until the 1840s.
1846 AD cholera outbreaks for several years.
- A cholera outbreak spread among pilgrims and remained present during the pilgrimage seasons until 1850 CE. Then he returned in 1865 AD and 1883 AD.
1858 AD escape from the Hijaz to Egypt
- A severe pandemic spread, pushing people to flee from Hijaz to Egypt, which built a quarantine in the well of Aden, to avert epidemics.
1864, a thousand pilgrims die every day
- 1000 pilgrims die every day due to the outbreak of a highly dangerous epidemic. In 1871 AD, Medina struck an epidemic that forced Egypt to send doctors and build a quarantine in Makkah on the road from Mecca to Medina.
1892 AD Accumulation of dead bodies
- The cholera outbreak coincided with the Hajj season and was severe, so the dead bodies piled up, it was not possible for time to bury them, and deaths increased in Arafat and culminated in Mina.
1895 AD Typhoid outbreaks
- A pandemic of typhoid or dysentery fever spread from a convoy that came from Medina and continued to a weak degree with Arafat and did not spread later and ended in Mina.
1987 Meningitis outbreaks
- Severe and highly infectious meningitis resulted in at least 10,000 infections.
Attempts to prevent pilgrims from epidemics:
The epidemics in the history of the Great Mosque of Mecca and the country of Hijaz were very many, as history recorded the intensity of crowding and visitors from different regions around the world during the Hajj season.
In this season, the potential for transmission of infectious respiratory diseases that can be transmitted by droplets from the respiratory secretions such as influenza, meningitis and the current Corona virus increases.
Through the book "The Hajj a hundred years ago"
In the book "The Pilgrimage a Hundred Years Ago", the Russian traveler and military, Abdulaziz Dolchen, who visited the Hejaz between 1898 and 1899, indicated that the epidemic probably begins to spread to Arafat and is very prevalent in Mina. If the stand in Arafat does not witness any epidemic outbreaks, there is great hope that it does not happen A total epidemic of the year of Hajj.
Dolchen also says that in Mecca and Medina there were quarries and a mobile hospital with capacity for 30 patients, and the Meccan quarantine with the pilgrims moved to Arafat and then to Mona where he would like a building dedicated to him and in these two places as in Mecca the hospital covers free medication and ambulance services when necessary but he is completely incapacitated If a severe epidemic breaks out among the pilgrims.
Source: Ibrahim Mohamed Hajj 2020
English
