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Incidents During The Hajj
There have been numerous incidents during the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to the city of Mecca, that have caused loss of life. Every follower of Islam is required to visit Mecca during the Hajj at least once in his or her lifetime, if able to do so; according to Islam, the pilgrimage is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. During the month of the Hajj, Mecca must cope with as many as three million pilgrims. Plane travel makes Mecca and the Hajj more accessible to pilgrims from all over the world. As a consequence, the Hajj has become increasingly crowded. City officials are required to control large crowds and provide food, shelter, sanitation, and emergency services for millions. Despite these efforts, incidents have still occurred. Crushes and failures of crowd control Sometimes the dense, surging troupes, trekking from one station of the pilgrimage to the next, cause a stampede, or more precisely, a progressive troupe collapse. At densities above six to seven persons per sq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Day Of Hajj
A day is the time rotation period, period of a full Earth's rotation, rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar time, solar day, which is the length between two solar noons or times the Sun reaches the highest point. The word "day" may also refer to ''daytime'', a time period when the location receives Daylight, direct and indirect sunlight. On Earth, as a location passes through its day, it experiences morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night. The effect of a day is vital to many life processes, which is called the circadian rhythm. A collection of sequential days is organized into calendars as Calendar date, dates, almost always into weeks, months and years. Most calendars' arrangement of dates use either or both the Sun with its season, four seasons (solar calendar) or the Moon's lunar phase, phasing (lunar calendar). The start of a day is commonly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2004 Hajj Stampede
4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being and . Four is the sum and product of two with itself: 2 + 2 = 4 = 2 x 2, the only number b such that a + a = b = a x a, which also makes four the smallest squared prime number p^. In Knuth's up-arrow notation, , and so forth, for any number of up arrows. By consequence, four is the only square one more than a prime number, specifically three. The sum of the first four prime numbers two + three + five + seven is the only sum of four consecutive prime numbers that yields an odd prime number, seventeen, which is the fourth super-prime. Four lies between the first proper pair of twin primes, three and five, which are the first two Fermat primes, like seventeen, which is the third. On the other han ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qarmatians
The Qarmatians ( ar, قرامطة, Qarāmiṭa; ) were a militant Isma'ili Shia movement centred in al-Hasa in Eastern Arabia, where they established a religious-utopian socialist state in 899 CE. Its members were part of a movement that adhered to a syncretic branch of Sevener Ismaili Shia Islam, and were ruled by a dynasty founded by Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi, a Persian from Jannaba in coastal Fars. They rejected the claim of Fatimid caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah to imamate and clung to their belief in the coming of the Mahdi, and they revolted against the Fatimid and Abbasid Caliphates. Mecca was sacked by a Qarmatian leader, Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, outraging the Muslim world, particularly with their theft of the Black Stone and desecration of the Zamzam Well with corpses during the Hajj season of 930 CE. Name The origin of the name "Qarmatian" is uncertain. According to some sources, the name derives from the surname of the sect's founder, Hamdan Qarmat. The name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
924 Hajj Caravan Raid
In March 924, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn attacked and looted a caravan of Hajj pilgrims making their way back from Mecca to Iraq. The raid, along with a failure to prevent a sack of Basra a few months before led to the deposition and execution of the Abbasid Caliphate's vizier, Ibn al-Furat. Background In the 890s, the Isma'ili missionary Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi established an independent Qarmatian state in Bahrayn. During Abu Sa'id's rule, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn remained uninvolved in the Qarmatian uprisings of the 900s against the Abbasid Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, or in the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya. Apart from a raid against Basra in 912, they also maintained peace with the Abbasids, receiving donations of money and weapons by the Abbasid vizier, Ali ibn Isa ibn al-Jarrah. In January 923, Abu Sa'id's youngest son, Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, having reached the age of 16, succeeded to the leadership of the Qarmatians. At the same time, Ali ibn Isa lost ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaaba
The Kaaba (, ), also spelled Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah ( ar, ٱلْكَعْبَة ٱلْمُشَرَّفَة, lit=Honored Ka'bah, links=no, translit=al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah), is a building at the center of Islam's most important mosque, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam.Wensinck, A. J; Kaʿba. Encyclopaedia of Islam IV p. 317 It is considered by Muslims to be the ''Bayt Allah'' ( ar, بَيْت ٱللَّٰه, lit=House of God) and is the qibla ( ar, قِبْلَة, links=no, direction of prayer) for Muslims around the world when performing salah. The current structure was built after the original building was damaged during the siege of Mecca in 683. In early Islam, Muslims faced in the general direction of Jerusalem as the qibla in their prayers before changing the direction to face the Kaaba, believed by Muslims to be a result of a Quranic verse revelation to Muhammad. Accordi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catapult
A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored potential energy to propel its payload. Most convert tension or torsion energy that was more slowly and manually built up within the device before release, via springs, bows, twisted rope, elastic, or any of numerous other materials and mechanisms. In use since ancient times, the catapult has proven to be one of the most persistently effective mechanisms in warfare. In modern times the term can apply to devices ranging from a simple hand-held implement (also called a "slingshot") to a mechanism for launching aircraft from a ship. The earliest catapults date to at least the 7th century BC, with King Uzziah, of Judah, recorded as equipping the walls of Jerusalem with machines that shot "great stones". Catapults are mentioned in Yaju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf
Abu Muhammad al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi Aqil al-Thaqafi ( ar, أبو محمد الحجاج بن يوسف بن الحكم بن أبي عقيل الثقفي, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī ʿAqīl al-Thaqafī; ), known simply as al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ( ar, الحجاج بن يوسف, al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf), was probably the most notable governor who served the Umayyad Caliphate. He began his service under Caliph Abd al-Malik (), who successively promoted him as the head of the caliph's (select troops), the governor of the Hejaz (western Arabia) in 692–694, and the practical viceroy of a unified Iraqi province and the eastern parts of the Caliphate in 694. Al-Hajjaj retained the last post under Abd al-Malik's son and successor al-Walid I (), whose decision-making was highly influenced by al-Hajjaj, until his death in 714. As governor of Iraq and the east, al-Hajjaj instituted key reforms. Among these were the minting of silver dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty ( ar, ٱلْأُمَوِيُّون, ''al-ʾUmawīyūn'', or , ''Banū ʾUmayyah'', "Sons of Umayyah"). Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656), the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member of the clan. The family established dynastic, hereditary rule with Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, long-time governor of Greater Syria, who became the sixth caliph after the end of the First Fitna in 661. After Mu'awiyah's death in 680, conflicts over the succession resulted in the Second Fitna, and power eventually fell into the hands of Marwan I from another branch of the clan. Greater Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, with Damascus serving as their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorpora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Of Mecca (692)
The siege of Mecca () occurred at the end of the Second Fitna in 692 when the forces of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan besieged and defeated his rival, the caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr in his center of power, the Islamic holy city of Mecca. After the death of Caliph Yazid in 683, Ibn al-Zubayr had been recognized as caliph in most of the provinces of the Caliphate, while the Umayyads, who had ruled the Caliphate since the end of the First Fitna, had been confined to their stronghold of Syria. There, the pro-Umayyad tribes elected Marwan ibn al-Hakam as caliph in 684; after his death in 685, his son and successor Abd al-Malik undertook the task of reasserting Umayyad authority across the Caliphate. After defeating his enemies in Syria and Iraq, he sent his general Hajjaj ibn Yusuf to Mecca to defeat Ibn al-Zubayr. To avoid bloodshed in the sanctuary, Hajjaj was ordered to besiege the city and starve out Ibn al-Zubayr. The siege started in March 692 and lasted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mecca Fire Of 1997
The Mecca fire of 1997 was a fire that occurred in the tent city near Mecca in Saudi Arabia 15 April 1997, killing between 217 and 300 people. Details The fire erupted in the overcrowded tent city, Mina, where an estimated two million Muslim pilgrims were gathered on for the first day of the Hajj, the ritualistic pilgrimage to Mecca. The fire erupted at 11:45 a.m. ( AST), and was caused by exploding canisters of cooking gas, according to witnesses. The fire was fanned by winds of nearly causing the destruction of an estimated 70,000 tents. Officially, 1,290 were injured and 217 killed, though witnesses and local newspapers claimed at least 300 were killed, many trampled in the panic. Later official reports gave a death toll of 343, no official list of fatalities has been published. Opposition sources claimed over 2,000 deaths had occurred, many from trampling. The fire was fought by three hundred fire engines as well as helicopters, and controlled in three hours. See also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab world, and the largest in Western Asia and the Middle East. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. Bahrain is an island country off the east coast. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt. Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. Its capital and largest city is Riyadh. The country is home to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabia, the territory that constitutes modern-day Saudi Ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., and news bureaus in 151 countries in 201 locations. AFP transmits stories, videos, photos and graphics in French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and German. History Agence France-Presse has its origins in the Agence Havas, founded in 1835 in Paris by Charles-Louis Havas, making it the world's oldest news service. The agency pioneered the collection and dissemination of news as a commodity, and had established itself as a fully global concern by the late 19th century. Two Havas employees, Paul Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, set up their own news agencies in London and Berlin respectively. In 1940, when German forces occupied France during World War II, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed "Offi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
