‘I escaped Mecca stampede’

A-27-YEAR-OLD student who returned from Saudi Arabia on Friday believed he faced a trial of life when he was trampled upon in the Islamic holy city of Mecca. Hisham Mohammed’s of  enc-ounter with death occurred while he was praying among two million people. The incident occurred while eight pall-bearers were transporting a dead man who was trampeled during the stampede which killed 250 people during the Hajj pilgrimage. Mohammed, who is studying Islamic Law in Saudi Arabia, related his chilling encounter to Sunday Newsday shortly after his arrival at the airport from London on Friday night.

Mohammed, of Kelly Village, Caroni, first described the stampede to Sunday Newsday. “Trinidadians were no where close to the stoning of the devil at Mina. They were about a mile away,” he said. Mohammed was in charge of 26 Trinidadians who made the pilgrimage. It was mid-afternoon and Mohammed said that he was at the time in sajdah position (prostrating face to the ground). There approximately 1.2 million to two million people assembled around the Kaba, he added. Mohammed said that during each of the five prayers of the day, Janaaza (prayer for the dead), is offered during Hajj. Almost every day of the entire three weeks of the pilgrimage, “people die.” “I was in sajdah (prostration) when eight men brought a dead body to the front of the Kaba for the Janaaza. I felt like a heavy object glide my back. Then, like a ton of boulders, a man stood on my back,” Mohammed said.

People stepping on others amidst a sea of humanity gathered in one area, as Mohammed described, is often unavoidable during the Hajj. Still in postration, Mohammed said the pall-bearer’s next step was on his neck and head. Interviewed in the presence his wife, parents, brothers and sisters, Hisham quipped: “Dear, I haven’t told you this, but I almost died; I thought that was it.” Mohammed said that he remained prostrated, his head pinned to the ground by the force of the man’s weight. “If I had attempted to lift my body, my neck would have popped.” Mohammed added: “Really, I thought I was going to die. Imagine a man holding a dead body and his foot on top your head. I murmured: ‘There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his messenger,”’ Mohammed said that by the grace of God, the man’s foot slipped off his head. “I eased myself upwards and I realised that the brother next to me was also stepped upon.” 

Mohammed said the excruitiating pain he felt was overcome by the million voices chanting: “Oh Allah, here I come!” Mohammed also told Sunday Newsday that he witnessed the passing away of Princes Town business Hashim Mohammed. “If death can be described as beautiful, Hashim is indeed blessed. He died, if God accepted his Hajj, sinless.” Hashim, Mohammed explained, apparently had a premonition of his death. “Upon completion of his Hajj, Hashim told someone, ‘I don’t think I want to go back home,’’’ Mohammed said Hashim, 57, died peacefully at his hotel.  Islamic tradition views death in the Holy City during Hajj as a great opportunity and blessing, Mohammed said.