Still on the Jamrah tragedy

Thursday September 24, 2015 was observed by Muslims as Eid ul-Kabir; a day for celebration and fulfillment. It is celebration for Muslims who are not on pilgrimage to the holy land of Makkah as the occasion provides opportunity for eating plenty of meat in its various forms, including roasted, fried, boiled, peppered, and minced meat (called dambu in Hausa).  It is also a day of fulfillment for those privileged to accomplish the fifth fundamental principle (or pillar) of Islam, hajj. However, the Eid celebrations as well as the joy of fulfillment were suddenly halted by the deadly stampede that occurred at Jamrah, the site for the symbolic stoning of the devil in Mina, near Makkah.
So far, it is obvious that only Saudi authorities differ from all accounts of the tragedy which traced the cause of the stampede to a blockade on the path of pilgrims to the Jamrah site. This, as alleged, was to create way exclusively for a Saudi prince to go and perform the symbolic stoning of the devil; endangering the lives of over 2 million other pilgrims.
A video-clip which I watched on the mobile phone of a Nigeria pilgrim who just returned from hajj showed the ‘prince’ stoning the devil from inside his car through the window of the vehicle! This attitude of the ‘prince’ contradicts the religious teaching in Islam which puts all Muslims on the same platform in all practical acts of worship, including daily prayers (Salat) and pilgrimage (hajj). Could the prince have forgotten that a Muslim loses his socio-economic and political status when he stands in congregation of other Muslims or even as an individual to worship?
It is also amazing that another ‘prince’ who is the head of Saudi Arabia’s Central Hajj Committee, Khaled al-Faisal, was quick to blame pilgrims of African origin (who could not read) as responsible for the stampede; closing his eyes to the blockade. Some of the pilgrims caught in the stampede could have survived if helicopters were provided to shower and sprinkle water on pilgrims along their way to the Jamrah. That could have reduced the effect of heat from the scorching sun. More amazing was the rush by the Kingdom’s Grand Mufti who rushed to exonerate the prince being accused of causing the stampede; almost immediately as if Allah (SWT) had asked him to judge the matter on His behalf.
As the Emir of Kano, His Highness Muhammad Sanusi II suggested, the gate to independent legal judgment (Ijtihad) remains open for Nigerian Muslim jurists to issue a legal opinion (fatwah) on the stoning of the devil by Nigerian Muslim pilgrims. The prophetic sunnah, for instance, was for a pilgrim to directly kiss the black stone in Ka’abah. But when it became a death trap, a fatwah was issued allowing pilgrims to just point at the black stone and thereafter kiss their hands. A fatwah is now therefore desirous on the stoning of the devil. May Allah grant the wounded quick recovery and forgive those who died in the stampede, amin.
Remembering Professor Tijani El-Miskin and Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf, mni:
I came to know Professor Tijani El-Miskin when he was Head of the Department of Languages at the Nigerian Defense Academy, Kaduna through my friend (and brother) Dr. Ibrahim Husam who was (and is still) a lecturer in the department. My first close contact with him was when he invited members of the National Executive Committee of the Nigeria Association of Teachers of Arabic and Islamic Studies (NATAIS) to the Nigeria Arabic Language village at Ngala in Borno State where he was serving then as Executive Director. He had wanted us then to come and see the infrastructural development that had taken place two years after he assumed duty.
We went and we were gladdened by what we saw of the big difference from the state in which his predecessor left the Arabic village. It was not difficult to notice the positive difference because I was there about three years earlier when NATAIS delegated five of us to go to Ngala and make an assessment of the Arabic village. Since after our first contact, we both maintained a very warm relationship which grew stronger through the periodic meetings Prof. El-Miskin invited heads of Arabic departments in Nigerian universities to attend at the village.
Before Prof El-Miskin took over, the inter-university centre for Arabic Studies was not actually serving the purpose for which it was established. He turned around the under-developed state of the Arabic village by providing structures that adequately catered for students classrooms and hostel accommodation, state-of the-art language laboratories, lecture theatres, a well-equipped library and a befitting administration block; many of which were either not in place or grossly inadequate before he assumed office. Besides, Prof. El-Miskin revived the one-year immersion programme for Arabic undergraduates which remained dead for many years.
Although media reports and some writers have referred to him as a professor of Islamic Studies, El-Miskin was a professor of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Born in 1951, Prof. El-Miskin graduated in 1976 from Abdullahi Bayero College (now Bayero University, Kano) with a B.A degree in Arabic. He obtained his PhD in 1984. The soft-spoken professor was a committed, humble and respected intellectual. May Allah (SWT) forgive and grant him eternal mercy, amin.
With regards to Hajiya Bilkisu, I started reading her while she was editor of the New Nigerian Newspapers in Kaduna. Our first contact, however, was on Saturday March 28, 2009 at Arewa House, Kaduna. The event was the public presentation of the book ‘Rediscovering the Qur’an: The rights of women…’ where she was the guest speaker and I served as the book reviewer. We thereafter worked together on several research projects, including the 2011 Islamic Research Project conducted by the University of Oxford in the UK and funded by the government of Netherlands. The last exercise in which we worked together was the 2015 Election Contextual Analysis Project coordinated by the Nigerian Social and Economic Research (NISER) Centre. Working with her on every occasion was quite a good experience.
She was active in grass-root da’wah activities as much as she championed the advancement of the status and rights of Muslim women. Besides educating the general public on the activities of some NGOs, particularly those that affect poverty reduction, inter-faith dialogue, entrepreneurship etc; she used her weekly column in the Daily Trust Newspapers, Civil Society Watch, to also express concern on maternal and infant mortality issues. May Allah (SWT) forgive and grant her eternal mercy, amin.