A Brief History
On September 24, 2015, yet another religious related tragedy occurred when as many as 2,000 faithful Muslims in Saudi Arabia for the Hajj were stampeded and suffocated when a large crowd met another large crowd at a road intersection and chaos resulted. The worst tragedy in a long line of Hajj related tragedies, some estimates were as high as over 2,400 dead, the worst Hajj related disaster.
Digging Deeper
In previous articles we have discussed tragedies and disasters related to religious events and locations, and asked the question, “What do these tragedies mean?” If you are a believer, you are bound to wonder why God would allow his faithful to suffer so much. Are they being punished for something they have done or not done? Are they practicing the wrong faith?
Virtually all major religions have suffered tragedy and disaster of their faithful and their holy buildings and places. Can you tell us why?
Question for students (and subscribers): Is there any meaning to religious related tragedies? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Hawes, Jennifer Berry. Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness. St. Martin’s Press, 2019.
Wilkinson, Olivia. Secular and Religious Dynamics in Humanitarian Response. Routledge, 2021.
The featured image in this article, a map by OpenStreetMap & Carl Henderson showing location of 2015 Mina Crush Disaster, contains information from OpenStreetMap, which is made available under the Open Database License (ODbL).
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
