Phillip’s Blog

Every year, millions of Muslims travel to Mecca in order to perform Hajj, their Pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam. This year, people are wondering whether the tradition of Hajj will be canceled or postponed in order to stop a huge outbreak of H1n1 or Swine Flu virus. John Burgess points out “Similar concerns were raised a few years ago, when bird flu (H5N1) was threatening. One Saudi scholar called for Hajj to be canceled if there were a severe outbreak, but that proposal was shot down by others. The argument was that Hajj had never been canceled on public health grounds and that to do so would be counter to Islam. Rather, those who are ill are morally obliged to not perform Hajj.” Not only that he have explained that there are many records of outbreaks of diseases during the time of Hajj, killing thousands of people. However, some people have pointed out that the Hajj should not be canceled because this even will not actually begin until November. Also, Hajj have never been postponed or canceled, and you will need at least one infected person to justify the postponing and canceling. There is no case of Swine Flu in Middle East except Israel, but none anywhere near Muslim areas.

I believe that it may be a better idea to wait a little bit more until October in order to see if the Swine Flu is spread in the Middle East. If the Swine Flu becomes stronger and kills a lot of people, then it might be a better idea to postpone or cancel the Hajj this year. Through postponing or canceling Hajj this year, it may be possible to save people’s lives being taken from the swine flu. Even though this is my idea to cancel the Hajj if the pandemic alert grows higher than 5 or 6, but because this is such an important event for the Muslims, I believe the Muslim counsel should discuss about this problem with Hajj in the future.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/05/15/saudi-arabia-will-swine-flu-threaten-hajj/