Although the annual hajj is a time of erasing past sins, some pilgrims are finding it hard to forgive Islamic militants -- including suicide bombers -- for blackening their religion's image.
The pilgrimage comes as some militants and clerics in the Arab world have renounced their extremist stands in recent months. They embraced moderation in the wake of international and domestic pressure, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US.
PHOTO: AP
While some pilgrims in this holy city said militants don't deserve forgiveness, many others maintained that forgiveness, like repentance, is crucial to eliminating extremism.
"We must not create an enmity with them," Saudi pilgrim Abdullah al-Ghamdi, 27, said of the militants.
"We have to open a dialogue with them so that they are fully convinced," he said.
Syrian merchant and first-time pilgrim Seif Eddin Shalabi disagreed.
"By God, we can never forgive them for what they have done," Shalabi said on Tuesday.
"They have caused strife between Muslims themselves and between Muslims and the West. Also what about the numerous victims? Who's to be held accountable for that?"
Shalabi said militants have caused resistance to be confused with terrorism, "which has undermined our causes in Palestine and Iraq."
Shoeib Adamou, from Nigeria, said terrorists cannot even be considered real Muslims.
"The whole Muslim community has repeatedly denounced them, so forgiveness is not even an issue here," he said, as waves of pilgrims poured into Mecca for the last rites of a pilgrimage marred by the trampling deaths of 251 people on Sunday.
Condemnations of extremism and terrorism have been central to speeches and sermons delivered at this year's hajj, where fears of a terror attack kept security high.
In a Saturday sermon on Mount Arafat, top Saudi cleric Abdel Aziz Al al-Sheik said terrorists have helped "the enemies of Islam" in attacking the religion.
At the feast prayers a day later in the Grand Mosque, cleric Abdel Rahman bin Abdel Aziz al-Sudeis denounced extremism and stressed that Islam is a religion of moderation.
The same ideas were highlighted by the Saudi king and crown prince, who described terrorists as "people with sick thought" in their address to the pilgrims Monday.
Following the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia -- home to 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers -- and other Muslim countries came under intense pressure to combat religious extremism.
After suicide bombings struck the Saudi capital of Riyadh last year, the government cracked down heavily on Islamic militants and terror suspects.
In the past few months, three Muslim clerics detained in terror sweeps and charged with advocating violence in sermons appeared on Saudi state-run television to call on militants to disarm and renounce extremism. A group of arrested militants also apologized on television, saying they had been brainwashed.
In Egypt, the imprisoned leaders of the country's largest militant group, al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, have published books renouncing their earlier violence and have denounced last year's suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia.
And in Yemen, where at least 170 repentant al-Qaeda militants were released after vowing to respect Yemen's laws, authorities have opened a dialogue with militants who haven't been involved in terrorist acts.
"The door to repentance is open," said Egyptian salesman Mohammed al-Sayed, who was performing his third hajj. "The important thing is that they are sincere."
Usama Mustafa, an American of Lebanese origin, praised militants who repented, but accused the US and Arab regimes of "pushing the militants to the extreme" -- America through its perceived bias toward Israel, and Arab governments by oppressing their own citizens.
"What do they expect from these people? That they smile back at them? The injustice is so clear," said the hospital administrator from Alexandria, Virginia.
"We cannot blame them [militants] too much, and we cannot defend them too much," he said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS