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| Fears new deadly virus in Middle East could go global as millions prepare to visit the region for annual pilgrimage!

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Fears new deadly virus in Middle East could go global as millions prepare to visit the region for annual pilgrimage ~ JAMES RUSH, Daily Mail.

  • Health officials in Saudi Arabia prepare for Hajj pilgrimage this autumn
  • Middle East Respiratory Syndrome currently causing concern in area
  • Deadly new virus is believed to be even more dangerous than SARS
  • Millions from across globe are preparing to visit region for pilgrimage

Fears over a global outbreak of a deadly new virus which has emerged in the Middle East are growing as millions of religious pilgrims prepare to visit the region.

Health officials in Saudi Arabia are preparing for the annual Hajj pilgrimage this autumn, which sees millions of Muslims visit the country each year.

But concerns in the area have been increasing over the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which is thought to be more dangerous than SARS, after more than 60 cases were reported in the last year by the World Health Organisation.

Officials in Saudi Arabia, where many of the MERS victims have been, are now doing all they can to track down the virus and prevent it from spreading during the pilgrimage, according to Foreign Policy.

There have been 77 laboratory-confirmed infections as of June 26. A total of 62 of these cases have been in Saudi Arabia, where 34 of the victims have died.

Last year approximately 6 million pilgrims travelled through the country as part of the event, which saw millions circle the Kaaba, in Mecca, alone.

The disease, which can spread easily between people, has been compared to SARS, which killed 800 people during an outbreak in 2003. Some experts have noted resemblances between the two as both spread easily between hospitals.

Symptoms are also similar with a fever and cough that develops into pneumonia.

But, doctors note that the fatality rate is higher. Eight per cent of SARS patients died, while 65 per cent of MERS cases are believed to have been fatal.

Doctors have not been able to pinpoint exactly how the illness is spread in every case, as some appeared to catch it when they had not been in contact with an infected person.

 

Cases have also been reported in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Tunisia.

But, most cases have been in Saudi Arabia, which is also set to receive millions of Muslim pilgrims during Ramadan next month.

Doctors are worried after the new MERS disease (pictured) showed the potential to become as deadly as SARSDoctors are worried after the new MERS disease (pictured) showed the potential to become as deadly as SARS

 

Experts say that despite the small number of cases, MERS must be watched as it has the potential to cause an outbreak.

WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said: ‘We understand too little about this virus when viewed against the magnitude of its potential threat.’

WHO is set to meet in Cairo next month to discuss MERS and its potential threat.

Most cases of the disease have been recorded in Saudi Arabia, which is also expecting millions of Muslin pilgrims to visit next month during RamadanMost cases of the disease have been recorded in Saudi Arabia, which is also expecting millions of Muslin pilgrims to visit next month during Ramadan

Millions of pilgrims are expected to descend upon Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, for this year's Hajj pilgrimage although health officials are concerned of a deadly new virus spreading

Millions of pilgrims are expected to descend upon Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, for this year’s Hajj pilgrimage although health officials are concerned of a deadly new virus spreading

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| Truthfulness and ever decreasing circles – Hajj in the Bible!

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Hajj in the Bible ~ IslamiCity.

 

A cursory analysis into the word “Hajj” as found in the Old Testament.

 

 

 

 

 

When many Jews and Christians view Islam from the outside, they find parallels to their own faiths that usually inspire a great deal of curiosity. These parallels are often doctrinal, sometimes regarding the biographies of Prophets shared between the three Abrahamic faiths like Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them). Yet, sometimes striking parallels are found by the more discerning eye. Deep inquests often reveal textual and lexical similarities that are difficult-if not impossible-to explain by mere theories of one tradition borrowing from another.

As millions upon millions of Muslim devotees engage in the rites of the Hajj pilgrimage, one of the 5 pillars of Islam, we can peer into the terms used in this age-old practice that lead us to a time long before the Prophet Muhammad  was even born. Let us look at the word al-Hajj itself:

الحجّ (al-Hajj)

Typically, the entire Arabic vocabulary, like its sisters in the Semitic linguistic group, consists of words structured from trilateral triconsonantal roots. In this case the root is Hajaj (حجج). According to the classical Arabic lexicon Lisān al-`Arab it is defined:

القصد. حج إلينا فلان أي قدم
“Purpose. As in, ‘So-and-so did Hajj unto us,’ which means he presented himself before us.”1

So the general lexical meaning of the word is “intended purpose”. In the context of the Hajj, the Ka`bah within the Meccan Sanctuary is the intended destination and purpose. To list usages of this word in an Islamic context would be, for most Muslims, an appeal to the very obvious as stories of its wonder and splendor that have been related to them since childhood. However, if we peer beyond the context of Islamic rites and deep into the past, do we find this word used in the previous traditions of the Old Testament?

The answer is in the affirmative. The book of Exodus contains the following verse in reference to a Hajj in the time of Moses:

והיה היום הזה לכם לזכרון וחגתם אתו חג ליהוה לדרתיכם חקת עולם תחגהו
wa-haya ha-yōm haza lakhem li-zikrōn wa-khagōtem otō khag li-Yehōwa li-dorotaychem khuqat `olam takhaguhū
“And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.” [Exodus 12:14]

In this verse the King James translators rendered the uninflected noun Khag (חג) as “feast”. This word Khag is wholly cognate to the Arabic Hajj (حج). Elsewhere in the verse the word Khag is inflected as khagotem and takhaguhū. One must pay attention to the fact that the Hebrew phonetic “kh” (ח) is the pharyngeal fricative “h” (ح) in Arabic. Also, one must note that the phonetic “g” (ג) is cognate to the Arabic “j” (ج). So for analytical purposes in this context the verse would be rendered:

“And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a Hajj to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a Hajj by an ordinance forever.”

Another verse using this root is the following:

ואחר באו משה ואהרן ויאמרו אל-פרעה כה-אמר יהוה אלהי ישראל שלח את-עמי ויחגו לי במדבר
wa-ākhar bā’u Mōshe wa-Aharōn wa-yomru el-Par`o koh-amar Yahweh Elohay Yishrael shalach et-`ami wa-yakhugū li ba-midbār
“And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go , that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.” [Exodus 5:1]

The inflected word that the King James translators rendered “feast” is yakhuggū (יחגו) which is cognate to the Arabic “yuhajjū” (يُحَجّوا) so for analytical purposes the verse would be rendered in this context as:

“And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a Hajj unto me in the wilderness.”

This is not to suggest that Moses and Aaron went to Mecca and performed Hajj as Muslims know it today. It is merely to exemplify that a consecrated journey and pilgrimage unto God at His Temple did, indeed, precede the rise of Islam in the 7th Century CE.

An additional and astonishing dimension to this that makes the concept of lexical borrowing between the Old Testament and the Qur’an improbable, if not outright impossible, is found in an alternate form of the root in Hebrew, Khug (חוג). Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (1846) defines this word:

“חוג To describe a circle, to draw a circle, as with compasses. Job 26:10…m. a circle, sphere, used of the arch or vault of the sky, Pro. 8:27; Job 22:14; of the world, Isa. 40:22.”2

Let us look at the verses he has cited above:

“When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass (חוג) upon the face of the depth.” [Proverbs 8:27]
“Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven (וחוג שמים).” [Job 22:14]
“It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth (חוג הארץ), and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” [Isaiah 40:22]

Thus, this word not only means sacred pilgrimage and feast unto God in the Bible, it also means to encircle. To any Muslim this will be a striking discovery.

Semitic languages have been, since time immemorial, broad and deep systems of expression where one word’s many variant, but supplementary, meanings all coalesce to a greater understanding of that lexeme. So in this case we have a root which has a form meaning a feast, also meaning a pilgrimage, and in one form meaning to encircle! The Hajj pilgrimage, which is at its core an encircling of the Ka`bah called Tawāf, is concluded with none other than the Feast of the Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s command. Borrowing all these meanings buried in lexica that did not even exist until hundreds of years after the life of the Prophet Muhammad  would require no short of a Semitic linguist and Biblical scholar. It should be noted that the Bible itself would not be available until 200-300 years after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad ((The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, p. 982)) . Such lexical depth and lucidity is consistently found throughout the Qur’an as God has stated therein:

“This Qur’an could not have been authored by any other than God, as it rectifies what came before it and elucidates what was in the previous scriptures. Let there be no doubt that this is, indeed, from the Lord of all Worlds.” (Qur’an, 10:37)

Source: SuhaibWebb – Shibli Zaman

  1. Lisan al-`Arab, Ibn al-Mandhur
  2. The Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, p. 263

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