DEARBORN HEIGHTS — On Sunday, October 11, the Islamic House of Wisdom held a commemoration of the lives of the victims who died during Hajj in Mina Speakers included Mohammad Ali Elahi, the spiritual leader of the Islamic House of Wisdom; Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News and Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Elahi condemned the Saudi government for failing to take responsibility for the incident that resulted in 717 pilgrims being trampled to death and another 805 injured while participating in a hajj ritual of symbolically stoning the Devil.

“This is the authority of ignorance, the authority of injustice,” Elahi said.

Elahi said it is a problem that most country officials are silent about the tragedy. He added that pilgrims from more than 10 countries lost their lives, but only Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for Saudi authorities to accept the liability and called it a “mismanagement.”

The incident that occurred near Mecca comes nearly two weeks after a crane collapsed on Mecca’s Grand Mosque, killing more than 100 and injuring more than 200 people, according to the Saudi civil defense authority. 

Siblani said U.S. media coverage of the incident distorts Islam’s image, while glorifying Christianity with the coverage of the pope’s American tour.

“We have to have to have moral courage and raise our voices about injustice and represent ourselves outside [the mosque’s] walls,” Walid said of the current climate of Islamophobia. He also urged people to call their representatives in Congress if they want change.

Ali Hojeij, a Dearborn resident who made the Hajj pilgrimage this year, took to the podium to share his experiences and offer his prayers for the stampede victims.

Hojeij said he avoided the stampede because he’d taken a different route to the scene.