The Islamic pilgrimage Hajj took place last week and created all the usual buzz. International media fretted about the spread of MERS or Ebola. Saudi security forces braced themselves for sectarian spillover.
Instead, the Mecca menace that claimed the most victims came from a cell phone, at least according to the religious scholars still up in arms about it. That’s right folks, we’re talking about the selfie.
With Muslims documenting their every move with selfie-sticks and good old fashioned flip phones, many were left wondering, is no place safe from the duck face?
Religious scholars condemned the phenomenon, arguing that such behavior goes against the pious point of performing Hajj in the first place. After all, it’s a rare moment when so much tradition meets so much of the internet.
As a non-Muslim, you can only dream of entering Mecca, and filming the pilgrimage is out of the question for foreign media with no ‘Muslim-granted’ permit. Same goes for Muslims who can’t afford to make the Holy trek.
Now we’ve got an intimate glimpse of an otherwise unknown territory, so long as you’re willing to sift through a few wily smiles, thumb-ups, and shiny foreheads to actually see Mecca itself.
The morning after the pilgrimage, here's our roundup of Hajj’s selfie generation goofing off and playing with their prayers, and the naysayers who responded.
