Here’s some more support for my contention that the carnage at the Islamic “stoning of Satan” ritual is a form of human sacrifice, tacitly condoned and even desired. Don’t take my word for it; read what the pilgrims themselves say: Pilgrims long to see Mecca and die. (Hat tip: TS.)

The death of 251 Muslims in a stampede shocked no one, with many pilgrims certain that those who die on the hajj enter paradise and the Saudi authorities pointing to the “will of God”.

“I wish I was among the pilgrims who died on Sunday,” Kamal Shahada, an Egyptian pilgrim, said.

“I would have gone to heaven, because dying in these holy sites of Islam would assure one a place in heaven,” he said, echoing a widespread conviction in the Islamic world.

Libyan Mohammad Taylamun agreed totally.

“The two million faithful who gathered every year at the holy sites for the pilgrimage hope to have the honour of being buried in this sacred soil,” he said after casting stones at the symbols of Satan.

It was in this arid valley outside Mecca where 251 died trampled under foot on Sunday as they battled to carry out the final major ritual of the annual hajj.

The scale of the tragedy which cast a shadow over the hajj certainly provoked compassion among the gathering, but fatalism predominates among “the guests of God”.

That fatalism was abundantly evident on Monday as hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims flocked again from dawn to the dangerous esplanade to “stone Satan”.

The high-risk ritual, which has produced a trail of carnage over the years, was to continue Tuesday for a third and final day. Even reports of another minor stampede on Monday failed to quell the fervour of the faithful.

“Those who died will be missed by their families and friends but they have a chance no one else can have by dying on the holy land of Islam where they are then buried,” said a Bangladeshi who refused to be named.

And it has always been so.

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