JARWAL, Mecca, at the close of January 2004. That night, as usual, the temperature dropped. Chilly desert winds blew across Ummul Qura Street. Behind doors which cannot be tightly closed, inside rooms with cracked windows, lived 240 haj pilgrims from Indonesia, shivering from the cold.

They tried to be patient and make the best of their situation. But Mohammad Ridwan, 45, was not in the mood. In a 3x4-meter room, he slept on a thin mattress over