21 million gather in karbala?

[zaid_ibn_ali]

Even western media like the independent are reporting 21 million people gathered in kerbala on 40th day mourning Husayn.
I'm no expert, but if hajj can only accomodate just over 3 million, how can karbala take in 21 million?

[Farid]

Please see the main website: twelvershia.net in desktop mode to get an answer.
Our banner has the answer.

[Hani]

Iraqi government are responsible for this misinformation. Usually the government is responsible for releasing accurate figures. The Iraqi government are Shia propagandists at this point so they're blowing the numbers out of proportion. The sad part is, absolutely nobody around the world cares about the Shia or their Karbala rituals to bother investigating if the numbers are accurate. This is why the world media just accept whatever numbers they're given assuming they even bother reporting on "Arbaeen".

Truth is, I doubt the numbers of visitors reaches 1 million. (I say this judging by the pictures THEY post online)

Here's our article:
http://twelvershia.net/2015/11/27/arbaeen-number-of-visitors/

[MuslimAnswers]

^

Recently I read an argument erupt online after they claimed 43 million visitors for this year's Arbaeen. Strange times we live in.

[Hani]

Yeah they doubled the numbers, 21 turned to 43, then you wonder why they have in their narrations that `Abbas killed 200 ppl and Muslim bin `Aqil killed 1000 people and Husayn killed 10,000 ppl etc... It's a sect of exaggerators  and liars destined for misery in this life and the next.

[MuslimAnswers]

Yeah they doubled the numbers, 21 turned to 43, then you wonder why they have in their narrations that `Abbas killed 200 ppl and Muslim bin `Aqil killed 1000 people and Husayn killed 10,000 ppl etc... It's a sect of exaggerators  and liars destined for misery in this life and the next.

One thing I do not comprehend: They tell us to "go there and see with your own eyes". Now, I have been in the Haram in Makkah in the last 10 nights of Ramadhan including the 27th Night, and it is quite very crowded and it is even difficult to walk in the jam-packed streets, but there is no way I can tell whether there are 3 million or 30 million or 300 million worshipers there, since this is something the person cannot figure out just by the 'feeling of being there'.

[Hani]

Best method is getting satellite images of karbala during Arbaeen. No clue how to do it but if I could i'll prove to you they're less than a million.

[Sheikh]

A highly developed country with established crowd control techniques and a large police & paramilitary force can't handle 2-3m pilgrims at Hajj without stampedes and other tragedies, yet war-torn Iraq with no infrastructure and no police for crowd control can take care of 21m pilgrims for Arbaeen?

Sure, okay.

Edit: I have a friend that moved to Karbala to be an English teacher and she posts snaps all the everyday showing her neighborhood, the shrines, the wild animals, etc. It seemed to me as if there were more people & groups on Ashura than Arbaeen.

[Hani]

We saw some aerial footage from drones on Arbaeen, they're less than a million for sure. Go to youtube and search for drone footage.

[zaid_ibn_ali]

Upon further reading, the claim is that number of people passed through kerbala THROUGHOUT  the 40 day period.
Which is more realistic.
As common sense tells us that ashura would have a large if not the largest figure.
So the figures don't mean much.
40 million people can pass through an average city anywhere over a 40 day period.
Residents, workers, travellers, commuters etc.
Majority would be the same people each day repeating their routine.

Even going on thr highest figure of 21 million, over 40 days thats 525,000 people a day.
Just about half a million, not 21 million lol

[Hadrami]

itd be excellent if we can get satelite pic on that day, maybe itll show 1-2 mil people. A city with 2 mil population witj 3rd world infrastructure definitely wont be able to handle 10-20 times its population even if its evenly distributed througout a week let alone a day. Funny when some shia say its a miracle, because they know deep down those numbers are impossible.

[GreatChineseFall]

Here are some pictures of the year 2016:
November the 4th
November the 11th
November the 15th
November the 20th
November the 23rd
November the 25th

I doubt there are even 100.000 people a single day there.

[GreatChineseFall]

And the pics zoomed in at the two shrines:








Who wants to do some head counting?

[Hani]

We actually have a movie now (Drone videos). We will upload it soon.

Also Arbaeen 2016 was on the 20th of November I assume? We need to analyse the satellite imagery Jazak-Allah Khayr.

You might wanna edit this, state it's less than one million and cite our website article as source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_peaceful_gatherings_in_history

[Hadrami]

Here are some pictures of the year 2016:
November the 4th
November the 11th
November the 15th
November the 20th
November the 23rd
November the 25th

I doubt there are even 100.000 people a single day there.

Maybe more than 100K, but definitely not 20+ mil

https://youtu.be/zcaevw66nt8

[Hani]

Bro, how did you get specific satellite imagery for the days you wished? What website is this? I want pictures of the main entrances to Karbala' on Arbaeen to see how crowded they are. It seems the Shia are now shifting their position to saying that the 23 million were not gathered in the city at once, rather they were on the road between Najaf and Karbala'.

What we've accomplished so far is proving that it isn't the largest gathering not by a long shot. If we get images showing the roads and entrances on the days of Karbala', we can show them slippery folks once and for all that they're liars.

For the record, here are the dates of Arbaeen:
Islamic year   Saudi Arabia[28]
1435   23 December 2013
1436   13 December 2014
1437   2 December 2015
1438   20 November 2016
1439   9 November 2017
1440   30 October 2018

[GreatChineseFall]

Maybe more than 100K, but definitely not 20+ mil

For the other days, I seriously doubt it is above the 100K, for November the 20th it probably is.

Bro, how did you get specific satellite imagery for the days you wished? What website is this? I want pictures of the main entrances to Karbala' on Arbaeen to see how crowded they are. It seems the Shia are now shifting their position to saying that the 23 million were not gathered in the city at once, rather they were on the road between Najaf and Karbala'.

It's in the watermark, Terraserver. It is true that they have set up camps throughout the city to accomodate for the people and there are a lot of people on the road in Karbala itsself which you can see in the image below taken on Nov 20, showing the entrance to Karbala from the Najaf-Karbala road. Nevertheless, these people have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

Najaf to Karbala is 75 km long, the road is about 10 m long in its width, giving a total area of 750.000 m2. If we take a crowd density of 1 person per m2, which is ABSOLUTELY not the case and very very very generous, it gives 0.75 million people. Let's add the road from Baghdad to it too, which is 100 km to Karbala and gives another million. Add the road from Hilla to it too, which gives another 50 km and an additional half a million people, you still get only a total of 2.25 million people and I am already making ridiculous assumptions here.
Additionally, if we take the two shrines and between it, that area is about 85000 m2. Regarding crowd densities, it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to get a crowd density of over 9 people per square meter, which is what you see sometimes in Japan when they squeeze people into a full train. So if we remove the two shrines and all the trees and everything else and level everything and pack the people on those two squares and between you would end up with another 0.75 million people. Unless these shrines have ten floors or something you could physically speaking never even reach a million on the gathering place itsself.
You see, with even the most ridiculous assumptions, filling from the north the entire road from Baghdad to Karbala, from the east the entire road from Hilla to Karbala, and filling from the south the entire road from Najaf to Karbala and absolutely packing the area of the two shrines with people and I still can't get past the 3 million!
And this is not even the case, I have added another image of the Najaf-Karbala road, but now from the Najaf side 10 km from Najaf and it's still absolutely empty.

To see how ridiculous this is from another angle, consider the following. Karbala has less than ten entrances to the city. That means that if you want to accomodate an influx of 23 million people on a day, then assuming ten entrances, through EACH ENTRANCE would have to pass more than 25 people EVERY SINGLE SECOND for the ENTIRE 24 HOURS of that day!!

You might wanna edit this, state it's less than one million and cite our website article as source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_peaceful_gatherings_in_history

Who is familiar with Wikipedia editing and wants to take the honors?

[Hani]

Good job, roads aren't packed. This was the final nail in the coffin.

[Hadrami]

I have calculated the Najaf to Karbala Rd start and finish at the border of each cities. Assuming that road is SOOOOO PACKED from start to finish. After crunching the numbers, can only come up with 1.5 million people

[Hani]

I added the calculations to the article to show that roads don't matter much.