Millions of Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca every year and every year pilgrims are lost to the crowds. This year 40 people died while doing the Hajj -- a journey every Muslim must make once it their lives -- and 29 Bermudians found out first hand about the danger associated with the event.

Some of the Bermudians found themselves in the worst place to be in Mecca, at the worst time on the same day that 40 pilgrims lost their lives.

Mustapha Rasheed shared his personal story with the Royal Gazette . Mr.

Rasheed has been a Muslim since 1975 and this was his first Hajj -- the word commonly used among Muslims for the pilgramage.

The danger normally arises at the stage when pilgrims walk one mile from Mina to Mecca in order to throw seven stones at `the Satan' which is symbolically represented by a black stone on a pillar (`the Jamarah').

"Some people take it very (literally),'' said Mr. Rasheed. "I take it as, you are stoning the Satan within yourself, but as in every religion, there are people so emotional about the Hajj, that it is like they are really stoning Satan,'' he said. While some throw just tiny pebbles, others throw larger stones and rock and some people will throw their shoes or anything they think of.

"It was my first time on the Hajj,'' he said. "When we approached the Jamarah, there were thousands of people in front of you and behind you and some of them are pushing and shoving.

"You're being pushed forward and when you get closer thousands of people are on your left and thousands are on your right. But because we didn't have experience, we went up the middle. That was a big mistake.'' The middle was the worst possible place to be in the area around the Jamarah and the group found themselves being pelted with stones while being simultaneously pushed and shoved ever forward.

"We decided to shove our way out of the crowd,'' Mr. Rasheed said. But as the group pushed their way to safety some of them became separated.

"When I got out, I found that two of my sisters were lost from me,'' Mr.

Rasheed said. "The men are supposed to protect the women on the Hajj.'' Mr. Rasheed said he was terribly frightened for them and knew he had to go back into the crowd to try and find them.

He spent the next hour and a half battling his way into and out of the crowd, being pelted and shoved and become ever more and more worried.

"I was filled with anxiety,'' he said. "There was so much tension in the crowd. I lost my shoes. There were three million people there. When you come from a 22 square mile island with 60,000 people, you can imagine that is a most frightful experience.'' Mr. Rasheed repeatedly returned to three members of the group that stayed with him while he looked for the two women. Finally, one of the many times he approached the group waiting, he was told that the two women were safe and had returned with other members of the group to their base.

"I was relieved so much, I really cried because of all the anxiety and the fear I'd had in my mind gushed out at one time. Thank God they were protected,'' he said.

Back at their camp "word spread like wildfire'' about the 40 deaths that day, in the centre as people approached to stone the Satan. "People get pushed down and the thousands behind them keep on coming,'' he said.

"We were so fortunate, we were spared,'' said Mr. Rasheed.

But as the group met quietly to regroup, they also knew they had to return the next day, to the same place to stone the Satan, and again the day after that.

"The next day, we were nervous and filled with anxiety as we made the mile long walk,'' he said. But the group had developed a plan to stick together and to take a safer route to throw their seven stones.

"We went to the (upper level) the next day,'' he said. And he added that the Saudi Arabian police and military were on hand that day to beef up crowd control.

"Upstairs it was much more organised,'' he said. "People came forward, threw their stones and moved on.''