MAKKAH — The Ministry of Haj and Umrah has opened an investigation in the wrong translation of the "pebbles" which the pilgrims use to throw at the Satan. The pebbles were translated as the "anthrax" and this wrong translation was clearly written on the bags containing them, Okaz Arabic daily said on Sunday. The pebbles are collected from Muzdalifa by a special contractor who gives them to the pilgrims to throw at the Satan. They are cleaned and purified before they are put into the bags. The ministry said the contractor and the translator were under investigations since August 10 prior to handing them over to the concerned authorities to take disciplinary action against them. The Arabic version on the bags was correct. It said bags of the Jamrat pebbles while the English was made into the "Anthrax Gravel Bag". The mistake in the translation was discovered by the famous American preacher Yusuf Estes who was invited by the ministry to deliver a lecture at the 44th annual session of the Grand Haj Symposium. The preacher filmed a video clip showing the bag which carried the wrong translation. He warned against the serious impact of the wrong translation which was an obvious Google translation. "Google is not wrong. It provides a number of translations for the browsers to choose from," he said. He also said the pilgrims who keep these bags with them may face trouble when they arrive at their countries' airports in their journey back home. Estes was surprised where the translator got this wrong translation from because the Arabic was correct. The pilgrims use the gravels to throw pebbles at the big Satan on the first day of Eid Al-Adha and then all the three replicas of the devil on the second and third day.
