Man commits suicide at the Great Mosque of Mecca

MENA

Published: 2018-06-09 09:34

Last Updated: 2024-03-28 11:50


An investigation has been launched into the incident. (Morocco World News)
An investigation has been launched into the incident. (Morocco World News)

Saudi authorities have launched an investigation into the suicide of a man at the Great Mosque of Mecca, Sky News Arabia reported.

The man, who was identified as a 26-year-old French citizen who converted to Islam, died instantly after throwing himself from the third floor after Friday’s Isha prayer.

The suicidal man leapt 300ft to his death above a large crowd of worshippers at the Islam's holiest site.

A police spokesman said: "At 9.20pm a foreigner threw himself from the roof of the Grand Mosque in Makkah to the ground floor of the circumambulation nave, resulting in his immediate death.

"The body was rushed to a hospital, pending the results of investigation into the incident, particularly his identity and reasons behind his behaviour, despite the erection of a strong round fence to protect people from falling down."

Suicide is a sin in Islam; Muslim scholars and clerics have said that it is forbidden, as per one verse in the Quran instructs: "And do not kill yourselves, surely God is most Merciful to you."