Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was due to meet later on Wednesday, September 7, with the families of some of the more than 400 Iranian victims of a stampede that killed almost 2,300 pilgrims at last year’s hajj.
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But tensions between predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia and Iran, which boasts the world’s largest population of Shi’ite Muslims, often come to a head during the hajj, which takes place in Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina in the Saudi kingdom.
The two countries severed diplomatic relations in January after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric and angry Iranian crowds overran Saudi diplomatic missions.
“The Iranian authorities are the ones who don’t want to send their pilgrims to Hajj for their own reasons as part of their effort to politicize the ritual”, he said. A stampede past year killed at least 2000, by all estimates except that of the Saudi government.
He called Saudi prince to remember how desperate they were in providing security for Hajj rituals of last year and urged him to be responsible toward the bereaved nations of last year’s tragedy of Mina.
The bitter war of words between Iran and Saudi Arabia intensified Wednesday ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage from which Iranians have been excluded for the first time in decades.
The dispute escalated after Tehran demanded that Iranian pilgrims be allowed to perform certain practices – forbidden by the Saudi authorities – during the Hajj.
Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh told the daily Makkah newspaper on September 6 that Iranians are descendants of Mujaws, a reference to Zoroastrians and others who worship fire.
The two regional rivals are now locked in a number of battles in the Middle East, supporting opposing and warring sides. According to an Associated Press count based on official statements from the 36 countries that lost citizens in the disaster, more than 2,400 pilgrims were killed in the incident.
In return, Saudi Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Cheikh stated that Iranians are not Muslims and their cultures are not anything alike. Zarif’s Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir, said in a speech last week that the regime in Tehran “is behind some of the operations threatening national security of the region”.
Iranians are predominantly Shi’a Muslim.
‘. They (world Muslims) must think of a fundamental solution for the management of the Two Holy Mosques and the issue of Hajj, ‘ said the Leader while ctriticizing the Saudi rulers for reducing the Hajj “to a mere pilgrimage-tourism trip”.
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Ayatollah Khamenei further stressed, “The world of Islam, including Muslim governments and peoples, must familiarize themselves with the Saudi rulers and correctly understand their blasphemous, faithless, dependent and materialistic nature”.
