Iran’s president has called on the Muslim world to “punish” Saudi Arabia for a stampede during the hajj past year that killed more than 2,400 people, while Iran’s supreme leader called for an worldwide investigation of the incident.
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Summary⎙ Print One year after the hajj disaster that killed almost 500 Iranians out of more than 2,000 people, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is calling for an worldwide body to investigate.
The comments came after Saudi Arabia’s top cleric, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, said Iranians – who are predominantly Shi’a – were “not Muslims”.
But for Middle Eastern regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia, the run-up to this year’s pilgrimage, which begins this week, took on a different tone.
Meanwhile, a high-ranking Iraqi official told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that his country has stopped some Iranian members from travelling to Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj, as they have secretly infiltrated an Iraqi group of pilgrims with fake passports.
“What Iranian media and some Iranian officials are raising is not objective and they know before anyone else that the kingdom has given the Iranian pilgrims what it gave others”, Prince Nayef said.
In January, the kingdom’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric and activist Nemer al-Nemer sparked protests atâ Saudi diplomatic compounds in Iran.
Iran had the highest death toll of any country, with 464 Iranian pilgrims killed.
The government of Saudi Arabia has declared that any pilgrim who fails to abide the rules in place for the stoning of the devil ritual at Jamarat will be arrested and dealt with accordingly.
On Monday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif had dismissed Iranian criticism of Saudi Haj management. Predating Christianity and Islam, Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion in Persia before the Arab conquest. The two countries also support opposing sides in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
Muhammed said that the Saudi authority had threatened that any pilgrims, who violated the arrangement would be made to face the effect while their state officials would be held responsible.
Billboards were erected across Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday emblazoned with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s recent vitriolic quotes against Saudi Arabia.
Khamenei has urged Muslims throughout the world to challenge the status quo in which Saudi Arabia controls the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. On one hand Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif termed the statement “bigoted extremism”, Ali Khamenei called upon the world Muslims to “punish” the Saudis. Counts of fatalities by countries who repatriated bodies showed that more than 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians.
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“Except the Iranians. They insist year after year on doing that, and every time they do that.is a crisis happens, accidents happen”, he said.
