Gulf Arab states accused Iran on Wednesday of trying to politicise Haj after its supreme leader criticised Saudi authorities over their management of the annual pilgrimage.
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Rouhani further lambasted Saudi authorities for their “tactlessness and ineptitude” in overseeing the Hajj pilgrimage a year ago, when thousands of Muslim pilgrims, including 465 Iranians, died in a human crush.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef said Iran wanted to “politicize hajj and convert it into an occasion to violate the teachings of Islam, through shouting slogans and distributing the security of pilgrims”, Saudi Press Agency reported.
This year for the first time in nearly three decades Iranians will not join the annual pilgrimage to the Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia after talks on logistics and security fell apart in May.
The intensified spat between two nations on opposite sides of Islam’s ancient schism – and numerous region’s modern conflicts – comes days ahead of the anniversary of the Hajj tragedy a year ago.
The world’s largest annual Muslim gathering, bringing some 2 million to Islam’s most sacred sites in Mecca, will also be a focus of concerns about militant violence after a suicide bomber killed four soldiers in early July in the nearby city of Medina, Islam’s second holiest.
Iran and Saudi back opposing sides in Syria’s long-running civil war and other Middle East conflicts. Saudi’s grand mufti countered by claiming that Iranians are “not Muslims”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif responded to Al Sheikh’s remarks with a tweet, linking Saudi Wahabism to the fundamentalist terrorism of the moment: “Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians & most Muslims & bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters preach”.
Tensions between the two countries have been rising since Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, itself a response to the Saudi execution of dissident Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
“We must understand [Iranians] are not Muslims, for they are the descendants of Majuws, and their enmity toward Muslims, especially the Sunnis, is very old”, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz Al Sheikh said of predominantly Shia Islamic Iran Tuesday.
The dispute escalated after Tehran demanded that Iranian pilgrims be allowed to perform certain practices – forbidden by the Saudi authorities – during the Hajj.
“They are the sons of the Magi”, he said, referring to Zoroastrianism, a religion that once dominated Iran.
President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that Iran will never give up on restoring the rights of the victims of the Mina tragedy, IRNA reported.
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At the pilgrimage in 1987, violence between Iranian Shi’ite pilgrims and Saudi security forces led to the deaths of more than 400 people, including 275 Iranians. While Iran as a sovereign country can make diplomatic errors, Saudi Arabia as the custodian of Kabaa cannot and must not reply in the like. An official Saudi inquiry has yet to be published, but authorities suggested at the time some pilgrims ignored crowd control rules.
