Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticised Saudi Arabia+ over how it runs the haj after a crush last year+ killed hundreds of pilgrims.
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The week began with a furious rebuke from Khamenei, published on his website, in which he accused the Saudi royals of “murder” over the deaths of almost 2,300 pilgrims, including hundreds of Iranians, in last year’s stampede.
The remarks by Grand Mufti Abdulaziz Al Sheikh came a day after Ayatollah Khamenei said, “The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead (after the Mina stampede) in containers- instead of providing medical treatment and helping them or at least quenching their thirst”.
After two failed attempts to resolve the safety issue, Iran banned its pilgrims from attending this year’s hajj for the first time in nearly 30 years.
About 500 Iranian Hajj pilgrims were killed in Mina stampede last September. “They are the son of the Magi and their hostility towards Muslims is an old one, especially with the People of the Tradition [Sunnis]”. Iran declared it will not send any of its citizens to the pilgrimage this year, which starts this weekend.
The Saudis maintain that the stampede was an accident, though some have claimed it was begun by Iranian pilgrims who violated the rules of the pilgrimage.
In this photo released by official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks at a weekly cabinet meeting in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016.
Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti responded by saying Iranians were “not Muslim”. They back opposing sides in Syria’s civil war and a list of other conflicts across the Middle East.
“Instead of apology and remorse and judicial prosecution of those who were directly at fault in that horrifying event, Saudi rulers – with utmost shamelessness and insolence – refused to allow the formation of an global Islamic fact-finding committee”, he said. 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.
Rouhani further lambasted Saudi authorities for their “tactlessness and ineptitude” in overseeing the Hajj pilgrimage previous year, when thousands of Muslim pilgrims, including 465 Iranians, died in a human crush. Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam and was the dominant religion in Persia before the rise of Islam. One year later, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with the families of those who lost their lives and called for an worldwide investigation into the stampede.
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Riyadh said Tehran had made “unacceptable” demands, including the right to organise demonstrations “that would cause chaos”.
