With Iranians blocked from this month’s Haj pilgrimage, their supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a furious rebuke to Saudi Arabia, saying the Muslim world should challenge its management of Islam’s holiest sites. More than 400 of the pilgrims who died were Iranian.
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This year, no Iranians will attend the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, and Khamenei has called on Muslim countries to consider ending Saudi control of the holy sites.
In January, relations were severed again after Iranian demonstrators torched the Saudi embassy and a consulate following the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
Saudi Arabia is getting ready to introduce several new safety measures for this year’s hajj.
Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah group has banned members from performing the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia this year, a source close to the movement said.
The head of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council said that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s remarks accusing Riyadh of “murder” over the deaths of almost 2,300 pilgrims at last year’s hajj were “inappropriate and offensive”.
The Nigerian pharmacist, 46, says his faith remains unshaken even after the deaths of at least 2,297 pilgrims during the Hajj stoning ritual last September 24.
Iran’s outburst was responded to in similarly strong language in an explosive statement issued yesterday by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdulaziz Al Al-Sheikh.
“Indeed, no resemblance between Islam of Iranians and most Muslims, and bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric and Saudi terror masters preach”, Zarif tweeted.
The latest round began with comments from Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in full bluster condemned the Saudis for prohibiting Iranian pilgrims from joining the Hajj after talks about security and logistics collapsed. But the fact remains that for the first time in 25 years, Iranians will not be able to participate in the Hajj and the Grand Mufti has also offended many Muslims across the world by saying that Iranians are not Muslims.
The dispute escalated after Tehran demanded that Iranian pilgrims be allowed to perform certain practices – forbidden by the Saudi authorities – during the Hajj.
“Islamic Ummah [Arabic word for nation] was bereaved in Mina stampede and about 7,000 people were killed, but no country other than Iran reacted and they remained silent”, he noted.
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The top religious leader of Sunni Saudi Arabia further stoked the flames of tension with Shi’ite Iran on September 6 by proclaiming that the leaders of the Islamic Republic in an area once known as Persia are not Muslims. 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.
