Ayatollah Khamenei leveled sharp criticism at the countries and governments that did not react to this grievous catastrophe which took the lives of about 7,000 Hajj pilgrims, and deemed their silence and indifference a “great disaster for the Islamic Ummah”.
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Responding to a question by Saudi newspaper Makkah, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said he was not surprised at Khamenei’s comments.
In January, relations were severed again after Iranian demonstrators torched Saudi Arabia’s embassy and a consulate following Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shia leader along with 47 “terrorists”. Iran and Saudi Arabia’s governments find themselves on opposite ends of wars in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen – battles where the most aggressive actors frame their campaigns in sectarian terms.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) denounced Iranian accusations today that have sharply attacked Saudi Arabia over the annual Islamic pilgrimage, the Hajj. Iranians are barred from participating in this year’s Hajj pilgrimage, which is required to be done at least once by every able-bodied Muslim.
Khamenei said the Saudi ruling family “does not deserve to be in charge and manage the holy sites”, AFP reports. Predating Christianity and Islam, Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion in Persia before the Muslim conquest.
“The world of Islam, including Muslim governments and peoples, must familiarise themselves with the Saudi rulers and correctly understand their blasphemous, faithless and materialistic nature”, Iran’s Khamenei hit back in a statement published on his website on Tuesday.
On Monday, Khamenei raised the stakes in the dispute over hajj by saying Saudi officials had “murdered” hajj pilgrims who were injured in the stampede.
“If they are telling the truth and are not at fault in this incident, they should let an Islamic global fact-finding committee closely examine and clarify the truth of the issue”, Khamenei said, according to a transcript of his comments published on his website.
Al al-Sheikh’s remarks drew an acerbic retort from Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who said they were evidence of bigotry among Saudi leaders.
But the Saudis themselves cast the Iranians as global pariahs, bent on fomenting armed struggle and terrorist plots around the world.
The Islamic Republic announced on May 29 that it won’t dispatch pilgrims this year to Mecca due to Riyadh’s failure to address Tehran’s concerns regarding the safety of the pilgrims.
“We are not alone in this world, and we face other political conflicts”. Saudi officials put the death toll in the 700s.
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Director of Zamzam Water Division at the Grand Mosque Eng. Osama Al-Hujaili said, in a statement aired by Saudi Press Agency (SPA), that this initiative comes as part of the program of “Zamzam water bottle for each pilgrim”.
