Abdul Salam Mohammed Ali, who is living outside Iran, told the Saudi Press Agency in an interview that the projects implemented for the comfort of pilgrims cannot be ignored.
Advertisement
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that some 769 Muslim pilgrims died in a stampede during the ritual in last year’s Hajj, according to Saudi official figures.
The Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage, has become another opportunity for regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia to continue their propaganda wars against one another.
Just days before this year’s Haj, which began on Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei questioned Saudi Arabia’s right to manage Islam’s holiest sites.
“The kingdom categorically rejects that the hajj serves any political objective”, Salman, 80, said in a brief address to global VIPs attending the pilgrimage.
His claims led to mutual accusations throughout last week.
Tensions between the two countries have been rising since Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in January following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, itself a response to the Saudi execution of dissident Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
Khatami said that officials from Iran’s Foreign Ministry will pursue a legal case on behalf of the families of victims of the stampede.
As part of a reform plan to wean Saudi Arabia off its dependency on oil, the government aims to encourage even more visits to Mecca outside of hajj season, raising annual pilgrim numbers to 30 million by 2030 from eight million at present.
“Serving the guests of God is an honour for us”, King Salman told the VIP delegates.
Both Morocco and Saudi Arabia are Sunni nations; Iran is a predominantly Shia country.
The ritual is an emulation of [Muslim Prophet] Ibrahim’s stoning of the devil at the three spots where he is said to have appeared trying to dissuade him from obeying God’s order to sacrifice his son, Ismael.Muslims from around the world pour to Makkah every year to perform Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam.
Almost 2 million pilgrims from 160 countries flowed on multiple ramps toward the Jamarat Bridge where the “stoning of the devil” took place under high security and without incident, the interior and hajj ministry spokesmen said.
He was not more specific.
Salman also called for Muslim unity in order to eliminate the “scourge” of extremism.
Advertisement
The Saudi officials, “guided by the USA and the Zionists, seek to create tension in their ties with Iran”, the senior Iranian commander added, stressing that Saudis’ failures in Iraq, Syria and Yemen are the result of the “unwise policies” of the rulers of the kingdom.
