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.
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Wednesday on the Muslim world to unite and punish the Saudi government for its handling of the Hajj pilgrimage and wider actions in the region.
“Because of these (Saudi) rulers’ oppressive behaviour towards God’s guests (pilgrims), the world of Islam must fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and the issue of haj”, Khamenei said in a message carried by his website and Iran’s state media.
Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, the grand mufti, said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s accusations were “not surprising”. The dates of the tradition are based on the moon, and the schedule was made official by authorities in Saudi Arabia Thursday “based on the sighting of the moon”, according to Al Jazeera. He has also repeated demand of Tehran for joint management of Hajj on the plea that Saudis were not capable of managing affairs leading to tragedies as we witnessed previous year.
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.
The reference to the Zoroastrian religion that prevailed in Iran before Islam is used by fundamentalist Sunnis as an insult against Iranians.
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”. 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.
A year after the worst hajj disaster in a generation, Saudi Arabia is issuing pilgrims with electronic bracelets and using more surveillance cameras to avoid a repeat of a crush that killed hundreds and damaged already strained ties with Iran.
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. The two countries also support opposing sides in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
In one of the first rites of hajj, which formally starts on Saturday, white-clad pilgrims take their turn circling the Kaaba in a procession that continues 24 hours a day. Saudi’s grand mufti countered by claiming that Iranians are “not Muslims”.
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The Leader went on to add, “the Mina tragedy and the loss of lives of Iranian pilgrims while praying and thirsty under the burning sun, is a deeply grieving incident with various revealing political, social, moral and religious dimensions that must not be forgotten”.
