Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Iran

Saudis Should Not Run Hajj Pilgrimage: Iran

Juan Cole 09/06/2016

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

TeleSur | – –

Pilgrims from Iran will be unable to attend hajj, which starts on Sept. 11 this year after talks between the two countries on arrangements broke down in May.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei renewed criticism of Saudi Arabia over how it runs the hajj after a crush last year killed hundreds of pilgrims, and suggested Muslim countries think about ending Riyadh’s control of the annual pilgrimage.

“Because of these (Saudi) rulers’ oppressive behavior toward God’s guests (pilgrims), the world of Islam must fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and the issue of hajj,” Khamenei said in a message carried by his website and Iran’s state media.

“They must not let those rulers escape responsibility for the crimes they have caused throughout the world of Islam,” Khamenei said, listing Saudi Arabia’s involvement in conflicts in areas including Iraq, Yemen and Syria on the side of forces Iran opposes.

Custodian of Islam’s most revered places in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on organizing hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake at least once.

Its prestige was damaged by the 2015 disaster, in which Riyadh said 769 pilgrims were killed – the highest hajj death toll since a crush in 1990. Counts of fatalities by countries who repatriated bodies showed that over 2,000 people may have died in the crush, more than 400 of them Iranians.

Iran, Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival, blamed the disaster on organizers’ incompetence. Pilgrims from Iran will be unable to attend hajj, which starts on Sept. 11, this year after talks between the two countries on arrangements broke down in May.

An official Saudi inquiry has yet to be published, but authorities suggested at the time some pilgrims ignored crowd control rules.

Via TeleSur

—–

Related video:

DW’s report from last year on the pilgrimage stampede and Iran’s criticism

Filed Under: Iran, Islam, Saudi Arabia

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....