A Muslim pilgrim takes selfie at the Grand mosque in Mecca September 6, 2016. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah
REUTERS - Saudi Arabia's top religious authority said Iran's leaders were not
Muslims, drawing a rebuke from Tehran in an unusually harsh exchange between
the regional rivals over the running of the annual haj pilgrimage.
The war of words on the eve of the mass pilgrimage will deepen a
long-running rift between the Sunni kingdom and the Shi'ite revolutionary
power. They back opposing sides in Syria's civil war and a list of other
conflicts across the Middle East.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message published on
Monday, criticized Saudi Arabia over how it runs the haj after a crush last
year killed hundreds of pilgrims. He said Saudi authorities had
"murdered" some of them, describing Saudi rulers as godless and
irreligious.
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.
"We have to understand that they are not Muslims ... Their main
enemies are the followers of Sunnah (Sunnis)," Al al-Sheikh was quoted as
saying, remarks republished by the Arab News.
He described Iranian leaders as sons of "magus", a reference to
Zoroastrianism, the dominant belief in Persia until the Muslim Arab invasion of
the region that is now Iran 13 centuries ago.
"BIGOTRY"
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.
"Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians & most Muslims
& bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters
preach," Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.
Saudi authorities normally seek to avoid public discussion of whether
Shi'ites are Muslims, but implicitly recognize them as such by welcoming them
to the haj, and by accepting Iranian visits to the Saudi-based Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation.
Tensions between the two countries have been rising since Riyadh cut ties
with Tehran 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.
Custodian of Islam's most revered places in Mecca and Medina, Saudi
Arabia stakes its reputation on organizing haj, one of the five pillars of
Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake
at least once.
Riyadh said 769 pilgrims were killed in the 2015 disaster, the highest
haj death toll since a crush in 1990. Counts of fatalities by countries who
repatriated bodies showed that more than 2,000 people may have died, more than
400 of them Iranians.
Iran blamed the 2015 disaster on organizers' incompetence. Pilgrims from
Iran will be unable to attend haj, which officially starts on Sept. 11, this
year after talks between the two countries on arrangements broke down in May.
The split between Islam's main sects dates to a dispute among Muslims
over who would rule their community after the death of the Prophet Mohammad,
and Shi'ites still regard his descendents as a line of imams blessed with
divine guidance.
Today such disagreements over history remain emotive points of tension
between the sects, but they are also divided over day -to-day issues including
differing interpretations of Islamic law and the role and organization of the
clergy.
In the Wahhabi teaching of Sunni Islam followed by the Saudi clergy and
government, Shi'ite doctrine about imams is seen as incompatible with the
concept of a monotheistic God.
(Reporting by William Maclean, Sami Aboudi, Noah Browning and Babak
Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Toby Chopra)
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