(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Saudi Arabia's top Wahhabi cleric has claimed that Iran's leaders are not Muslims and have a deep animosity towards Sunnis.
Controversial Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh was responding to Iran's supreme leader, who denounced Saudi Arabia's handling of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, according to Independent.
The Grand Mufti claimed the saying of the Iranian Supreme Leader were "not surprising" and accused Iran's leaders of being Zoroastrians, an ancient pre-Islamic Iranian religion.
In remarks published on Wednesday, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al ash-Sheikh said: "We must understand these are not Muslims.
"They are the son of the Magi and their hostility towards Muslims is an old one, especially with the People of the Tradition [Wahhabis]."
Iran's Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei accused the Saudis rulers on Monday of "murdering" pilgrims caught up in the stampede during last year's Hajj.
Supreme leader of Iran Imam Khamenei called on the Islamic world to reject the Saudi royal family as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina, according to an official statement issued by his office on Monday, ABNA24 reported.
The statement, which included a letter to Muslims all over the world, carried sharp criticism of Saudi Arabia’s current rulers and accusations of them being infiltrated by Israel.
“Saudi Arabia is a 'cursed tree'; its rulers involved the Islamic world in civil wars that resulted in the death of innocents by establishing takfiri [Islamist militant] groups,” the statement read.“Instead of providing an official excuse for the incident and holding accountable any officials who were responsible, Saudi officials simply evaded the matter, even refusing to formulate a fact-finding committee. This step showed apparent hostility towards the Iranian Islamic Republic,” Ayatollah Khamenei continued.Iran supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, asked Muslims around the world to seriously consider a new Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and a new method of managing pilgrimage, as Saudi rulers have committed crimes against pilgrims.
Saudi Arabia claims nearly 770 people were killed in the incident, but Iranian officials say about 4,700 people, including more than 460 Iranians, lost their lives in the tragedy. The crush was the deadliest incident in the history of the pilgrimage. According to an Associated Press count based on official statements from the 36 countries that lost citizens in the disaster, more than 2,400 pilgrims were killed in the incident.
FM Zarif: Iranians' Islam different from what Saudi terror masters preach
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the religion of Iran and most of the Muslim world is nothing like that of Saudi Arabian Wahhabis.
“Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians & most Muslims & bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters preach,” Zarif posted on his Twitter account on Tuesday.
Zarif made the remark in response to a top Saudi Wahhabi cleric saying that Iranians are not Muslims.
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