Abdollah Nassiri, head of public relations for the Iranian Hajj Organization, said, “Our move is not political, it is religious.”
He said pilgrimages were being “suspended, not halted” until an agreement on the treatment of pilgrims can be worked out.
The specific issue Nassiri mentioned was Shiites being confronted by Saudis while performing rituals that are unique to Shiites. He did not say a word about the fingerprinting of Iranians arriving in the Kingdom. That has been a topic of friction for the last few years, but the Saudis have dismissed those complaints saying Saudi Arabia checks the fingerprints of all arrivals regardless of nationality with electronic scanners.
Nassiri said, “Since we are Shiites, we have different rituals, like reciting the special pilgrimage prayers in the Mecca and Medina mosques, which has resulted in their agents confronting our pilgrims.. We want this to be corrected and stopped.”
Nassiri specifically named the police force of the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a body that is run by religious authorities rather than by the government. The Wahhabi religious authorities in Saudi Arabia and harshly anti-Shiite.
The Hajj Organization was thus actually picking a fight with Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment rather than with its government. The religious establishment is frequently a source of embarrassment for the government, but the Saudi regime never publicly disciplines the religious establishment. Saudi Arabia is essentially a pact between the Wahhabi clergy and the Saudi clan, giving the Wahhabis full say in religion and the Saudis full control of the government.
The announcement of the suspension of pilgrimages came just a few weeks after the end of the annual hajj. But throughout the year, many Muslims go to Mecca and Medina on what is called the umra or minor hajj, which can be performed at any time in the year.
Iran has complained for years about Shiites being treated rudely in Saudi Arabia, especially when they try to visit the burial ground containing the first four of Shiism’s Imams. But Ali Layli, a senior official of the Hajj Organization, indicated that the suspension of the hajj was due to some new rudeness.
“We received many reports from our pilgrims about the appalling behavior of the Saudi agents … during the last annual hajj [November 25-30] and the previous umra.”
The major friction over the hajj came in 1987 when Iranian pilgrims staged a political march through the streets of Mecca chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
They were marching in the direction of the Grand Mosque and Saudi officials apparently feared a plot to seize the mosque. They used force to stop the march, resulting in the deaths of 402 people, 275 of them Iranians. Iran then boycotted the annual hajj for a few years in protest.