Muslims must unite to end Al Saud Hajj monopoly: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Irfan al-Alawi, an executive director with the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation from Birmingham, to get his take on Saudi Arabia’s handling of the Hajj pilgrimage as the most important pilgrimage in Islam.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Reports say the crush was causes after Saudi security staff blocked one of the roads due to the presence of a royal convoy there. When we look at the whole situation on the grand, is it not indicative of this regime basically usurping the name of Islam, calling itself the custodian of holy sites and turning this into something very ugly and exclusive? How do you see this whole situation?

Al-Alawi: Of course the House of Saud has been accused many times [of being] House of Corruption. Just recently…[Saudi cleric] ash-Sheikh has said that this is the will of Allah. Yes, of course every Muslim wants to die in Mecca and Medina, but that doesn’t mean at the cost of the welfare and the well-being of the Hajjis or pilgrims who visit annually. And this is of course, what I say, is commercial idol worshiping, because you are having these huge idols being constructed around the Grand Mosque of Mecca and Medina, and then you have the royal princes with their lavish lifestyle who own…apartments [on the] last floors [in] the towers, skyscrapers around the Grand Mosque.

And of course in Mina, when you had the prince, who was accompanied with the army and his guards, where the two roads have to be closed, this is nothing new, it’s being happening for so many years…

We have to remember that when we are in Mecca, we are all shrouded in white clothes. We are supposed to be Muslims, one Ummah. It does not matter if you are president, if you are a king or a prime minister, we bow down to one God. And [that] is serious discrimination…that the Saudis consider themselves to be better than the Shia and Sunni Muslims. This has to go; this has to disappear.

If King Salman needs to address this seriously…he has to turn around and turn the tables on his own people and of course the Wahhabi clerics, who consider the Shias and the Sunnis to be heretics or idol-worshipers. And I say also that what has happened in Mina, this is after 25 years. You know, you can continue expanding but if you seriously don’t have crowd control, the stampede will continue every year.

And these people [Saudi police] really are Bedouins as students and scouts or 18 year olds, [they have] never known the area of Mina, probably never been there. You know they don’t have anything in their minds [about] what’s happening at the time of stampede. I have seen pictures and I’ve seen videos, where they are trampling over the deceased. Is this what Islam teaches us that you trample over the people who are dead?

And furthermore, we need to turn around and realize the Muslim Ummah, if the House of Saud and the Wahhabi clerics cannot look after Mecca and Medina, let the Muslim Ummah come together and take over and rightfully defend … Ka’ba and also implement regulations, which were [taught] by Prophet Mohammad ...

This can’t continue by the evil regime of Wahhabism, which is destroying Mecca and Medina with its lavish hotels and lavish palaces. And this is really unfair. I think enough is enough. I’ve said this before, we need to unite the Muslim Ummah and say that ‘look, we cannot tolerate anymore the atrocities, which have happened.’ It’s not 700, [the toll has] gone to more than 1,300 and I’m sure the number’s increasing. There are people [who] cannot identify their loved-ones.

There’s no system of course, they say they have figure-printing system, this is absolutely bizarre. The country is a Bedouin country. They should go back to their Bedouin camel herds and leave this civilization of Islam to the Muslim Ummah, who can run it better.

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