Israa al-Fass
Saudi Mufti, Abdul Aziz Al Ash-Sheikh’s statement considering Iranians not Muslims was not unprecedented to what Muslims know concerning the Takfiri ideology upon which the Saudi kingdom was based. Takfirism wasn’t but the kingdom’s weapon in the battles to push up its political system. It recalls to demonize the rival, and ignores the same thoughts based on its interests.
The descendent of the Al ash-Sheikh family, which goes back to the master of Takfirism in the Arabian Peninsula “Mohammad Abdul Wahhab” (the ancestor), couldn’t but defend the “worst catastrophe in the history of Hajj”, according to France Presse, by claiming the Iranians are non-Muslims.
464 Iranian martyrs were among more than 7 thousand martyrs from over 30 Muslim nations. There is no harm in killing them as long as the Iranians are “the enemies of Muslims” according to Al ash-Sheikh who is far worse than the crime itslef.
Commenting to Saudi newspaper “Mecca”, Al ash-Sheikh considered that appealing Saudi special measures on the Hajj rituals “is not surprising for those (Iranians),” according to him. He further added that: “We must understand that those are not Muslims, they are Zoroastrians, and their animosity with Muslims is a very old issue, especially with Sunnis.”
The Mufti used Takfirism to respond to Imam Ali Khamenei, who embarrassed the Al Saud. He said that “Muslims should seriously consider solving the issue of the Two Holy Mosques and the Hajj pilgrimage issue.”
“Instead of apologizing, the Saudis boldly shuffled off forming a fact-finding committee on the Mina tragedy,” he added.
Imam Khamenei also unveiled that “the Saudis gathered those wounded from the Mina accident with those martyred in closed containers, so they killed them instead of treating them.”
For his part, Abdul Aziz Al ash-Sheikh responded to the evidences that indict the Kingdom with committing the crime as he considered the Iranians as non-Muslims, re-describing them as Zoroastrians. The mufti, perhaps, forgot to review the latest announcement of the kingdom’s officials regarding the Iranians. He said they are not Muslims, ignoring the praise Turki al-Faisal related to them in his last statement in the French capital city of Paris.
Some two months earlier, al-Faisal stood to hail the Presians, he recalled that they were among the first monotheist people before converting to Islam. He also honored the Persian heritage and the prominent Muslim scholars of Persian origin, namely al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina and Omar al-Khayyam.
The Saudi schizophrenia is not surprising… And the contradiction between the “Sheikh” and the “Emir’s” words won’t be viewed as disagreement in the opinions of a kingdom that knows nothing about a united vision.
The realistic explanation is politicizing Takfirism, once revived by Saudi practices to provoke against Muslims, and then ignored when its princes’ interests provide approaching those who are considered “non-Muslims”. One day, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the guardian of Abdul Aziz Al ash-Sheikh, started dancing and cheering as he received “the Gulf officer”, the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. What was Al ash-Sheikh’s view towards the Pahlavi descendent?
Despite this, it wouldn’t be any weird that Takfirism is tongued by the grandson of Mohammad bin Abdul Wahhab, the first theorizer of Takfirism in the Muslim Peninsula. Abdul Wahhab’s ideology didn’t consider only the Persians as non-Muslims, but almost all other Muslims were excluded from this circle.
In the book of “Princes of the Sacred Country”, the Guardian of the Two Holy Mosques and Shafi’i Mufti in the late years of the Ottoman Empire, Sheikh Ahmad bin Zaini Dahlan al-Hasani, who witnessed the collapse of the first Saudi state, says the following: “Mohammad bin Abdul Wahhab and his group used to judge people (meaning Muslims) as infidels. They legalized killing and stealing them, and they violated the Prophet’s (PBUH) sanctity. They have been clear in considering the nation as infidel since 600 years ago. The first person to declare this was Mohammad bin Abdul Wahhab who used to say: I came up to you with a new religion. He believed that Islam is restricted with him and his followers, while the rest of people are all infidels.”
Wahhabism considered almost all Muslims as infidels. It started with Sunnis before any other Muslim sect. Mohammad bin Abdul Wahhab offered his service to label the people of Najd and al-Hijaz as infidels to legalize Mohammad ibn Saud and his sons’ invasions, upon which the first Saudi state was established. Now, the son of Al ash-Sheikh revives the history of his grandfather, to offer the same service now with considering the Iranians as non-Muslims. Hence, he approves crimes of killing and targeting them under the kingdom’s regional conflict, in which it is recruiting Muslims to kill Muslims.
“There isn’t any resemblance between the Islam of Iranians and most of the Muslims on the one hand, and extremism and intolerance preached to by Wahhabi scholars and masters of Saudi terrorism on the other,” according to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s Twitter account.
Zarif’s words represented the same thoughts approved in the Chechen’s Grozni Conference’s implications when ousting Wahhabism from Sunni Islam, before retreating the position under Saudi threats… the same is documented in the history of the Two Holy Mosques’ Guardians and the Shafi’i scholars.
To read the original article in Arabic, click here.
Translated by website team
Source: Al-Manar Website
