Iranians are no longer allowed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca

[brooklynite]

Source: New Republic

In a further escalation in tensions with Saudi Arabia, the Iranian government today banned its citizens from making the annual trip to Islam’s holiest city, a journey required at least once in a lifetime for all Muslims financially and physically capable of doing so.

The ban comes near the end of a tense week between the two rivals after Saudi Arabia, a predominantly Sunni country, executed a prominent Shiite cleric on Saturday. (Iran is the largest of the few predominantly Shiite countries in the world.) In the subsequent days, the two countries severed diplomatic relations, Iranian protestors attacked and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and today Iran accused the Saudis of bombing its embassy in Yemen.

About 600,000 Iranians contribute to Saudi Arabia’s $18 billion religious tourism industry each year, so the ban could impact the Saudi economy. (The Iranian government also banned all Saudi imports today.) The last time Iran stopped its citizens from making the hajj was in 1987, after 400 mostly Iranian pilgrims were killed by Saudi riot police.

Read more: https://newrepublic.com/minutes/127214/iranians-no-longer-allowed-make-pilgrimage-mecca

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This'll go over well.

[KamaAina]

1. Why do they hate Islam so much?

[tymorial]

2. I don't understand your comment

were you being sarcastic?

[KamaAina]

3. Yes. We often ask of righties "Why do you hate America so much?"

In this case, for a supposedly Islamist regime to keep its citizens from making the hajj is downright bizarre.

[FLPanhandle]

4. Saudi's saving Iranians from wasting money and time

Seems like good news for Iranians and less money for the Saudis.

[Kelvin Mace]

24. Ummm, imagine if our government told Christians the couldn't go perform

some religious ritual.

Yeah, this seems stupid for the Iranian government to antagonize the most "devout" of the their population.

[leftynyc]

5. Isn't that punishing the Iranians?

I don't really understand the reasoning.

[MosheFeingold]

7. Come on

The Saudis are doing it because they are effectively at war with Iran and they don't want a de facto army of Iranians in their country.

I wouldn't be surprised if the ban expands to all Shia.

[leftynyc]

9. It's IRAN that is doing this, not Saudi Arabia

From the op:

In a further escalation in tensions with Saudi Arabia, the Iranian government today banned its citizens from making the annual trip to Islam’s holiest city, a journey required at least once in a lifetime for all Muslims financially and physically capable of doing so.

[MosheFeingold]

12. Ah, I didn't notice that

But I think it was preemtive. Saving face before the Saudis did it.

Kind of like taking ones football and going home before getting crushed on the field.

[leftynyc]

14. Maybe

but that's moot. We will see if the Saudis want to escalate and forbid all Shia from entering the kingdom.

[branford]

18. The Iranians are banning their own citizens from the Hajj, not the Saudis.

Per the OP, it appears the Iranian action is designed as a form of economic sanction on Saudi Arabia.

The historic, and now very acute, Shia vs. Sunni conflict is set to rapidly further destabilize the entire region, with serious economic, political and military implications for the world.

[As an aside, I sadly wouldn't be surprised if the UN General Assembly or Human Rights Commission shortly issues a resolution blaming the "Zionist Entity" for all the recent problems in the Arab and Muslim world]

[jamzrockz]

23. I see it more like the Iranian govt

protecting their citizens from that death trap called the Mecca pilgrimage.

[leftynyc]

37. That's true

however it has nothing to do with forbidding Iranians to do haj here.

[mwrguy]

6. This is the continued fallout from western colonialism and meddling

Very unfortunate

[MosheFeingold]

10. Not really

The Sunni and Shia have been fighting since 632 C.E, long before Europe was in any shape to colonize anything.

To blame Europe is, in a way, elitism, in that we think "it's all our fault because we are so darn important."

Nope. The world turned on its axis long before Western Europe was anything significant.

[TommyCelt]

19. Shia-Sunni, Muslim-Jewish, Protestant-Catholic

Hatfields and McCoys.

They'll never stop because they don't know how.

[MosheFeingold]

32. I don't think that is a fair comparison

Protestants and Catholics have their differences, but they seem to do fine now, fringes excepted. Certainly not uncommon to see inter-denominational marriages and people drifting between one and the other without the Inquisition getting involved.

Judaism is certainly OK with Christianity (for non-Jewish people). You get the occasional wacko lone voice somewhere, but they are the minority of a minority of a minority.

And Christianity grew up a lot since 1940 regarding Jews. I think Europe still has issues with Jewish people, but they are basically post-Christian, so it's more of an ethnic thing vs. a religious one.

The Shia vs. Sunni dispute, however, is still a bloody, and wide-spread one.

Moral equivalency is a dangerous thing. It's temptingly simple to apply, but it's generally not very accurate.

[happyslug]

35. Yes, they stop fighting, when it is no longer in their economic best interest.

The Hat fields and McCoy fight was over assets, mostly trees and lumber, on both sides of the West Virginia and Kentucky border. Once the trees were gone and the coal barons moved in the fighting shifted, McCoy fought with not against the Hatfields in the West Virginia Coal war of the early 1920s.

The Sunni - Shia rivalry goes back to who should command the Islamic forces after the death of Mohammad. The options where Mohammad's son-in-law, Ali or his youngest wife's family. Shia means "Party of Ali", thus are those supporters of Ali.

The Sunni tend to follow the family of Mohammad's youngest wife. That family was late in joining Mohammad but had extensive trade connections in the Middle East (which they used to expand the Islamic Empire, but not Islam itself, an accusation made not only by the Shiites but by many Sunni).

Over time these two groups harden their positions, but the real fight between them was how to split up the wealth of the Islamic empire as oppose to fighting over Islamic Dogma. The Sunni were always more connected with the Mediterranean sea, the Shitte, the Persian Gulf. In many ways the two groups divided along the old Roman Empire and Persian Empire border of about 100 BC to about 600AD. The fight tended to be where and how these two areas interact, given the mountains that separated them AND that people from both areas wanted goods from the area they were NOT in. This also reflected the historical division of the area between Egypt, whoever controled Asia Minor (Hittites, then Assyrians, then Greeks, then Romans, the later two also controlling Egypt at the same time and today Turkey) and whoever controlled the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers of Mesopotamia (at first ancient Sumeria the Babylonia then Ancient Iran/Persia, which for a short period also controlled Asia Minor and a even shoter period Asia Minor, and now Iraq and Iran). Those three groups have been fighting over the Middle East all during recorded history whenever NOT engaged elsewhere (Asia Minor changed hands do to whoever controlled Asia Minor not only had to worry about the Middle East, but Greece, the Balkans AND what could cross the Black Sea from what is today the Ukraine).

The most recent Catholic and Protestant fight was in Northern Ireland and that had little to do with religion except that the peasants of Ireland tended to be Catholic, while the working class in the Cities tended to be Presbyterian. When the peasants moved to the cities starting in the 1800s, the protestants in the city resented the move and passed law giving them rights, based on ownership of land, over the landless peasants who moved in from the countryside. The the split was along religious lines, but the fight was over economics rights. When those economic rights were finally resolved, the troubles stopped.

Just pointing out most of the divisions you mention appear on the surface to be something else, but turn out to be economics almost every time. People fight over economics, I.e. Who gets what all the time. That sometimes call it something else, but it is rare for the stated reason to be anything more then a good excuse.

[leftynyc]

11. For Goodness sake

The Shia and Sunni have been battling since long before we were even a fucking country. Not every problem in the world can be laid at the feet of the US or the West.

[MosheFeingold]

13. Beat you by 30 seconds baby!

[leftynyc]

16. LOL

I didn't even notice that. I was probably typing while you were posting. Great minds and all

[earthside]

31. True. However ...

... U.S support of Iraq against Iran when Saddam was in power didn't help.
And neither did the Bush ordered invasion and occupation of Iraq help.

No doubt, in my opinion, that Reagan and Bush involvement in Iraq has heightened the political and military discord between Sunni and Shia in greater Persia.

[leftynyc]

38. No - sorry

There is plenty to lay at the feet of the US and the west. The divide between sunni and shia isn't one of them and this tiff between the Saudis and Iranians has nothing to do with us.

[FLPanhandle]

15. BWAHAHA

[EX500rider]

27. How exactly do you tie a Sunni/Shiite Arab/Persian feud to that??

[romanic]

33. As others have said

the Sunni vs Shiite feud has been in existence long before the "West" ever became involved. You can't blame the west or colonialism for the fuckery in Islam. -_-

[MowCowWhoHow III]

34. Never go full Cockwomble

[Jack-o-Lantern]

8. Cutting off their nose to spite their face?

[christx30]

22. "We're so angry with you, we're going to send our own people

to hell!"
Not that the Saudis will care. Why would a Shia care that a bunch of Sunnis aren't going to be in Paradise?

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

39. Only required to make the pilgrimage "if able to".

They are currently unable to. Life goes on...

[SoLeftIAmRight]

17. talk about stirring the pot

this is not good news

[NutmegYankee]

20. Cutting off access to a religious place where visitation is a religious obligation...

[iandhr]

21. Read it again.

Iran is banning their own citizens from the pilgrimage.

[NutmegYankee]

25. That's even more bizarre.

[7wo7rees]

26. Oh this is bad!! Truly not good!!

[Agnosticsherbet]

28. A regional war between Suni and Shia is looking more likely.

A lot of oil still goes through the Persian Gulf. The economic repricussions would be severe, even if we can stay out of it.

[CJCRANE]

30. The Iranians will hold their nerve.

However at this point the Saudi regime is somewhat unstable.

[ozone_man]

36. Hopefully.

Time for the decadent Saudi monarchy to fall.

[CJCRANE]

29. IIRC about 600 Iranians died in the last Hajj stampede.

At best it was caused by negligence, at worst by foul play.

[tabasco]

40. Dream up some new fairy tale and tell them they really need to go too some place in Iran.

They'll believe it. Humans are a stupid species.