Muslims must establish committee to supervise Hajj: Commentator

Press TV has conducted an interview with Seyyed Abdullah Hosseini, an Islamic scholar and political commentator, to discuss Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s message to Muslims across the world on the occasion of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: First of all, give us your thoughts on the significant points of Ayatollah Khamenei’s Hajj message this year.

Hosseini: Annually, the Islamic leaders during the last 30 years have been issuing messages to the Hajj pilgrims which were coming to Mecca gathering from all over the world and recited with a message from the Islamic Leader from the Islamic Republic of Iran, traditionally that was every year such a message was issued to all Muslims around the world.

This year has got a different significance, however, because of what happened last year and because of deprivation of the Muslim pilgrims which they were supposed to attend this year’s pilgrimage at Mecca from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The key points of the message which was delivered today by Ayatollah Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, one is the continuation of blaming and condemnation of the Saudi regime for their poor management of Hajj and also the massacre which they caused last year. The second point was his call for establishment of an international Islamic fact-finding mission and commission to actually go and search independently and come with a result and give that reports to the whole world and also we can get another point from this message and that is establishment of an independent Hajj commission from all representatives of Muslims all around the world to supervise the issue of Hajj and also the ceremony which annually is supposed to be held in the two holy cities.

Of course each of these key points has got its own merits and we have to discuss about these key points a lot to find out how can that be possible and how much we are ready for that, how much the Islamic world is ready for performance of what the Leader says and also the possibility of establishment of such commission and I think it is very much possible if the international community especially the Muslims have come to this point that the Saudi regime, the authorities at the moment, they do not have the qualification to have such a very big important ceremony.

Press TV: Well it is the poor management of the Saudis which has also led Ayatollah Khamenei to repeatedly call for the formation of that multi-national Muslim commission to handle the most important religious gathering of the Muslim world. Do you think that such a multi-national commission could prevent from such tragedies like that of Mina from happening?

Hosseini: Of course. The whole idea is that the Saudi regime is doing all of these things because they have got hundred percent control over the ceremony of the Hajj. If this ceremony is supervised and controlled by an international commission represented by all Muslims around the world, then they should be answerable to such a committee and such a commission and they will not be able to just do whatever they want and then get away from the crime which they have committed. In 1978, they have committed the big massacre where 400 Muslim pilgrims have been martyred during the ceremony of hatred of the pagans and all of the programs which was there and they did manage to get away with it and no one actually went for a trial.

A crane has actually crashed into the pilgrims during the hajj ceremony last year and killed over 30 people and they have gone away with it and they did not answer to anyone and 7,700 people have been killed during the stampede which happened which a lot of commentators believe that that was happened intentionally and it was very much preventable but it happened and they did not actually answer to the international community and to the Muslims around the world simply because they are running the whole show independently and there is no supervision on their action.

If such a committee is established and all Muslims from all around the world have got a representative in this committee, they have to answer for all of these atrocities which they are committing especially against all Muslims around the world.

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