{"id":6794,"date":"2016-09-07T17:33:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T16:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=6794"},"modified":"2016-09-07T17:33:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T16:33:04","slug":"saudi-grand-mufti-says-iranian-leaders-are-not-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/saudi-grand-mufti-says-iranian-leaders-are-not-muslims\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Grand Mufti says Iranian leaders \u201care not Muslims\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1846\" src=\"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Sheikh-Abdulaziz-Al-Al-Sheikh.jpg\" alt=\"Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Al-Sheikh\" width=\"252\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Sheikh-Abdulaziz-Al-Al-Sheikh.jpg 356w, https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Sheikh-Abdulaziz-Al-Al-Sheikh-300x250.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 252px) 100vw, 252px\" \/>Saudi Arabia\u2019s top cleric has stated that Iran\u2019s leaders are not Muslims and regard Sunnis as their enemy.<br \/>\nGrand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh was reacting to Iran\u2019s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who denounced Saudi Arabia\u2019s handling of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah.<br \/>\nAyatollah Khamenei accused the Saudi state of being American and Zionist agents and \u201cpuny and belittled devils.\u201d In response, the Grand Mufti said the claims were \u201cnot surprising\u201d and accused Iran\u2019s leaders of being Zoroastrians, an ancient pre-Islamic Iranian religion.<br \/>\nIn remarks published on Wednesday, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al ash-Sheikh said: \u201cWe must understand these are not Muslims. They are the son of the Magi and their hostility towards Muslims is an old one, especially with the People of the Tradition [Sunnis].\u201d<br \/>\nIran\u2019s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarid, tweeted in rerply: \u201cIndeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians &amp; most Muslims &amp; bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric &amp; Saudi terror masters preach.\u201d<br \/>\nSaudi Arabia\u2019s population is nearly 90 per cent Sunni and has long been at odds with the 90 per cent Shia Iran over political issues across the Middle East. Saudi accuses Iran of trying to export its \u201cShia revolution,\u201d whereas Iran accuses Saudi of promoting sectarianism and says it is against Wahabism rather than Sunni Islam.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s thought that at least 2,426 people, including 464 Iranians, were killed in the Mina stampede last year, although according to Saudi authorities, only 769 were killed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/saudi-grand-mufti-says-iranian-leaders-are-not-muslims\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia\u2019s top cleric has stated that Iran\u2019s leaders are not Muslims and regard Sunnis as their enemy. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh was reacting to Iran\u2019s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who denounced Saudi Arabia\u2019s handling of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah. Ayatollah Khamenei accused the Saudi state of being American &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6795,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6794\/revisions\/6795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}