Pilgrims from Iran will participate in this year’s annual hajj and all necessary arrangement have been made for it, Saudi Arabia said on Friday, Al Jazeera reported. The tension between the two countries regarding the pilgrimage is one of the many contentious issues among them, such as the Syrian war, where the Sunni kingdom (Saudi Arabia) and the Shi’ite nation (Iran) are on opposite sides.
“The ministry of haj and the Iranian organisation have completed all the necessary measures to ensure Iranian pilgrims perform hajj 1438 [in Islamic year] according to the procedures followed by all Muslim countries,” the official Saudi Press Agency said in a statement, according to AFP.
The Saudi hajj ministry on Friday said they welcome “all pilgrims from all the different nationalities and backgrounds”. On March 5, Iran’s Tasnim news agency had said the country would send more than 80,000 pilgrims this year, reported Reuters. The annual season of hajj begins late-August.
Iranian pilgrims had not attended the hajj last year after the country blamed Saudi officials for the 2015 stampede, in which over 2,000 people died – including 44 Iraninas.
Saudi Arabia conducts the annual haj every year which sees more than two million Muslims from around the world. In January this year, the country had hiked the annual haj quota for India by 34,500.
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