POLICY FOCUSTHE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY

RESEARCH MEMORANDUM NUMBER FIVE AUGUST 1987

wBEHIND THE RIOT IN MECCA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The recent rioting and deaths inMecca have shocked Muslims andconfused the world. The hostilitywhich led to bloodshed in the sacredcity was prompted in part by thepolitical tensions in the Gulf. But thetragedy is primarily one episode in alengthy history of pilgrimageconflict between Sunnis and Shiites.That conflict is perpetuated by therefusal of Iranians and Saudis torespect each other's Islam.

Through history, the pilgrimage hasproduced a vast corpus of bigotedlore about Shiite pilgrims and Sunnihosts. The essence of the Sunni loreis that Shiites seek to defile the holyplaces; the Shiite lore holds thatSunni hosts will find anyopportunity to spill Shiite blood.

It is in this century that thepilgrimage has become a tinderboxof Sunni-Shiite tension. Since 1924,Mecca has* been in Saudi hands, andSaudi Islam regards Shiism moreseverely than do other forms ofSunni Islam. Since 1979, IranianShiism has undergone a radicalizingtransformation. This volatilecombination has produced somesort of incident during everypilgrimage season since 1981.These have been fueled by the oldlibels of Shiite defilement and Sunnibloodthirstiness.

In turn, the incidents haverevalidated old prejudices, nowpotentially more explosive than everin the context of the current crisis inthe Persian Gulf.

By Martin Kramer

The fatal confrontation which occurred between Iranianpilgrims and Saudi police on July 31, 1987 is still shrouded inconfusion. Iran has accused the United States of ordering SaudiArabia to massacre demonstrating Iranian pilgrims. Saudi Arabiaaccuses some of Iran's 155,000 pilgrims of provocation and claimsthat stampeding rioters crushed themselves to death. According toofficial Saudi figures, 402 persons died in the resulting clash,including 275 Iranian pilgrims, 85 security police, and 42 pilgrimsfrom other countries. It is too early to determine with any certaintywhat actually occurred in Mecca, and who provoked whom.

The magnitude of the bloodshed at Mecca is withoutprecedent, for Mecca's standing in Islam has always been that ofan inviolable sanctuary. For one Muslim to raise his hand againstanother in the holy city is an abomination before God. But theMeccan tragedy, while unprecedented in the number of lives itclaimed, was preceded by a long series of confrontations betweenIranian pilgrims and their Saudi hosts.

Since 1981, no pilgrimage season has passed without someincident involving Iranian pilgrims. Their annual demonstrationsin the streets and mosques of Mecca and Medina have challengedthe Saudi concept of pilgrimage, the Saudi interpretation of Islam,and even the legitimacy of Saudi rule over the holy cities. Nor canthe most recent tragedy be divorced from the history of mistrustbetween Shiite pilgrims and their Sunni hosts, a history whichstretches back as far as the sixteenth century.

The purpose of this survey is to understand the tragedy atMecca in the context of Islamic history and the religious tensionsof contemporary Islam. The political crisis of the momentcontributed to the violence, although it is still impossible to sayhow. But the rising political temperature in the Gulf cannot offer acomprehensive explanation for the setting and form of the tragedy.In the longer perspective, the rupture of the pilgrimage peace in1987 appears not as a gross aberration, but as an unusually violent

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episode in a continuing controversy which haslong divided Islam and cast a shadow over thepilgrimage. In the context of that essentiallysectarian controversy, the violence which hasoccurred at Islam's sacred center is fullycomprehensible.

THE SHIITE FACTOR

In their narrowest context, the pilgrimageincidents of the past seven years have been asymptom of the political rivalry between SaudiArabia and Iran. Each seeks to exercise apredominant influence throughout the Gulfwhich separates them, and the activities ofIran's pilgrims have complemented othermethods of propaganda employed by Iran. Butanother latent conflict also defines the contoursof Iranian action and Saudi reaction. Thedisturbances have not only been manifestationsof political rivalry, but of sectarian conflict withdeep roots in the history of Muslim pilgrimage.That is the conflict between Sunnism andShiism. Its origins lie in a seventh-centurydispute over succession to the ProphetMuhammad. Over the course of subsequentcenturies the schism became a full-blowndivision over theology, exacerbated by socialand economic disparities.

The pilgrimage ritual itself is not oneabout which Sunnis and Shiites have conductedan elaborate polemic. The bedrock of sectarianconflict has always been the matter of theImamate—the question of legitimate authorityin Islam—which is an issue of theologicalcontroversy that has found fullest expressionoutside the ritual sphere.

Indeed, for the first thousand years ofIslam, Sunni pilgrims could not be readilydistinguished from Shiite pilgrims. Shiitesformed a minority throughout the Muslimworld, and spoke the same languages andshared the same culture as the Sunni majority.But in the sixteenth century, a new dynasty setabout converting all of Iran to Shiism. Onlythen did Shiism become identified thoroughlywith Iran and the Persian-speaking world.Henceforth, Persian-speakers could be taken forShiites without question, opening newpossibilities for sectarian confrontation betweenSunnis and Shiites in the holy cities.

Since that time, the pilgrimage hasproduced a vast corpus of bigoted lore aboutShiite pilgrims and Sunni hosts. The Sunnicorpus is perhaps more readily documented, if

only because it sometimes led to violent actsagainst Shiite pilgrims. At the root of the Sunnilore is the belief that Shiites feel themselvescompelled to pollute the holy premises. Ampleevidence for Sunni belief in this libel exists bothin Islamic textual sources and in Europeantravel literature. This pollution was said to take aparticularly disgusting form: Burckhardt andBurton, the great nineteenth-century explorersof Arabia, both heard about past attacks on Shiitepilgrims, prompted by the suspicion that theyhad polluted the Great Mosque in Mecca withexcrement

The Shiite libel was just as farfetched. Itheld that Sunnis did not respect Mecca as asanctuary, and that the lives of Shiite pilgrimswere forfeit even in these sacred precincts,where the shedding of blood is forbidden byreligion and tradition. Shiite pilgrims wereindeed liable to humiliation at any time; asBurton wrote of Shiites on pilgrimage, "thatman is happy who gets over it without abeating."

Yet it would seem that, for the most part,Shiite pilgrims were as secure as other pilgrims,provided they exercised the discretion (taqiyya)permitted them by Shiite doctrine. They couldand did avoid persecution by adopting anattitude of self-effacing conformity with thecustoms of their Sunni hosts. And, whileschismatics were not especially welcome in theholy cities, the Iranians among them had areputation as well-to-do, and those who profitedfrom the pilgrimage traffic eagerly awaited theIranian caravan. This security was also boughtformally through the offering of special tribute,paid both to desert tribes en route and to theguardians of the sanctuaries. Toleration couldbe had at a price which Shiite pilgrims wereprepared to pay, and their lives were rarely asthreatened as their dignity.

THE ADVENT OF THE SAUDIS

Sectarian antagonisms were givenrenewed force with the advent of Saudi ruleover Mecca in 1924. The doctrinal dividewhich separated mainstream Sunnism fromShiism seemed narrow in comparison with thechasm which stood between Saudi Wahhabismand Shiism. Wahhabi doctrine regarded Shiiteveneration of the Imams and their tombs to beblasphemous idolatry. The Wahhabiiconoclasts had earned a lasting notoriety inShiite eyes when they emerged from theArabian desert in 1802 and sacked Karbala, a

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Shiite shrine city in Iraq. They slew severalthousand Shiites on that occasion, anddesecrated the revered tomb of the ImamHusayn, whose martyrdom in the seventhcentury is the pivotal event in Shiite religioushistory. Those Shiites who perished becamemartyrs in the eyes of their co-religionists,sacrificed on the very site of Husayn'smartyrdom.

When a revived Wahhabi movementswept through Arabia during the first quarter ofthis century, it seemed as hostile as ever toShiism's most fundamental assumptions. Theleader of the movement, Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud,when asked in 1918 about the Shiite shrines inIraq, could still declare: "I would raise noobjection if you demolished the whole lot ofthem, and I would demolish them myself if Ihad the chance."

He never had that chance, but he did takeMedina, and his bombardment of the cityproduced a general strike in Iran and an uproarthroughout the Shiite world. For while thepilgrimage (hay) to Mecca holds the samesignificance for Sunnis and Shiites, thevisitation (ziyara) to Medina is of specialsignificance for Shiites. The cemetery of al-Baqi, near the city, is the reputed resting placeof the Prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatimaand four of the Twelve Imams, who are countedamong Shiism's fourteen intercessors. TheWahhabis, for whom prayer throughintercessors represented a form of idolatry, hadleveled much of this cemetery in 1806, duringan earlier occupation of Medina; its domedtombs had been rebuilt by the end of thecentury. Now the Saudis, in their purifyingzeal, again demolished al-Baqi, a moveregarded by Shiites as desecration of their ownshrines.

A wave of revulsion and protest sweptthrough Shiite Islam against this allegedvandalism. The demolition created so profounda sentiment in Iran, especially in religiouscircles, that the Iranian government refused torecognize Ibn Saud's rule. Iran angrilydemanded the creation of a general assembly ofMuslims to regulate the holy cities, and calledon all Muslims not to permit "any furtherhumiliating insults to be heaped on theirsanctities and their faith."

Denial of recognition was combined, in1927, with a decision by Iran to forbid thepilgrimage to its nationals. This move was

inspired in part by Reza Shah's secularizingpolicy of discouraging religious ritual, in orderto undercut the authority of the recalcitrantShiite clergy. But the move was presented bythe Iranian government as an act of protestagainst the alleged intolerance of the Wahhabisand their destruction of tombs.

Still, the ban failed to discourage the mostdetermined pilgrims from Iran, who continuedto arrive via Iraq and Syria. And, in a pragmaticstep, Ibn Saud moved to defuse the extensiveShiite agitation against him by a show oftolerance designed to win official Iranianrecognition, Shiite pilgrims from Arab landsmet with exemplary treatment during the yearin which Iran imposed the ban, and Iran's menof religion soon were demanding an end to theban.

In 1928, the pilgrimage ban was lifted, andin 1929 a treaty of friendship was concludedbetween Iran and Ibn Saud's kingdom. ArticleThree of the treaty guaranteed that Iran'spilgrims would enjoy treatment equal to that ofpilgrims from other countries, and that theywould not be prevented from observing theirown religious rituals. Iran's pilgrims came toenjoy a measure of toleration which reflectedthe pragmatism of Ibn Saud on Shiite matters,an approach which also molded his policytoward his own Shiite minority in the east ofhis kingdom. Ibn Saud, in both hosting andruling over Shiites, now asked only that theyavoid public enactment of distinctly Shiiterituals. In less than a decade, a pattern oftolerance seemed to have been firmlyestablished.

All the more striking, then, was a mostserious recurrence of the Sunni libel of Shiitedefilement. In 1943, an Iranian pilgrim wassummarily beheaded for allegedly defiling theGreat Mosque with excrement which hesupposedly carried into the mosque in hispilgrim's garment. Ibn Saud remarked to someAmericans that "this was the kind of offensewhich might be expected of an Iranian." Theverdict in local coffee houses held th&t "theIranians always act that way." The incident,which infuriated religious opinion in Iran,culminated in an official Iranian protest and ademand for payment of an indemnity. Iraneven severed diplomatic relations for a time.The Iranian press indulged in a campaign ofanti-Wahhabi polemic harsher than anythingpublished since Ibn Saud's conquest of Mecca.Once again, tales of Wahhabi barbarism were

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retold, and the story of the sacking of Karbalawas recounted with anguish andembellishment. The government of Iranimposed another pilgrimage ban, which wasonly lifted in 1948, after the dust of controversyhad settled.

The sudden reappearance of this mostimplausible of libels gave some Muslims pausefor thought, and inspired ecumenical initiativeswhich enjoyed the encouragement of certainSunni and Shiite scholars. But the Sunniresponse came from Egypt, where there are noShiites, and never had the endorsement ofSaudi men of religion. In 1959, the rector of al-Azhar, Egypt's great university of theology,issued a now famous ecumenical opinion(fatwa) ruling that Shiism constituted alegitimate Muslim rite "like the other rites ofSunni Islam." But this fatwdy whatever its effectin the wider Sunni world, found no echo at allin Saudi Arabia.

Indeed, the Saudi men of religionpurposely excluded Shiites from their ownattempts to unite Muslim opinion. In 1962,Saudi authorities promoted the establishment ofthe Mecca-based Muslim World League, SaudiArabia's principal forum for bringing togetherMuslims of different lands. Conspicuous bytheir absence were Iranian Shiites; not one saton the League's constituent council, a sort ofMuslim college of clerics and laymen,convened annually during the pilgrimageseason. This exclusion seems to have beenmutually agreeable, for no Shiite complaint wasregistered at the time.

Instead, the Shiite world was up in armsover the publication, in Saudi Arabia, of an anti-Shiite tract which stirred up all of the familiaraccusations. The Broad Lines of the Foundations onWhich the Shiite Religion Arose, by Muhibb al-Dinal-Khatib, first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 1960,and quickly became (and remains even now)the most widely read anti-Shiite polemic in theSunni world. The author argued that Shiism,far from constituting a school within Islam, wasa distinct religion beyond the proper confines ofIslam.

This slim pamphlet, many timesreprinted, opened a new polemical exchange, asShiite scholars published refutations of thecharge and renewed condemnations ofWahhabism. These rebuttals argued that sincemainstream Sunnism and Shiism weremoving toward conciliation, Wahhabism

constituted a deviation from the emergentecumenical Islam. This only fueled anti-Shiitefires in Saudi Arabia, and in 1971, a then-obscure Shiite cleric, Ayatollah RuhollahKhomeini, issued a message to the pilgrims inMecca from his exile in Iraq, rebuking theSaudis for permitting the continued circulationof expressly anti-Shiite material: "Certain poisonpens in the service of imperialism have forseveral years been seeking to sow dissension inthe ranks of the Muslims, here in the very landthat witnessed revelation . . . . Pamphlets likeThe Broad Lines are being published anddistributed here in order to serve theimperialists who hope to use lies and slander toseparate a group of 170 million people from theranks of the Muslims. It is surprising that the[Saudi] authorities in the Hijaz would permitsuch misleading material to be distributed inthe land of revelation."

This doctrinal debate was quite unaffectedby the political rapprochement between SaudiArabia and Iran during the 1960s, which wasthe outcome of shared apprehension overEgyptian-backed subversion. Theologians onboth sides of the divide continued to spew forthintolerant polemical attacks and legal opinions.On the Saudi side, these enjoyed the sanction ofthe kingdom's leading religious figures. In themid-1970s, a potential African convert to Islamwrote to Saudi Arabia's foremost religiousauthority, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz Ibn Baz, askingwhether conversion to Shiite Islam did in factconstitute conversion to a valid form of Islam.Shaykh Ibn Baz was Saudi Arabia's leadingbearer of the Wahhabi legacy, an arch-conservative entrusted with defining thecontours of Saudi Islam. The ruling of religiouslaw (fatwa) which he issued in reply to thisinquiry gave serious affront to Shiites, since hedenigrated conversion to Shiite Islam, which herefused to accord the same validity as SunniIslam.

THE PILGRIMAGE REINTERPRETED

This doctrinal disagreement wasnonetheless accompanied by a steady increasein the number of Iranian pilgrims from 12,000in 1961 to 57,000 in 1972, thanks to theintroduction of a direct air service for pilgrims.This influx coincided with the appearance of anintrospective and overtly political genre ofIranian writing on the pilgrimage. The radicalIranian intellectual Ali Shariati in his bookentitled Pilgrimage, sought deeper meaning inthe Meccan pilgrimage, in his quest for a

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solution to contemporary Islam's broaderphilosophical and political dilemmas. Shariatiurged the pilgrims "to study the dangers of thesuperpowers and their agents who haveinfiltrated Muslim nations. They should resolveto fight against brainwashing, propaganda,disunity, heresy, and false religions."

In 1971, several Iranians were arrested inMecca for distributing a message to Muslimpilgrims from one Ayatollah Khomeini inNajaf, the Shiite shrine city in Iraq: "At thissacred pilgrimage gathering, the Muslims mustexchange their views concerning the basicproblems of Islam and the special problems ofeach Muslim country. The people of eachcountry should, in effect, present a reportconcerning their own state to the Muslims ofthe world, and thus all will come to know whattheir Muslim brothers are suffering at thehands of imperialism and its agents."Khomeini then presented his own scathing"report" on Iran, describing it as "a militarybase for Israel, which means, by extension, forAmerica."

After 1971, hardly a year passed duringwhich some Iranians did not distribute asimilar message from Khomeini to Muslimpilgrims. The effort usually met with Saudiapathy, for the Saudis did not regard thispreaching as directed against themselves.Khomeini worded his annual pilgrimagemessage in such a way as to appeal to Iranianpilgrims, and to alert other pilgrims to the"shameful, bloody, so-called White Revolution"of the Shah. Such propaganda was liable tocomplicate Saudi relations with the Shah's Iran,so measures were taken against the morebrazen distributors of Khomeini's messages. Butthe Saudis did not regard these few troublesomeIranians as a serious threat to their ownstanding as rulers of Islam's holiest sanctuaries.Khomeini himself went on pilgrimage in 1973,without incident.

But the truly radical feature of Shiitedoctrine as expounded both by Khomeini andShariati was their abandonment of the Shiiteprinciple of discretion (taqiyya) during thepilgrimage, a discretion which had generallybeen reciprocated by Saudi tolerance. Theyupset the delicate balance which preserved thepilgrimage peace by virtuallyabrogating the traditional Shiite doctrine oflegitimate discretion. By urging their followersto view the pilgrimage as a political rite, they setShiites apart from other pilgrims, with serious

consequences for the pilgrimage peace.

THE PILGRIMAGE SINCE IRAN'SREVOLUTION

Following the Iranian revolution, Iransought to act on the principles elaborated byKhomeini, by appealing directly to the Muslimpilgrims of other lands through political activityduring the pilgrimage. Still, Khomeini'spreaching to the pilgrims did not immediatelymenace the Saudis themselves. The first twoseasons passed without serious incident. In1979, Iran's pilgrims engaged in no more thanlight propagandizing, and in 1980, Iranorganized a much reduced pilgrimage, due tothe outbreak of war with Iraq. But the missionof Khomeini's supporters in the holy cities wasno longer to import revolution to Iran, but toexport Iran's revolutionary Islam to the widerMuslim world. The pilgrimage provided anunequaled opportunity for Iran's zealots to swaythe minds of the two million Muslims whonow attend the pilgrimage.

Large demonstrations, resulting in violentclashes with Saudi police, first took place in1981, when Iranian pilgrims began to chantpolitical slogans in the Prophet's Mosque inMedina and the Great Mosque in Mecca. Saudisecurity forces acted against the Iranians inboth mosques, and a subsequent clash in theProphet's Mosque resulted in the death of anIranian pilgrim. In 1982, the Iranianpilgrimage took on an even more radical color,when Khomeini appointed HojjatolislamMusavi-Khoiniha as his pilgrimagerepresentative. Khoiniha was the mentor of thestudents who had seized the United StatesEmbassy in Tehran. Saudi police clashed withdemonstrators whom he addressed in bothMedina and Mecca. In Mecca he was arrested,and a speech he delivered in Medina after thepilgrimage earned him expulsion as an"instigator."

The next three seasons saw something of arespite, although tensions remained high.Libya's Qadhdhafi mediated an understandingin 1983, so that only one incident ended inviolence. Khoiniha assured the Saudis that"Iranian pilgrims are not here to confront you,"but "to counter the American and Sovietsuperpowers, as well as Zionism." In 1984,there were no clashes between Saudi police andIranian pilgrims. But Saudi handling of a clashbetween Iranian and Iraqi pilgrims, which leftone Iranian dead, led to a new round of Iranian

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attacks on Saudi pilgrimage management, andan official Iranian protest. And in 1985, adispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran over thepermitted number of Iranian pilgrims led theSaudis to deny landing to several Iranianpilgrimage flights.

By 1986, it seemed that Iran and SaudiArabia had reached a compromise permittingIran to conduct a limited measure of politicalpropaganda during the pilgrimage. Thatunderstanding resulted from a short-livedattempt by Iran to show (or feign) moderation,in order to drive a wedge between Saudi Arabiaand Iraq. By the informal terms of thepilgrimage understanding, Khomeini'spilgrimage representative was permitted toorganize two pilgrims' rallies, the first inMedina and the second in Mecca, in areasremoved from the holy mosques in each city.A number of understandings restricted theform and content of these demonstrations.Iran's pilgrims were not to import or displayprinted matter and posters of a political nature,and their slogans were to be directed onlyagainst the United States, the Soviet Union, andIsrael. Other Muslim governments, and thehost government, were not to be criticized. Thisunderstanding allowed Iran's pilgrims to venttheir views, but enabled Saudi authorities toconfine all demonstrating to two fixed events.

In 1986, a group of Iranian pilgrims whoopposed the strategy of moderation in dealingwith Saudi Arabia arrived in the country with aquantity of explosives. Their aim was to destroythe pilgrimage understanding reached betweenIran and Saudi Arabia. But they failed. Saudiauthorities discovered the explosives andarrested 115 of the pilgrims upon their arrival.Those Iranian leaders who had assured SaudiArabia that the pilgrimage peace would bepreserved were embarrassed, and dissociatedthemselves from the plot by allowing the Saudisto detain the pilgrims for weeks without protest.But the plotters did enjoy the support of one ofthe major factions in Iran - that which isopposed to the pursuit of any opening toward theSaudis and favors the aggressive export of therevolution. In the pilgrimage plot of 1986, itbecame clear that the pilgrimage peace was anunstable one, affected by the changing balancein Iran's internal power struggle.

By 1987, that balance had clearly shiftedin favor of the same faction responsible for thethwarted provocation of 1987. Thedemonstration of the Iranians which

culminated in violence exceeded the bounds ofthe understanding of past years. That was to beexpected, for the understanding is not a formalone, and each year Iran has sought to modify itin favor of Khomeini's original vision of thepilgrimage as a great demonstration. But atsome point during the Mecca demonstration of1987, the established bounds were grosslyviolated by the Iranian pilgrims, or the Saudipolice, or both.

THE NEW PILGRIMAGE POLEMIC

This increasing incidence of violence hasbeen complemented by the intensification ofpolemical debate over the pilgrimage. This hastended simply to revalidate old prejudices, as aresult of the manner in which Iranian pilgrimshave set themselves apart from other pilgrims.What appears to be a recent confrontationbetween radical and conservative Islam hasthese timeless sectarian animosities at its core.The polemic itself has not been a simplerepetition of the old libels, but they have beentransformed and made more credible, so thatthey no longer express sectarian distrust somuch as they evoke it. This transformationprobably reflects the influence of ecumenismupon the intellectual climate of contemporaryIslam, a climate now inhospitable to overtsectarian polemics.

For most Muslims, it is no longerconsidered politic to dwell openly on thedifferences between Sunni and Shiite Islam.Indeed, merely to cite these differences isregarded by many Shiites as an attempt toisolate them, and even as part of an imperialistplot to foment division in Islam. Yet anyreading of the declarations and documentsgenerated by the recent pilgrimage polemiccannot but create a strong sense that all this hasbeen said before. Most of today's lines ofargument clearly insinuate the libels ofyesterday.

A vivid example may be found in thebrief correspondence between the late SaudiKing Khalid and Imam Khomeini in October1981, at a time of violent clashes in Mecca andMedina between Iranian pilgrims and Saudipolice. Khalid compiled a revealing letter ofprotest to Khomeini, asking that Khomeini urgehis followers to show restraint, but stronglyhinting that the Great Mosque had been defiledby blasphemous Iranian pilgrims. According toKhalid, Iranian pilgrims in the Great Mosquehad performed their circumambulations while

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chanting "God is great, Khomeini is great,"and "God is one, Khomeini is one." There wasno need for Khalid to make his charge moreexplicit. It was obvious that the Iranians' sloganswere the product of an excessive veneration oftheir Imam, constituting a form of blasphemouspolytheism. Khalid wrote Khomeini that all thishad aroused the "dissatisfaction and disgust" ofother pilgrims.

In fact, these were distortions of very well-known Iranian revolutionary slogans. Iranianpilgrims had actually chanted "God is great,Khomeini is leader." The Saudis had confusedthe Persian word for "leader" with therhyming Arabic for "great." The pilgrims'Arabic chant declared that "God is one,Khomeini is leader." Here, the Saudis hadconfused the Arabic for "one" with therhyming Arabic for "leader." There was a vastdifference between the slogans as actuallychanted by the Iranians, and the inadvertent ordeliberate misrepresentations of Khalid. In theactual slogans, Khomeini is cast as a leaderunrivaled in the world, but subordinate to analmighty God. In the slogans as reported by theSaudis, Khomeini is placed on one plane withGod, a verbal pollution of Islam's holiestsanctuary. It was this familiar but disguisedcharge of Shiite defilement which the Saudissought to level at Iran's pilgrims. Theaccusation gained credibility from the formerlywidespread Sunni conviction that the Shiites arebound to pollute the Great Mosque.

In his reply to Khalid, Khomeini evokedthe old Shiite libel, charging the Saudis withfailing to respect the refuge provided by theGreat Mosque. "How is it that the Saudi policeattack Muslims with jackboots and weapons,beat them, arrest them, and send them toprisons from inside the holy mosque, a placewhich according to the teaching of God and thetext of the Quran, is refuge for all, evendeviants?" This was a decidedly Shiite readingof the meaning of the Great Mosque's sanctity,which owed a great deal to the concept of refuge(bast) that traditionally applied to Shiite shrinesin Iran. Such shrines were indeed absolutelyinviolable places of refuge, where any kind ofmalefactor could find asylum.

Nothing could have been farther from theWahhabi-Saudi concept of the sanctity of theholy places. These were and are regarded assites so sacred that no deviation at all may beallowed in their precincts. Only from a Shiiteperspective did this Saudi concern for

preserving the purity of the Great Mosqueappear as blind disrespect. In 1979, the Saudishad acted in good conscience to clear the GreatMosque of "deviants," relying upon a fatwaissued by Shaykh Ibn Baz and over thirty othermen of religion, who argued that it waspermissible to dislodge the defilers even byforce of arms. This decision enjoyed wideMuslim support beyond Saudi Arabia, andKhomeini's presentation of the Great Mosque asa place in which even "deviants" enjoyedabsolute immunity could only be regarded aspeculiarly Shiite, for it relied upon a Shiiteconcept of inviolable refuge which knows noparallel in Sunni Islam.

Differing concepts of sanctity also affectedthat part of the pilgrimage controversy playedout in Medina. In 1982, Khomeini'srepresentative to the pilgrimage chose thecemetery of al-Baqi in Medina as the site for aseries of demonstrations combined withvisitation prayers. After the Saudi demolition ofthe shrines in the cemetery in 1926, al-Baqiceased to serve as a place of Shiite visitation. Butafter Iran's Islamic revolution, the formalprayers were reinstated against Saudi will, andwere recited outside the high wall which theSaudis once built to seal off the cemetery. In1986, in a remarkable concession to Iran'spilgrims, Saudi authorities allowed them accessto the cemetery itself, and Khomeini'srepresentative to the pilgrimage formallythanked Saudi King Fahd for permitting thereturn of Shiite pilgrims to the venerated site.This obsessive interest in al-Baqi and othertombs, and the resort to the cemetery as arallying point for pilgrims in Medina, reflectsan especially Shiite notion of Medina's sanctity,and serves to evoke past resentment against theSaudis for having defaced the memory of theImams.

THE CHANGING SPIRITUAL GEOGRAPHY

This heightened Shiite interest in Medinaalso owes a great deal to changes in the spiritualgeography of Shiite Islam. Since the outbreak ofthe war between Iran and Iraq, it is no longerpossible for Iranians to visit the Shiite shrinecities in Iraq and the tombs of the Imams intheir sacred precincts. Their inaccessibility hasgreatly enhanced the significance for IranianShiism of the holy cities of Arabia, andespecially Medina.

The number of Iranians who now desireto make the pilgrimage far exceeds the number

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that Saudi Arabia is willing to admit in any oneyear, or that Iran is prepared to provide withscarce hard currency for the journey.Application for pilgrimage is centralized in Iran,and by 1984 the list of applicants had reached600,000. The annual figure agreed upon by Iranand Saudi Arabia (after some inevitablehaggling) has stood at about 150,000 since 1984.Even at this reduced figure, Iran's pilgrims nowconsistently constitute about 18% of foreignpilgrims, the largest foreign national group.

The demand has probably increasedbecause of the inaccessibility of the Iraqi shrines.Iran's pilgrims may have invested Medina withsome of the same emotional significance asthose shrines. Certainly with the unprecedentedinflux of Iranian pilgrims, al-Baqi has emergedagain as a major Shiite shrine. The site itselfremains desolate. But mass prayer services areconducted there, not by the Saudi men ofreligion who manage the mosques in Meccaand Medina, but by visiting Shiite clerics. Theyhave established themselves as the pilgrimage'sonly ceremonial functionaries who are notmembers of the official supervisory bureaucracyof Saudi Islam.

Such identifiably Shiite themes andmethods of protest might blind other pilgrims tothe political message of liberation Iran wishes toconvey during the pilgrimage. The fear thatIran's message might simply be dismissed byother Muslims as Shiite dissent has beenresponsible for some of the ecumenicalintonations of Khomeini's pilgrimagerepresentatives and other Shiite clerics. At timesthey have even urged Iran's pilgrims to refrainfrom excessive praise of their Imam Khomeini,an admonition which usually is not heeded.Iran's pilgrims are also explicitly instructed topray with all other pilgrims behind the Sunniprayer leaders in the Great Mosque and theProphet's Mosque, lest they stand out for theirShiism rather than their political activism.

At the same time, however, leading Shiiteclerics have undertaken a campaign to discreditSaudi Islam as a legitimate form of Sunni Islam.Early in this century, most of the Sunni worldregarded the doctrine of the Wahhabis as aheresy, for the Wahhabis displayed a severeintolerance toward other Sunnis whom theyregarded as backsliders. Since then there hasbeen a virtual revolution in Sunni Islam, bywhich the Saudis have gained wide Sunnirecognition as the propounders of orthodox faith.The aim of Shiite clerics has been to reverse that

revolution, by reminding other Sunnis of thosepoints where the Islam of the Saudis divergesfrom that of other Sunnis.

This campaign began by emphasizing apoint on which the Saudis themselves could beexcluded from the ecumenical consensus ofIslam. Shiism's determined foe, Shaykh Ibn Baz,provided the Shiite clerics with a perfect pretext.In November 1981, Shaykh Ibn Baz issued adenunciation of the practice of celebrating theProphet Muhammad's birthday. In a fatwa, hedetermined that "God has not decreed for usany birthday celebrations, either for the Prophetor for anyone else," and urged Muslims toabandon this "heretical innovation." Thisposition accorded with the doctrinal stand ofpristine Wahhabism, which deems the markingof the Prophet's birthday a late development inIslam and a compromise of the faith'smonotheistic principles.

Observance of the Prophet's birthday isnonetheless widespread in the Muslim world,among Sunnis and Shiites alike. In manycountries it is recognized as an official holiday.Championing observance of the Prophet'sbirthday would cast Iran as an adherent of Sunni-Shiite unity, while bringing Muslim attention tothe alleged deviance of Saudi Islam. Khomeini'sattack on Shaykh Ibn Baz represented a frontalassault on the entire tradition which the Saudiman of religion personified: "This mullah is alackey of the Saudi Arabian court and wants toimplement the King's wishes; therefore, hestands against the Muslims and makes suchremarks. Is it blasphemy to respect the Prophet ofGod? Does this mullah understand the meaningof blasphemy?" Shaykh Ibn Baz was"extremely ignorant" of Islam. Khomeini'sinsinuation was clear: Did the attitude of Saudi"disrespect" for the Prophet not constitute a pointon which Shiism and Sunnism converged,while Wahhabism diverged?

Iran's formal answer to the fatwa, on theinitiative of Ayatollah Husayn AH Montazeri,was to establish an annual "unity week"spanning the two different birthdays of theProphet (one recognized by Sunnis, the other byShiites). Obviously, had Montazeri's soleintention been the promotion of Muslim unity,he could have scheduled this annual week ofecumenical conferences and speeches for aneven more neutral date. But by combining hisappeal for unity with observance of the Prophet'sbirthday, he purposely sought to exclude SaudiArabia, Iran's principal rival, from the contest for

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primacy in Islam.

RESTORING THE PILGRIMAGE PEACE

The ever-changing demands of politics havehad an obvious effect upon the climate ofpilgrimage, at this and many other moments inhistory. It is certainly significant that the short-lived Saudi-Iranian rapprochement between 1983and 1986 coincided with an easing of tensionsduring the pilgrimage, and that the tragedy of1987 followed an escalation of conflict in the Gulf.The pilgrimage reenacts on a small scale theconflicts which rend the Muslim world of today.

But when those conflicts themselves evokepast prejudice, such as that between Sunni andShiite, the journey to Mecca can become apilgrimage into the past, stirring animositieswhich are part and parcel of culture. From ahistorical perspective, the contemporarycontroversy is but the latest chapter in animmemorial feud over the Muslim pilgrimage.For centuries, Shiite pilgrims have soughtthrough claims of persecution to blacken thereputation of successive Sunni rulers of Mecca.For centuries, Sunnis have charged Shiitepilgrims with the most abhorrent violations ofMecca's sanctity. To rediscover the pure faith ofone's fathers is also to relearn their great andpetty bigotries.

Saudi Arabia must now begin to considerthe policy it will adopt toward Iranian pilgrims in1988, although the final decision will dependupon the political climate in the last months andeven days before the scheduled arrival of the firstpilgrims. The Saudis have three options. First,they might forbid entry to Iranian pilgrims ororder their numbers diminished. The latter stepwould probably be tantamount to the first, sinceIran has always made it clear that it wouldrespond to any cut in the number of its pilgrimsby boycotting the pilgrimage altogether. Otherdifficulties placed before the Iranians, such asdelays in reaching agreements for theirtransportation and lodging, might have the sameeffect of prompting an Iranian boycott of thepilgrimage.

If Saudi Arabia chooses this course, it willhave to counter an inevitable Iranian charge thatthe Saudis have failed in their responsibility topermit all Muslims to meet a basic obligation ofIslam. Saudi Arabia might present its case in avariety of ways, but would ultimately rely forsupport upon the traditional Sunni hostility to

alleged Shiite defilement of the pilgrimage. Aban on Shiite pilgrims also has precedents, datingfrom the sixteenth century. But that was possiblythe most divided century in Islamic history,marked by great wars of religion between Sunnisand Shiites. Such a ban in this century wouldsignal the return of Islam to a state of absolutedivision.

A second course of Saudi action might be toban demonstrations on the grounds that inMecca's crowded streets, any demonstration forany purpose constitutes a danger to public safety.By such a policy, Saudi Arabia would essentiallyterminate the understanding which has allowedone Iranian demonstration in Mecca. The Saudiswould then be obliged to take every measure toenforce the ban, including the expulsion ofKhomeini's pilgrimage representative should hecall for a demonstration. This option clearlycontains the seeds of a further bloodyconfrontation.

The third Saudi option is to allow all theelements of the previous understanding toremain in force. This would necessitate detailednegotiations with the Iranians and explicitassurances from Khomeini. Without suchassurances, the consequences of pursuing such acourse would be unpredictable. For in the presentclimate of factional rivalry in Iran, there is nocertainty that assurances given by a lesserauthority would bind all of Iran's pilgrims.Whether such an agreement can be negotiatedwhile the climate of tensions in the gulf persists,seems doubtful.

Islam has emerged from its revival moredivided than at any time in the living memory ofits adherents. The religious awakening of Islamhas already produced a devastating war betweenMuslims along the same frontier of Islamichistory's greatest internecine struggle. It hasproduced denunciations of unbelief anddeclarations of holy war by Muslims^ againstMuslims, of a kind which had long ceased to beheard in Islam. And now even the pilgrimage,symbol of Islam's overriding unity, has become atinderbox. •

Dr. Martin Kramer is a visiting feUow at the WashingtonInstitute for Near East Policy, and a senior fellow at the DayanCenter for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel AvivUniversity. He is the author of Islam Assembled (ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1986), and is the editor cf Shi'ism,Resistance, and Revolution (Westview Press, 1987). Hisdetailed accounts of the pilgrimage appear annually in theMiddle East Contemporaiy Survey.

FURTHER READING FOR THIS PUBLICATION

A thorough introduction to the Muslim pilgrimage in modern times is provided by David Long, TheHajj Today: A Survey of the Contemporary Makkah Pilgrimage (Washington, 1979). Written before the Iranian revolution,the book does not deal at length with the politics of pilgrimage. The author nevertheless provides a detaileddiscussion of the social and economic impact of the pilgrimage on Saudi Arabia and an invaluable bibliography. Atreatment of subsequent developments in the pilgrimage may be found in the annual Middle East Contemporary Survey,beginning with volume six (covering 1981-1982).

The course of Saudi-Iranian relations since Iran's revolution is considered by R. K Ramazani,Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore, 1986), pp. 86-113.

For an account of modern Sunni-Shiite polemics, see Hamid Enayat, Modem Islamic Political Thought(Austin, 1982), pp. 18-51. The special place of Medina in Shiite Islam is discussed in detail in the classic study byDwightM. Donaldson, The ShiHte Religion (London, 1933), pp. 142-151.

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