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After a stampede near the holy city of Mecca during the hajj pilgrimage that left more than 700 people dead, including 131 Iranians, officials and clerics from Iran are calling for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to manage the hajj.
Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani rejected statements by Saudi Arabian officials blaming the pilgrims for not following directions. At Tehran’s Friday prayers on Sept. 25, he said, “They say the pilgrims themselves were disorderly and that the weather was hot [but] the world will not accept it, and this is a lie. Everyone knows the whole story, that it was a lack of worthy management of hajj and they closed the paths and brought the situation to this.”
