By Walid Shoebat
Saudi Arabia’s claims that their war in Yemen is an intervention to “defend Mecca and Arabism” and to “confront Iranian hegemony” in the region has resulted in some strange rhetoric that is coming from both sides, be it Shiite or Sunni, many top representatives, Sunni scholars, Shiite Ayatollahs, from major figures to the laity, each side is accusing the other as threatening the destruction of the holiest spot in Islam: the Kaaba in Mecca.
The Shiites accuse the Sunnis that they will be the destroyers of the Kaaba while Saudis accuse the Shiites of threatening the two holiest sites, the Kaaba in Mecca and the Mosque of The Prophet in Medina.
King Salman depicted as an angel and protector of the Kaaba and the Seven Towers of Light which can be seen behind him
The latest escalation that caused rumblings was when yesterday CNN Arabic from Dubai shared Senior Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami’s Friday sermon in which he attacked Saudi Arabia and the operations carried out in Yemen, saying: “The Al-Saud is bound to fall for their crimes in their aggression on Yemen and the stigma of treason will follow them throughout history.”
This accusatory sentiment of “treason” against Islam and its holiest places was also shared by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on April 17th last month where Nasrallah criticized the Saudi mobilization around the Arab and Muslim world with claims that the Houthis are threatening Islamic holy sites in Saudi Arabia, especially Mecca. Nasrallah instead accused Al-Saud including ISIS of being the real threat to Mecca: “I can confirm that there is a threat against the two Holy Mosques, but it is coming from ISIS, which after declaring a caliphate in Mosul announced that it will demolish the Holy Kaaba.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah greets his Lebanese and Yemeni supporters through a giant screen during a speech against US-Saudi aggression in Yemen, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, April 17, 2015. (photo by REUTERS/Aziz Taher)
ISIS, being a form of Wahhabism and extreme Iconoclasts, according to Nasrallah had came as a result of Wahhabism had mocked the Black Stone in the Kaaba as “a collection of dumb silent pebbles” which Muslims circumambulate around and idolize in which ISIS therefore declared it too must be destroyed.
In Ayatollah Khatami’s speech this Friday from Tehran speaking to all Shiites worldwide accused Saudi Arabia saying: “Shame on you what you did in Yemen as the Zionists did in Gaza … Al Saud and since Britain handed over the power to Al Saud hundred years ago they continued their bloodshed, murder and looting. The Saudi hands are drenched in the blood of Muslims and are hostile to Islam. They were behind the massacres committed by the Zionist entity in southern Lebanon and the wars waged on Gaza.”
Khatami is using the popular and common accusation especially leveled by the Turks that Al Saud are agents of Israel who revolted in alliance with the ‘Crusaders’ (the United Kingdom).
Whether Shiite or Sunni, each side speak their own filtered version of historic revisionism. It was Sharif Hussein who coveted the position Sharif of Mecca where he lobbied Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, via the Grand Vizier, Kamel Pasha, for the post, claiming that the Emirate of Mecca should become his because he was “the eldest member of the Hashimite family” during which Sharif Hussein was appointed Emir of Mecca on November 24, 1908.
It was Ibn Saud (Al Saud) who was the serious regional rival to Sharif Hussein who initiated the Arab Revolt in 1916 against the Ottoman Empire, a thorn in the flesh for Turks worldwide and during the course of the First World War and in 1924, when the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in Turkey, he further proclaimed himself Caliph of all Muslims while the Turks lost the centuries old position for the Islamic Caliphate. Then came Abdul Aziz al Saud and his Wahhabi compatriots conquered the Hijaz with aid from Great Britain during 1925, ending Sharif Hussein’s project.
But the concern for the Kaaba’s destruction is not stemming from some laity figures or conspiracy theorists. Nasrallah elaborated his concern that Al Saud threaten the Kaaba claiming some historical reference: “After the founding king seized control of Hijaz, his Wahhabi followers — inspired by their culture — demolished all historic artifacts that have to do with the Prophet [Muhammad] in April 1926” And that “yes, indeed, the holy place [Mecca] is definite. But where will this danger comes from? I will tell you. The threat comes from inside Saudi Arabia. The history, look it up, after Ibn Saud took over his Wahhabist followers came to destroy everything, graves, home of the prophet, they left nothing … they intended to destroy the grave of the prophet himself which history records … the Kaaba had it not been for Egypt and Pakistan including Al-Azhar University that prevented them from destroying it all in April 1926 …”.
So Nasrallah argues as to what prevents Al Saud from completing their Iconoclast task of threatening the Kaaba itself in the future?
He added, “Where did the ideology of the groups that are destroying societies and countries come from? Which school of thought and books? Whose culture and fatwas? Who is spreading this ideology across the world? Who is building schools all over the world to teach Muslim youth this destructive, takfiri ideology? Very clearly it is Saudi Arabia. It is using the pilgrimage revenues in the process.”
The solve the problem of Al-Saud, Nasrallah answers the millions of Arab Shiites watching hailed the Yemeni people and said, “The revolutionary leadership of Ansar Allah, this great leader Badr al-Din al-Houthi, now has the chance to attack and infiltrate into Saudi Arabia. However, he doesn’t because he is performing what is called a strategic patience.”
In other words, it is only a matter of time and that patience is necessary until Iran gains nukes.
The daily attacks by Al-Hazm lead by Al-Saud against the Houthis is mustering a multitude of tweets from Shiites worldwide calling “death to Al Saud” while Sunnis call for “death to the Maggi”. Maggi or Majous in Arabic is the derogatory term used by Sunnis to portray Shiites as descendants of the ancient Maggi.
Burning photos of Iran’s flag and its Khomeini by Sunnis
Iran’s flag with the writ “Death To Iran”
Shiites respond back with victimhood, the signature tactic in the Muslim world, accusing Al Saud of bloodshed and vowed to revenge.
From top scholars and politicians to the man on the street, tweets about the destruction of the Kaaba is immense. The variety of tweets remind of Nasrallah’s words and when Hajjaj bin Yusuf Al-Thaqafi demolished the Kaaba or when Abraha Al-Ashram with elephants attempted to destroy it, while others say “do not be shocked when the Kaaba is destroyed”. The Muslim world is divided between the inevitability of Mecca’s destruction or that “Allah is the protector of the Kaaba,” as many tweeted.
The conflicting messages between the Hadith and the Quran in which the Quran declared that the Kaaba will always be protected while in the Hadith, one scholar argues with the strangest prophecies by Muhammad that it is the man with two scrawny legs will remove it stone by stone.
Shiites respond back with victimhood, the signature tactic in the Muslim world, accusing Al Saud of bloodshed
It is not as if Shiite or Sunni all of the sudden have desire to destroy the Kaaba, their center of direction of worship, but it is the matter of survival where each side fears which of the two pulls the trigger which is already pulled with conventional warfare in Yemen. But with Iran’s desire to soon obtain nukes and Al-Saud following in their footsteps be it contracting to purchase nukes from Pakistan or by any other means, it would be a matter of ‘who pulls the trigger first lives’ and Iran could pull it the moment Al-Saud succeeds in its mission to arm itself with such weapons of mass destruction. That or else, Iran risks being annihilated by Al Saud.
And while the Quran says Allah is the Kaaba’s protector and the Hadith predicts it will be dismantled stone by stone, Isaiah the prophet declares (see chapter 21) that Elam (Iran) will be the first to pull the trigger and all of Arabia is doomed while Ezekiel 25 predicted Arabia’s destruction of both Yemen (Teman) and Saudi Arabia (Dedan). And then in Isaiah 34, all of the “pitch” (petroleum) of that region will burn forever.