State-linked Saudi news websites reported an explosion Monday near one of Islam’s holiest sites in the city of Medina, as two suicide bombers struck in different cities without killing anyone.
Millions of Muslims around the world will mark the start of the holy month of Ramadan on Monday, a time marked by intense prayer, dawn-to-dusk fasting and nightly feasts.
The Arab League’s parliament declared on Wednesday that the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj, “should not be politicized and exploited to target Saudi Arabia,” according to a report from the Saudi Gazette transcribed by al-Arabiya.
Contents: A disastrous year in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia; Iran bans Iranians from attending the Hajj in 2016; Far left anti-government riots spread across France
JAFFA, Israel – A Saudi man reportedly divorced his wife on their wedding night after she was too preoccupied with her mobile phone.
JAFFA, Israel – Pilgrimage to Sinai’s El Tor Mountain is preferable to making hajj to Mecca, an Egyptian cleric has said.
TEL AVIV – The crisis between Saudi Arabia and Iran sunk to a new low in recent days as Riyadh accused Iran of politicizing the hajj pilgrimage by stopping its own Iranian citizens from traveling to the religious event.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka, national security editor for Breitbart News and author of the new book Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, tells host Stephen K. Bannon on Breitbart News Daily about tensions with Saudi Arabia, as pressure to declassify the Saudi-related “28 Pages” of 9/11 documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee report grows.
JAFFA, Israel – Saudi Arabia has announced that the Friday prayers delivered at Mecca’s Great Mosque will be translated into Farsi, in what seems to be the latest chapter in an ongoing media war with Iran. A journalist for a
In a deepening regional rift, the nation of Qatar has severed diplomatic relations with Iran, joining Bahrain, Kuwait and Sudan in backing Saudi Arabia. Qatar is the latest country to recall its ambassador to Iran following the attacks on Saudi
JAFFA, Israel – A Saudi bus driver was reportedly sentenced to imprisonment and flogging for allowing women to smoke, sing and dance in his vehicle, the Saidi-based SABQ news site reported on Wednesday. The male driver, who drove female students from
Without directly referencing their breakdown in diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, Iranian authorities have reportedly ruled to suspend the “lesser” yearly pilgrimage to Mecca – according to the AINA news agency. The report suggests that the pilgrimage, known as the
The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran escalated another notch on Monday morning, as the Saudis announced the suspension of air travel to and from Iran.
JAFFA, Israel – A newly released American rap song has launched a heated debate in Saudi Arabia’s media and social networks. “Mecca is Our Right,” recorded by the Saudi-American singer Mohamed Qadi, has so far received 200,000 hits on YouTube, almost exclusively
Contents: Egyptian scholar: The original al-Aqsa mosque may not have been in Jerusalem; BBC reporter confronts China’s military in South China Sea
Palestinians on their way to Saudi Arabia as part of a holly pilgrimage to Mecca were surprised to discover handbags ordained with Hebrew script, according to eyewitnesses.
The Associated Press has reviewed media reports and official comments from nations that reported the deaths of their citizens during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and found this year’s total standing at 1,621, with hundreds still missing.
The Saudi government allegedly beheaded the 28 people found responsible for the deadly stampede during the hajj pilgrimage in September.
The death toll from the tragedy that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Hajj pilgrims last week outside of Mecca continues to rise this week, as official estimates from Islamic countries show that the real number of those who passed in the stampede is likely much larger than the 769 previously announced by Saudi Arabian authorities.
Iran on Thursday nearly doubled its death toll from the hajj stampede to 464, giving up hope of finding missing pilgrims alive after a tragedy that has sparked a major row with Saudi Arabia. After Iran threatened a “fierce” response
Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei continues to call for Saudi Arabia to apologize for the deaths of over 750 people killed last week in a stampede during the Muslim hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Contents: Death toll from Hajj stampede rises to 769, triggers fatalistic explanations; Iran rejects Fatalism, blames Saudi officials for ‘crime’; Muslims debate the role of the ‘Will of Allah’ in human life; Theological contradictions in omnipotence and omniscience vs free will
A stampede in Mecca on the last day of the hajj pilgrimage took the lives of over 100 Iranian citizens, as the total death toll from the incident has surged to over 700 people, and the leaders of the regime in Tehran are furious with Saudi officials for their alleged negligence.
In Saudi Arabia, at least two million Muslims swarmed the Kaaba in the middle of Mecca’s Grand Mosque to begin their annual hajj pilgrimage.
Misfortune struck in Mecca during the annual Islamic pilgrimage again on Thursday, but this time there were no fatalities reported, and only two injuries. A hotel in the Saudi city caught fire, requiring the evacuation of over 1,000 people.
The Saudi Binladin Group is a huge company that has, until now, been the Saudi government’s “favorite contractor for important or sensitive work, including defense and security projects,” as Reuters puts it.
The big Gulf oil kingdoms refuse to take any Syrian refugees, even though they are much closer to the war zone than Europe, and passage to the Gulf would be far less hazardous than risking death in overcrowded boats on the Mediterranean.
Contents: Russia’s Vladimir Putin tightens grip on Tajikistan at CSTO meeting; The troubled history of the CSTO in Central Asia; Russia’s economic slowdown means financial disaster for Central Asia
Contents: Huge construction crane in Saudi Arabia’s Mecca Grand Mosque crashes, killing dozens; 1979 takeover of Grand Mosque led to al-Qaeda and 9/11
A crane collapsed on the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Friday, killing at least 60 people who were visiting on their annual pilgrimage. 154 are believed to have been injured.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Islamic State group is extending its reach in Saudi Arabia, expanding the scope of its attacks and drawing in new recruits with its radical ideology. Its determination to bring down the U.S.-allied royal family has raised concerns it could threaten the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage later this month.
A video of a man performing part of his pilgrimage to Mecca while riding a hoverboard has prompted a debate among Muslims regarding whether the device is permitted. At least one scholar has approved, as long as a disability prevents the man from completing the voyage on foot.
A Muslim Civil Guard officer has asked Spanish authorities to fund his pilgrimage to Mecca, since colleagues have received funding for Christian holy trips. The officer, based in Melilla, one Spain’s two exclaves on the North African coast, wrote to
The Israeli defense establishment is expected to ease travel restrictions for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza territories during the Muslim’s holy fasting month of Ramadan, several news outlets report.
In a surprise, Senegal joins a beleaguered Saudi coalition in Yemen; Pakistan and Saudi Arabia appear to reconcile over Yemen; ‘Saudi troops’ landing in Aden were really Yemeni troops
Hurriyet Daily News has an odd little story from the Uskudar district of Istanbul, where the mayor has constructed a miniature replica of Mecca, Islam’s holy city. It is essentially a theme park of Mohammed’s life and times, with replicas of “the Kaaba, Prophet Mohammad’s house, the Hira cave, the Sevr cave, the Muallaq Stone, the Zamzam well and an elephant statue.”
(Reuters) – In making a blaze of largesse and the dismissal of relatively liberal clerics two of his first acts as monarch, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has signaled his approach to big future challenges may differ from that of his liberalizing late brother.
The continuing flare-ups on Saudi Arabia’s northern border with Iraq has led some to believe that the Islamic State is set on an eventual push towards the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Saudi Arabia officials arrested the man who filmed the brutal video of a woman beheaded in public in Mecca. The swordsman murdered Myanmur woman Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim as she screamed her innocence.
Saudi Arabian authorities publicly beheaded a woman in the holy city of Mecca after a court convicted her of sexually abusing and murdering her stepdaughter. The kingdom has executed nine people only two weeks into the new year.
