Al-Arab: Mixing Politics and Religion Raise Resentment of Islamic World

Doha, August 11 (QNA) - Qatari newspaper Al-Arab underlined that mixing politics and religion was a source of dismay for the Islamic world, and made the credibility of a state and officials, who talk daily about their role in the service of the two Holy Mosques, at stake. Al-Arab referred to using the Hajj pilgrimage as means of pressure on African countries to join the Gulf crisis quartet in the siege on Qatar. The Qatari daily noted the Saudi obstacles to the citizens and residents of Qatar to prevent them from performing Umrah and Hajj, adding that the Muslims in Canada may also suffer from obstacles to perform Hajj just because one of their officials talked about human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and the arrest of innocent citizens without a crime and without trial, noting in this regard to a report by a Canadian television station about the increasing suffering Canadian pilgrims after the cessation of Saudi flights between Riyadh and Toronto, and the difficulty of returning pilgrims from Saudi Arabia after the end of the Hajj due to the cessation of flights. Those who are politicizing Hajj must reconsider their position and revise the history of the Kingdom's former rulers and officials, who did not mix between politics and religion, and did not, for example, obstruct the arrival of Egyptians to the Hijaz during the 1960s in spite of the deep disagreements between the two sides, and did not prevent the usual influx of Iraqi pilgrims in 1990 although the Iraqi forces were stationed on the Saudi border after the invasion of Kuwait, Al-Arab said. (QNA)