Notably, visiting Karbala on the Day of Arafa (a day before Eid al-Adha), which is a part of the hajj period, is an old religious tradition among Shiites and could be considered unrelated to the pilgrimage issue and the recent Iranian-Saudi dispute.
Nevertheless, it appears that the conflict between the two regional heavyweights has been taken to another level and led to a rivalry between the holy sites of different Islamic sects.
While Saudi Arabia seeks to exclude Iranian Shiites from world Muslim circles, Iran is trying to lower Saudi Arabia's religious status through criticism of the Saudi pilgrimage management and calls to form a joint Islamic authority.
Although both sides are employing logical religious rhetoric to drum up support for their demands, the conflict remains at its base a political one between Iranian and Saudi authorities.
Islamic holy places are clearly being exploited for the political agendas of both parties in the regional competition for political influence over the Islamic world, stretching from Iraq and Syria all the way to Yemen and Bahrain.
The same scenario had played out in previous Islamic eras. Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (671-741), an Islamic jurist who was close to the Umayyads, issued a fatwa calling for pilgrimage to Jerusalem instead of Mecca, which at the time was under the control of the Ibn al-Zubayr caliphate, the Umayyads’ main rival.
The situation prompted Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik to build the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for the pilgrimage.
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