1987 Mecca Massacre

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The 1987 Hajj demonstrations occurred on July 31, 1987. It arose from escalating tensions between Shia extremists from Iran on one hand, and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia on the other. For years, Iranian pilgrims had tried to stage challenging demonstrations so called "Distancing Ourselves from Mushrik¿n" in the Muslim holy city of Mecca during the hajj. The hostility of Saudi Arabia toward Iran has a long history. King Khalid of Saudi Arabia for example wrote to Saddam Hussein to "crush these stupid Iranians" as Saddam pushed on with the invasion of Iranian territory. It has often been claimed that Iraq recruited non-Iraqi Arabs during the war to balance the far superior number of Iranian forces on the ground. The history of hostility between Wahhabis and Shiites dates several decades. In 1943, a Saudi religious judge ordered an Iranian pilgrim beheaded for allegedly defiling the Masjid al-Haram with excrement supposedly carried into the mosque in his pilgrim's garment