Iran cleric says Muslims that don’t go on Hajj ‘might die as a Jew’

The representative for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province delivered an antisemitic sermon in late April, declaring that Muslims who can afford the Hajj pilgrimage but do not go “might die as a Jew.”

Nassir Hosseini said “There are those who are wealthy but do not want to go on Hajj. There are those who have real estate, and if they sell off 100, 50, or 10 square meters, they can afford to go on Hajj twice, but they refuse. This will cause them hardship.”

The sermon conducted by Hosseini was aired on Dena TV in Iran on April 28, 2023 and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

The Shi’ite cleric continued that “The Prophet said that if a person is rich but does not perform the Hajj, he might die as a Jew. There is such a hadith. A person on his deathbed could die as a member of the Jewish religion.  A person who is financially well-off and physically healthy, and does not perform Hajj can be thrown out of Islam. In the last moment, he will die in the Jewish religion, as you see in the hadith.”

Beni Sabti, an expert on Iran from the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, Hosseini’s antisemitic sermon “ is something very common in Iran.” He added, “When you call someone a Jew in Iran, it is like cursing him.”

Iranian antisemites invoke the word Jew to insult people, Sabti said, noting they wish to convey that  “he is not honest, he is cheap, he is a  liar, and he hides something or he does not do things like in the clip” about Hosseini.

Sabti said Hosseini’s  usage of the word Jew is an insult and  “is antisemitic and a Nazi word  in Iran “ and has “ for many of hundreds of years a tradition in Iran.”

Sabti, who was born in Tehran, said about his time growing up in Iran that “I remember as a child seeing on the walls on sayings from Imams or the Prophet Mohammad that blame a Jewish woman for killing the Prophet. They made this up. Mohammad died naturally.”

Former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said during the Trump administration that Iran’s regime is the leading state-sponsor of antisemitism.

The CEO of the US-based Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, said during a congressional hearing in 2020 that the Islamic regime in Tehran was the top state sponsor of Holocaust denial and antisemitism.

Bahraini Islamic scholar talks about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

In a separate but related antisemitic sermon, the Bahraini Shi'ite Islamic scholar Ibrahim al-Safa claimed in an April 14, 2023 lecture in the village of Karzakan that the antisemitic document The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were "produced" at the 1897 first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.

According to the US Holocaust Museum, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is the most notorious and widely distributed antisemitic publication of modern times. Its lies about Jews, which have been repeatedly discredited, continue to circulate today, especially on the Internet. The individuals and groups who have used the Protocols are all linked by a common purpose: to spread hatred of Jews.”

The Museum added “The Protocols is entirely a work of fiction, intentionally written to blame Jews for a variety of ills. Those who distribute it claim that it documents a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. The conspiracy and its alleged leaders, the so-called Elders of Zion, never existed.”

The Protocols have gained enormous traction in the Arab world, Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

MEMRI located and translated Safa’s antisemitic conspiracy diatribe.

He said "Herzl made a concerted effort to gather all the Jews from everywhere. He sought to create Zionism and to establish a central leadership for the Jews. What did they seek to achieve? They sought to gather what was left of the Jews. The first meeting was held in 1897 in Switzerland. This meeting was the most dangerous Jewish gathering. The Jewish leaders, thinkers, and political strategists were there, and they produced the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion. These protocols represented the basic principles of the Zionist movement, which are satanic and dangerous principles. Satan undoubtedly collaborated with them in the creation of these principles.”

Safa continued that "The first protocol they agreed upon, as was mentioned in the newspapers, stated that Zionism must control the world, and not just a specific piece of land. No. They had a big plan to establish Greater Israel, which would stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates.”

He said "When you engage in politics with the Jews, you must be careful, because they have no principles, values, or ethics. All that they present to you is just for appearances' sake. Another principle which they agreed upon was the need to drown the Gentiles... The term 'Gentiles' appears in their holy book. They refer to all non-Jews as 'Gentiles', who are the servants of the Jewish race. There is us and there is them, according to their view. Those [Gentiles] must be drowned with vice, prostitution, drugs, and abomination, by means of the plans made in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."