Up to 600 Shia clerics in eastern Saudi Arabia have called for the prosecution of Masjid al-Haram Imam Sheikh Adil Al-Kalbani for inciting hatred, Press TV reported.
Saudi Shias have called on Riyadh to dismiss the imam of the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca for accusing their community of apostasy and prompting sectarianism, Iran's Jomhoori Eslami daily reported Thursday.
In their statement, the clerics also demanded that the sheikh apologize for his comments and recognize the Shia faith as an official Islamic belief system, the paper said.
"Such remarks are the outcome of the same mistaken thoughts that encourages violence against other Islamic faiths," said the statement, according to a Persian translation of the text.
In a BBC interview earlier this month, Sheikh Adil Al-Kalbani lashed out at Shia clerics, calling them apostates and saying that they must not be allowed to join the Supreme Council of Ulema, the highest religious body in Saudi Arabia.
"With regard to the laymen among the Shia -- this is debatable. But their religious scholars, I view them as apostates," he told the BBC.
Recently, Middle East Onlinealso reported that Kalbani's comments had drawn criticism from Shia circles and even some Sunni imams, officials and pro-governments papers.
According to the paper, some Shia leaders asked for a government apology, while others urged a dismissal and a trial, warning that ignoring the matter could make it spiral into sectarian violence similar to the situation in neighboring countries, like Iraq.
Although the Saudi government has so far been silent about the outcry provoked by Sheikh Kalbani, the King's half-brother Prince Misha'al bin Abdulaziz did show a mild reaction in recent comments, by rejecting 'racism' and 'sectarianism', and saying that "All Saudis are Muslim."
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