The verse was Al Imran 3:13, the passage describing the Battle of Badr, where a vastly outnumbered and poorly equipped Muslim force routed a much larger army “by the will of God”. It was a clear reference to what many are increasingly calling Iran’s victory over the US and Israel in their war on the country.
Badr was fought in what is today Saudi Arabia in 624 CE. The question is whether the recitation was a compliment, a taunt, or both - but it was unlikely to have been random.
Read generously, the verse gestures at one of Islam’s first victories and a shared civilisational memory between Tehran and Riyadh.
But Iran has not only survived the war but arguably, it may have emerged from it stronger, with control of the Strait of Hormuz now tantalisingly close to becoming a fait accompli.
When the Saudi delegation stepped forward to pay respects at the coffin of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, the Quran recitation that followed did not go unnoticed.