Friday speeches 22 safar 1426h/01 April 2005 AD

Allah Says in His Glorious Book: {Allah’s wish is but to remove uncleanness far from you, O folk of the Household, and cleanse you with a though cleansing} (33:33)

One of those Members is Imam Hussein (a.s.) whose anniversary of the fortieth day after his death has just passed. This Imam (a.s.) will remain in our minds and hearts as long as time remains. He will stay in our life as a guide for the truth; a movement leading mankind and a revolution for justice and against oppression.

Imam Hussein (a.s.) enjoyed, like his father before him, the love, care and education of the Messenger (p.) giving him, like he did with his father with each passing day, some of the good manners that a child like him could grasp. He used to play with him and his brother, Imam Hassan, for he wanted to give the Muslims a lesson that a man has to turn into a child when he deals with children so that he could give them the love they need and guide them in the way they understand.

When his grandfather and mother died, the Imam along with his brother, Imam Al-Hassan, were taken care of by their father Imam Ali (a.s.). They learnt from his knowledge for the Messenger (p.) has described him as the gate of the city of knowledge, which is the Messenger (p.) himself. This knowledge has made the Imam reach the Truth, which there is no truth beyond it. He expresses this when he says: If the cover was unveiled, I would not become more certain.

Thus, Ali's Alienation was grater than that of Hussein (a.s.), for he lived in a society he wanted to elevate, but one which did not understand his motives or what he was telling them, for they continued to be concerned with trivial things.

Thus, both Imams lived with their father: his spirit, experiences, knowledge and the way he dealt with the challenges that faced him. And then he lived the situations his brother lived in his brief Imamate. In this respect, we have to say that Imam Hussein (a.s.) followed the lead of Imam Hassan (a.s.) in everything he did, and had Imam Hassan lived to face what his brother did, he too would have acted like Imam Hussein (a.s.). Therefore, we refuse what some say about the two brothers having different personalities. They were both infallible Imams who carried the interests of Islam in their hearts and minds.

After the death of Imam Hassan, Imam Hussein (a.s.) became the Imam. He pursued this role and lived with people, teaching them and acting as a role model to them. He lived with the people, taught them and was responsible for their affairs, just the Prophet did. The Imam's revolution was in this sense a part of his responsibility as an Imam.

Imam Hussein (a.s.) could not have possibly remained neutral when it came to the way the nation was ruled, or the way it witnessed deviations that it might be trapped to follow. He felt responsible for all that, and he waited for some of the nation to ask him to lead their march. When this happened he made his first speech in which he assumed the role of leadership. He stood up and said: Our Messenger has said: Whoever sees an oppressive ruler who has made lawful what Allah has prohibited… and who has violated the Messenger (p.)’s traditions… and did not try to change this, God would be rightful if He treated him as one of the deviators.

These people have taken to obey Satan… They have made lawful what Allah has prohibited… They have monopolized all the revenues. In this respect, the Imam was more rightful than others to assume the role of leadership because this was his responsibility as an Imam.

The Imam announced in his letter and will to his brother when he left Mecca to Medina after testifying that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his Messenger that he revolted neither for wickedness nor for fame. Verily I rose only to seek for rectification in the nation of my grandfather, The Messenger of Allah.

I want to enjoin good, forbid evil and follow the path of my father and grandfather. For their path is the path of the right, the path of Islam. And I ask the people to accept my call because it is the call of the right. Whoever accepts it will be accepting the right. But if he does not, I will be patient and wait until Allah rules between us. This means that he came in peace to call for the Right. But he had to fight when the war was imposed on him.

He had to revolt because the affairs of Muslims were left to an unjust ruler who threatened some by the swords if they do not pledge their loyalty to him and bought others by money. Then he took all the public money for himself and dealt with the people as slaves.

When the Imam was left alone after those who were supposed to support him sold themselves to the devil and asked the Imam (a.s.) of what amounted to unconditional surrender, he stood with all the Islamic dignity in his soul and said:

"By God, I will never give you my hand like a man who has been humiliated; nor will I flee like a slave,"

Al-Hussein (a.s) is the light that illuminates our minds, hearts and lives. He will stay at all times the sprit and the message that gives us the motive and the will to confront all oppressors and arrogant. It is not enough to cry over his tragedy. We have also to learn the lesson of this tragedy and follow his course.

Peace be on him, his father, his mother and his grandfather, and all those who fought with him on the Day of Karbala.

America is forbidding the Palestinian people from establishing their independent state in accordance to UN Security Council resolutions 242, 338 and 194, based on an understanding between Bush and Sharon to keep the settlements in the West Bank and prevent the return to the 1967 borders, and that of the refugees, as well as all that vague talk about Jerusalem and the racial wall.

We ask the American Administration: is this the model for the democracy president Bush is calling for? What are the freedoms that the Palestinians are entitled to in the face of the Israeli tyrannical policies?

Does Israel have the right to oppress others, just as America has the right to exempt its soldiers from being tried for the crimes they commit?

America has to learn why the Arabs and Muslims hate it. It is because it considers them to be very backward among the nations of the globe. The Americans are waiting for Sharon, the man of massacres, they call the man of peace, so that he would be encouraged by the President and his secretary of state to carry on with his barbaric actions against the Palestinians. They would also threaten the officials of the Arab and Muslim countries if they dare object to these practices. They, the Israelis and the Americans, aim at thwarting the Arab and Muslim will and ability to stand against their plans, all in the name of fighting terrorism and spreading democracy, which means that we ought to be very cautions and careful, but we have at the same time to respond in a strong and decisive way.

America, as well as Europe and Israel, talk about refusing any interference in Lebanon from any Arab state or any Lebanese party supported by Syria and Iran.

But the US allows itself to interfere in any state in the world on all levels and not only the elections. It pushes the parties it supports to implement its plans which usually include spreading chaos and political and security instability.

It uses the pretext of spreading democracy to secure its hegemony over the entire world. We would like to assert once more that we are against international arrogance. And we emphasize that it is necessary that all nations should hold to their elements of strength.

If the leaders of this nation have fallen, the people are still fighting, which means that America can not have a free hand yet, for the people know how to find alternatives and make use of any available opportunities.

We call on all Palestinians; the people, the Authority and the Intifada to say: The Bush-Sharon alliance will bring you neither freedom nor independence, except in the form of a mini state that is besieged by the racial wall and the settlements. This means that you ought to promote your unity on the basis of a mutual plan of action that would be reached by an objective and rational dialogue. And be sure you will be victorious in the end because no power could defeat a nation that seeks freedom.

As the crisis in Iraq deepens, with the daily massacres of the terrorists and the political deviation that turned Iraq into a sectarian and racial homeland, to the extent that the Iraqi army cannot enter the Kurdish region, the American impasse is still growing.

The Americans do not know how to protect their own soldiers or how to carry out their slogan of spreading democracy as they are faced with this political chaos.

We say to our people in Iraq, Shiite and Sunni Muslims as well as the other sects: You have to watch out for what the Americans are doing and you have to protect your unity against the occupation who only seeks to promote its own interests.

Your unity would turn Iraq once again into a unified country as it always was. You can also provide an example for the entire region of how to defeat arrogance.

As things get worse in Lebanon, especially as those who have electoral ambitions are fighting an all-out war, with each party exploiting the international circumstances and the people's instincts, the Lebanese live in a state of concern over their security and deprivation. They do not even know what the plans of either the opposition or the loyalists to save the country are.

Meanwhile, the people are worried that what is going on could lead us to an international intervention that substitutes a regional one. They also add that some of those who are calling for reform freedom and democracy were the root-cause of the Lebanese problem.

We say to the Lebanese: Dialogue is the only solution. Communicate with each other before the elections and after them, and open your hearts to love and tolerance. You should set up a political agenda, including the creation of a Cabinet that would supervise the elections.

The Ship is about to sink. It is the ship that carries all of you. Make sure that it gets you to the safe shore, before the waiting fleets carry you to the lands of emigration and to the mazes of alienation.