The First Sermon

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful  

Describing the believers, God says in His Glorious Book: "And those who keep their pledges and their covenant".

The believers are those who are faithful to their trusts and their pledges.

When we study the _Prophet's personality, we find that the two most prominent characteristics his community used to know him with are his truthfulness and trustworthiness. People knew him as a man who is trustful in everything he says or stands .He also kept the trusts the people used to leave with him, and he always committed himself to what he had pledged. A man come once to Imam Ja'afar As-Sadiq (a.s.) telling him that he wants to be closer to him, The Imam said: Looks at what Imam Ali (a.s.) did to earn that elevated position in the Prophet's eyes and do it.

Asked what that was, the Imam said: It was truthfulness and trustworthiness".

Talking about the criteria that we ought to judge people with the Messenger(p.) said: "Do not look at how much they fast or pray… but look instead their truthfulness and trustworthiness.

They might fast and pray because they are used to and they might go to Mecca as a tourist journey and not for the sake of performing pilgrimage. The essence of a good person is his truthfulness that will always make him tell the truth even when it hurts him, and to be trustworthy in that people would trust him with their lives, honor and property.

Trustworthiness is the best of belief

Imam Ali (a.s.) says: "The best of belief is trustworthiness, and the worst of manners is betrayal". Imam Baqir says: "There are three things that God did not exempt anyone from doing "Returning the trusts and keeping your pledges to the good and the evil-doers alike, and being good and merciful towards parents regardless of their being good of not". Imam Al-Sadiq(a.s.) says that had the killer of Imam Ali kept a trust with him he would have given it back.

Imam Ali (a.s.) says: do not betray the one who trusts you even if he betrays you. He also swore that the Messenger told him an hour before he died: Return the trust, to the good and the evil-doers, and whether it is trivial or big...

Trustworthiness is a reasonability

In the light of these traditions, we have to ask: what is the object of this trustworthiness? It could be money, as when someone might entrust you with his money, In this case, you are not permitted to put it in a place where it might be stolen. The same thing goes to your work. You have to be trustworthy in accomplishing what you are commissioned with.

Moreover, if you have a construction contract, you are not permitted, for example, to save money by cheating in the material you use.

Anyone who does not honor the conditions he accepted in a contract betrays the trust. We have a tradition that says: Muslims stand by the conditions they agreed upon .You should abide by these conditions unless they stipulate doing something unlawful.

Moreover, if you are an employer in an institution, whether in the public service ,a teacher or any other career, you have to keep the trust of those who employed you. Getting a sick leave from a doctor without being sick means that both you and the doctor have betrayed the trust. The same thing goes for leaving your post during office hours, or for wasting your time.

Some people might think that the time we are wasting belongs to the unjust government that pays us. It is the people’s money. The government pays you from the money it collects from the tax-payers, meaning all of us. Some religious clerics might say that it is the owner of the money is unknown. It is not, and even if it were, you are not allowed to steal it, even if you were in a non-Muslim country. God says: (Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of (your) religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely Allah loves the doers of justice) .Thus, cheating banks and insurance companies in the West betrays the trust.

The same thing goes for the relationship of marriage. Marriage is a covenant between man and wife. The woman vows to be faithful to her husband, while the man promises not to deny her rights and to treat her in a good way. There are those who force the women to give them their monthly wage, although they have not right to. This is a from of being unfaithful, which husbands should not commit.

Being faithful in marriage means you ought to honor all the other party's rights, whether social, financial sexual or otherwise.

There are many other situations, that require faithfulness, like when you cast your vote in any elections regardless of the level.

You are entrusted with your vote by Allah, the most Exalted, for it might leave a positive or a negative impact. It could ,for example, lead to the winning of a murderer or a good-doer. In voting there is not room for friendship or patronage or the like; you will be held responsible for your vote in the Hereafter.

We are responsible for all what we do before God. He has entrusted us with this reasonability, and we ought to keep our trust.

We also have to be trustworthy as a nation. This is done by making every effort to promote its interests and serve its causes, so that we will meet God feeling confident that Allah is going to be satisfied with our effort to draw closer to Him.

God says: Surely Allah commands you to make over trusts to their owners and that when you judge between people you judge with justice; surely Allah admonishes you with what is excellent; surely Allah is Seeing, Hearing

The Palestinian tragedy

Israel decided to execute the biggest operation of demolishing Jerusalemite houses in Eastern Jerusalem, thus dislocating around a thousand Palestinians. It claims that it wants to build the "city of David" in that region, since he used to bathe there, three thousand years ago. On the other hand, the house owners can produce property documents that were issued before the establishment of the Jewish state whose legitimacy in based on certain religious legends that it turned into facts in the eyes of the subjected Westerners.

Israel also continues to build the isolating racial wall that threatens Palestinian villages, confiscates their lands, cuts their trees and demolishes their houses.

But we do not hear any objection or condemnation from either the Europeans or the Americans, despite all the Israeli atrocities. In addition, the Palestinians are concerned for the conflict between Fateh and Hamas over the local elections: such a turmoil could benefit Israel on various levels. Moreover, we do no know what the Palestinian President returned with from his visit to the US. Is it some additional empty threats, or new projects that promote the Israeli interests at the expense of Palestinian ones.

The current stage is characterized by the loss of the Palestinian rights as a result of the continuous pressures, which means that the Palestinians ought to be aware of their current and future priorities and goals, the most important of which is protecting their liberation project through their national unity, especially that the media is talking about radical Jewish organizations that call for storming the Aqsa Mosque on the anniversary of their occupation of the Holy city.

How are the Muslims going to face this development? What are they going to do?

Fighting strife in Iraq

Iraq continues to suffer from the occupation practices, as well as those groups that accuse others of unbelief. Chaos and bloodshed are still the daily feature of the Iraqi front, as a result of the blind hatred of the fanatics and the occupations plans.

This Chaos has reached a level where it no longer could be ignored and not condemned. Thus, we call on all Muslim scholars - Shiites and Sunnis, to devise a plan to condemn and voice objection to these crimes. They should be unequivocal in their assertion that such actions are illegitimate, in that who commits them deserves to be committed in this world and will ultimately lose in the Hereafter.

Such a criminal attitude has reached a new climax with his this new phenomenon, in Iraq and Pakistan, of bombing mosques and killing worshippers. Those who commit these acts have been brainwashed to believe that such acts will lead them to Heaven,

The danger lies in the fact that this culture is trying to present to the Muslim World, a model of Islamic fanatics that does not have a balanced mercy in his heart, but a blind hatred that further complicates the inter-Islamic relations and undermines the movement of Islamic unity, to the benefit of the arrogant occupation. This threat should be confronted by a swift and counter movement led by the Muslim scholars of both Shiite and Sunni sects, as well as the Islamic Conference Organization, the International Federation of Muslim Clerics and all religious authorities in Egypt Iraq and Iran, to besiege this terrorist and criminal movement whose danger is virtually equivalent to that of occupation itself.

Lebanese elections

Lebanon is facing a situation of security upheaval that started with political assassinations and explosions in economic sites and lately targeted the Lebanese press. This causes a lot of concern and confusion.

In this atmosphere, we call on every Lebanese to act as a security guard to discover all local or foreign criminals, for Lebanon breathes through the lungs of security and freedom, and we have to protect them both.

As for elections, we want the Lebanese not to reproduce the sectarian Lebanon; their only concern should be the Lebanese citizen who demands his rights and performs his duties as a citizen and not as a member of a sect. Thus, we ask the Lebanese to vote for the cause and the agenda and not for the person. Each one of you is responsible before God.

Therefore you should study how much the candidates you are going to vote for have fallen under foreign hegemony, and how much they represent the power of political money that buys consciences and stands.

Furthermore, the Lebanese people should strive to maintain national unity and coexistence, especially in the wake of the latest political and security developments.