She is Fatima Az-Zahra whose birthday anniversary is in these days. An Arabic poetry verse says that whoever has Al-Zahra as a child of his does not look forward for others. Nevertheless, she had other sisters, although there are those who deny that, despite the fact the Quran affirms that the Prophet had more than one daughter. O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
This fact was confirmed also by what Imam As-Sadiq (a.s.) quoted the Prophet (p.) as saying.

But the difference between Az-Zahara and the other daughters of the Prophet was that the others were raised by Khadija the mother of believers, while the Prophet himself was the one who raised Fatima.

She used to be with him even as a very young child. History tells us that when the unbelievers put the intestines of a camel on his back while he was praying. She came and took it off, challenging the unbelievers and cursing them at an age of five years or younger. This proves that she was aware of the significance of the Message and the Messenger at that very young age.

Talking about her, the mother of believers, Aisha, says: I have never seen anybody who looks like the Messenger more than Fatima. When she used to come to him he used to stand up, kiss her and give her a seat by his side. She too used to stand up when he came to visit her, kiss him and seat him beside her… Historians say that she was very affected by the Messenger that she used to walk just like him.

They also stated that whenever he came back from a war or other trips, he used to come to the mosque to pray to thank God that he returned Safely, then he would pass by Fatima before going to his wives, which means that she was nearer to him than his wives.

Thus the historians say that whenever the Prophet traveled the last one he saw was Fatima and she was the first one to see him when he came back.

Once he came back and wanted to see Fatima as he used to.

When he reached the house, he turned back and did not come in. Fatima was astonished and then she thought that there most have been something he saw and did not like at the entrance. When she looked, she found that there was a curtain which Ali (a.s.) had won in one of the battles.

She took the curtain and told her sons Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein (a.s.) to go to their grandfather and tell him that this is the only thing that has changed since you left. What do you want to do with it? When they gave it to the Prophet he was deeply touched and said: May her father be her sacrifice. What does the family of Muhammad have to do with this world? They were born for the other world. He took the curtain and gave it to the poor in charity. Aisha, the Mother of believers, was asked: Whom did the Messenger love most and she said: "Fatima". Then she was asked: and among men? And She answered: "her Husband".

When the Messenger gave his daughter in marriage to Ali (a.s.), he said: "This is, because Ali and Fatima were together in their childhood and early youth, learning in the school of the Messenger, hearing the Quran being revealed to the Prophet who used to teach them, developing their minds and enriching their personalities with spiritually and awareness. The Prophet describes Ali as being the door of the city of knowledge which is the Prophet himself, while Ali says: "The Messenger opened for me the doors of one thousands branches of knowledge, each door opens one thousand doors.

Fatima used to learn from the Messenger what Ali learnt from him. That is why no one of the companions had the knowledge of Fatima except Ali. And we have seen that when the Messenger talks about Az-Zahra, he was not being emotional. We are not denying that he loves his daughter, but when he is trying to explain her position, and status, such a task is not left to emotions.

Sunnis and Shiites alike agree on this tradition, and provide many narrations to its effect. "The lady of the women dwellers of Paradise". "The Lady of the women of the world". "The lady of the women of this nation".

It is also narrated that the Prophet asked her "Aren't you satisfied to be the lady of the women of the world? But Fatima (a.s.) asked him: "What about Mariam bint Umran?" and the Prophet told her. She is the lady of her world and you are the lady of yours. Al-Bukhari quotes the Messenger as saying: Fatima is a part of me. Anyone who angers her would be angering me… Muslim quotes a similar tradition. "Fatima is a part of me, what hurts her hurts me and what pleases her pleases me".

On his mother's worshipping, Imam Al-Hassan says: "I saw my mother, praying from dusk until dawn, calling the Muslims by name and asking Allah to bless them. But she asked for nothing for herself. I asked her why do you not pray to yourself too? And she said: "The neighbors come before the household members".

Despite all the work she used to do including taking care of the house raising her children, and caring for her husband and father, Az-Zahra used to find time to call to Allah and teach the women believers what she had learnt from the Messenger who used to guide her and teach her, to teach the women Muslims.

The another of Wasail Ash-Shia quotes the Imam as saying that the Messenger ordered Fatima to teach the woman believers the issues of their monthly period. Historians also tell us that she used to write what the Messenger tells her. And that when she lost of what she has written she asked her maid to look for them for they were of the same worth of Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein.

When the Messenger was dying Az-Zahra came to her father who hugged her and whispered something in her ears, and she cried.

He hugged her again and she laughed. When asked about what he told her she refused to answer when the Prophet was alive. And then when he died she said that in the first time he told her that he was dying, I cried, and then he told me that I was the fist of his family to follow him and I laughed.

She was 18 years old when she died, but most stories say that she was 28. She was a mother who loved her children and was loved by them. She was also a loving wife who was loved by her husband.

But no matter how strong the affection between a father and a daughter the daughter usually prefers to be with her husband and children, but Az-Zahra was happy to be leaving her family to follow her father.

This shows the magnitude of the spiritual bound between them. She also used to take her children Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein to their grandfather's grave and talk to them about him, to fill their hearts and minds with the love of Muhammad (p).

We also know that Az-Zahra suffered a lot after the death of the Messenger. She was prosecuted, when they threatened to storm her house and burn it. Those who threatened were reminded that Fatima is in the house and they said: "even if". They also usurped Fadak which the Messenger had given her. But she was strong and patient, and stood with Ali defending the legitimacy of his imamate. She addressed the Muslims in the Messenger's mosque, delivering a wonderful speech in which she clarified the secrets of Islamic Shariah, she also defended the right of Ali, and told the Muslims that they had to stand with the right.

She also wanted to protest against the way she and Ali were treated and asked to be buried at night with none of those who were rude to her and usurped her husband's right of caliphate attending her funeral.

Az-Zahra was a great human being, a scholar, a purified and a patient believer whom the Prophet described as her father's mother.

She was a role model for all Muslims and believers whether in religion in behavior or nearness to Allah and fighting for his cause. May Allah bless her the day she was born, the day she died and the day she will be brought back to life.

The Second Sermon

On the Palestinian front, there are two negative phenomena. The first is the political divide that is represented practically in the separation of Gaza from the West Bank. This was planned by Israel and executed indirectly by inciting strife, through the groups associated with Israeli intelligence agencies. Some of the parties are even refusing to hold a dialogue about the recent painful events, as well as receiving the fact-finding mission of the Arab League, because they seek to accommodate the American and Israeli demands, as well as the entire West and some Arab states that do not want a national unity government that Hamas takes part in. This Palestinian faction, the Palestinian authority, found in all this a golden chance to oust the government and the Hamas ministers. Israel, America, the West and most of the Arabs celebrated the new government, thus standing against any reconciliation between the two Palestinian parties.

In the meantime, the Palestinian Authority got a little bit only of its financial rights, and Israel did not fulfil its promise of releasing some of the prisoners, and removing some of the checkpoints in the West Bank. Instead the Zionists stormed Nablus and Genin and continued their assassinations and detentions.

The news agencies reported that the Palestinian President asked for a meeting with King Abdullah who was in Jordan, having heard that the Saudi King calls for executing the Makkah agreement, while Abbas does not want to resume the dialogue with Hamas which Israel and the USA were against right from the beginning. The Enemy's prime Minister was very clear, when he said in the Knesset that Israel will cut its relations with Abu Mazin the moment he resumes his relations with Hamas. And this explains Abass's break off of relations with Hamas and why he refused to pay the wages of 23 thousand civil servants claiming that they were employed by Haniyah's first government and the national unity governments. Such actions encourage the Palestinian divide and make the emergency government a government of Fatah and not of the entire Palestinian people.

This phenomenon is the continued land and air aggressions on the citizens and civilian cars in Gaza, resulting in the brutal assassination of a number of martyrs as well as wounding several others

Yet there were no Arab or Western protests, suggesting that they approve of these aggressions. Palestinian papers reported that the Palestinian Authority, along with some of the Arabs, hope that the Zionist forces would attack Gaza and Hamas on behalf of them, especially that America, Israel and the "Americanised" Arabs are planning to end any resistance to the enemy and to the American policies in the region.

We are afraid that the developments will reach the stage where the American – Israeli solution of the struggle will be implemented, which is based on a ghost Palestinian state and not a real one. The Palestinian people should be aware of this vicious conspiracy despite all the talk of peace which will not be an Arab peace but an Israeli one that will be applauded by most of whom the US calls moderate.

The American President continues to follow up the situation in the Middle East, pressurizing several states to oppose the Iranian peaceful nuclear project, and impose new security and economic sanctions in the UN Security Council that is controlled by the US. There are those who believe that the US Secretary of State considers herself the foreign minister of the world and that foreign ministers of the old and new West work for her.

This is why Washington does not care about who makes any initiative as long as they abide by the rules of the game it has set out.

This is what we have noticed in American envoys' tours around the world where officials are being summoned, like junior employees, to be informed of the political economic and security directions they ought to implement although these instructions promote the Israeli and US interests at the expense of that of their peoples.

This is what we notice when America prevents a country from interfering in the affairs of another country, while allowing another country to create problems in other countries as in Iraq or Lebanon that is becoming unstable politically and security wise in order to execute the American strategy in the region.

America that failed in other regions like Iraq, and Afghanistan, it is now trying to succeed in Lebanon, starting by the Israeli aggression which it had planned for and ending by exploiting existing sectarian tensions by means of those who yield to its hegemony to create problems in their country and prevent the Lebanese from reaching a solution.

But we have noticed how its policies in the region, and even in Europe or even within the American public opinion, have failed leaving drastic consequences even in the Western nations themselves. European polls have shown that America represents the greatest danger on peace in the world.

In Lebanon, we have seen how the Lebanese in the deprived areas like Beqa and Akar are facing the problems of economic hardships and sectarian discrimination because those in charge are busy in the struggle for power and in their political commitments to the foreign powers to create chaos in the country.

The country is losing its security on the individual and social levels. Politicians who are afraid of being assassinated are immigrating to the western countries to run for their lives.

We also have the dangerous security problem in the north and the challenges our patriotic army is facing. There is also the danger of targeting the UNIFIL or creating other security problem in the south, since there are continuous reports that there are those who are trying to destabilize the country.

We say to all politicians and officials that this kind of playing with the fate of the country, by abstaining from facilitating realistic solutions, will destroy the country politically, economically and security wise. This is what everybody is now facing in these harsh conditions of hunger, fear, immigration and deprivation. Any foreign support will not save you from your inevitable fate and will not solve the problem of the country.

The people are crying loud but the ears of those who should hear are deaf. Where is the country going? And how could we overcome the dangers the players are initiating.