|
The First Sermon
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Imam Hussein (a.s.) the Reformer
The Messenger (p.) said: Hussein is a part of me
and I am a part of Hussein, May Allah love those who love Hussein.
In this occasion, the commemoration of the 40th day
following the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, we recall the character of
Imam Hussein (a.s.), the reformer, revolutionary and Islamic leader
who emphasized the significance of dignity in the line of the Message,
the leader who as he called for the Islamic doctrine and faith, he
wanted to elevate man, especially the believers, so as not to yield to
any power that wants to subjugate his will or accept what he should
not; that is he should not yield to any illegitimacy, for Allah wanted
man to be with the legitimacy of the leadership (imamate) and that of
Islam and not those who do not possess it.
In this occasion, as we meet with the Imam, we do
not feel his absence although he had been martyred about fourteen
centuries ago. His presence is nevertheless felt throughout our
history and his light still illuminates the mind that thinks, the
heart that loves and the actions that face the challenges.
The Martyr of the nation
We feel that the Imam is present among us, for he
was the revolutionary of Islam, its Imam and martyr. It is true that
he was martyred and buried along with his family and companions, in
Karbala, but he was the martyr of the entire nation and the
universality of Islam which the Imam (a.s.) initiated the need for
reform in it and in his grandfather's nation.
The Imam (a.s.) was committed to the truce his bother, Imam Al-Hassan
(a.s.), had with Muawiyah, but after the latter died, his commitment
had no longer needed to be upheld. He faced the governor (wali) of
Medina when he asked him to pledge alliance to Yazid and reminded him
that he was a member of Ahl el-Beit, of those whom Allah has purified
and explained to him who represents Islam and Quran, and who embodies
the good of the nation: “we are the family of prophethood whom the
Quran was revealed to, while Yazid was a dissolute man who drinks wine
and kills innocent people despite Allah's prohibition”. And ended
by saying: "A man like me does not pledge loyalty to a man like
him".
Let us see who is that whom the Prophet considered,
along with his brother, to be the master of Heaven's youth and an Imam
whether he hold peace or revolts.
The Imamate
The Imam (a.s.) went to Makkah where he gathered
the people in the Beit Al-Haram, to tell them how one could be a
Muslim in all his affairs, whether in religious duties, in politics or
in every other aspect of life, since Islam covers all these aspects
O you who believe! answer (the call of) Allah
and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life
In Makkah, the Imam emphasized his legitimate
Imamate, and gathered around him an elite of followers, who followed
him for the sake of Islam and not for want of money or any other
favour.
He preached the people and sought to explain to them who the
legitimate Imam is and what are the qualities he should posses:
People! The Prophet (p.) has said, that when you see an oppressive
ruler legitimizing that which has been prohibited by Allah and
breaking His covenant, and opposing the customs of the Prophet, and he
behaves unjustly and oppressively with Allah's servants, then if a
person does not oppose him through his word or deed, it is incumbent
upon Allah to place that person on the status of that oppressor.
He also taught them that they should be faithful to
their commitments and support the right. This is also what he did when
he met the army of Ibn Ziad that was led by Al-Hur bin Yazid Al-Reyahi,
before he repented, making them feel that they were following the
wrong leadership.
Seeking Reform
The Imam (a.s.) clarified the nature of his
movement. He was not seeking war, since he did not deploy thousands of
fighters. He wanted to fight ignorance hatred and deviation in the
minds and hearts of the people. He was sorry and feeling sympathy for
those who chose to be with Yazid and Ibn Ziad for they were to go to
hell because of him. He was carrying the message of his grandfather
who called on Allah to guide his ignorant people.
That is why he explained that he sought reform:" I have not
risen to spread evil or to show off, nor for spreading immorality or
oppression. But I have left for the betterment of the ummah of my
Grandfather and I desire to propagate the Religion and forbid against
evil" the reform that initiated by the Prophets, and he followed
their steps in enjoining good and forbidding evil. And when the
oppressors wanted the Imam (a.s.) to accept the illegitimate rule of
those who usurped the rule of Muslim, he said to them By Allah! I
shall not give my hands in yours like a base man, nor shall I flee
away like a slave.
Beware! Now this illegitimate son of the illegitimate
father (Ubaydullah bin Ziyad) has stationed me between unsheathing the
swords or then bear humiliation, and far be it that we accept
humiliation. Thus the one who accepts truth through me, will have
received truth from Allah.
Thus the Imam (a.s.) stood for all what Islam represents in its
Message of freedom, preferring martyrdom as the ultimate sacrifice to
strengthen the position of Islam.
Imam Hussein loved Allah, like no one else did
and opened up on Allah like no one did. Like his father before him, he
used to love Allah and His Messenger (p.) and he was loved by Allah,
The Most Exalted, and His Messenger (p.) . And he came to Karbala to
give humanity a lesson on how could the bearer of a Message stay with
his Message until martyrdom.
The opposing injustice
In this great occasion in which we live with
Imam Hussein as an Imam a beloved and a leader, we renew our faith in
Islam, our readiness to defend it and oppose injustice and arrogance.
In this occasion, we have to understand the Imam’s (a.s.) revolution
in the context of the movement of man for justice, dignity and defence
of Islam as a whole. We should refrain from transferring it into
meaningless traditions in which we even hit ourselves. Rather, we
should inspire from it how to hit the leaders of the enemies of Allah
and humanity.
What we should do is to renew the message of
Imam Hussein (a.s.) in all our messages. We should say to the Imam (a.s.):
If we did not respond to your call physically we would respond to it
in our souls, hearts and minds.
We are going to stay with you… with your
messages, your revolution and your legitimacy. We are going to remain
with you, with your father, grandfather, mother, brother and the Imams
who came after you from your offspring.
Peace be on Hussein (a.s.), Ali bin Hussein (a.s.),
Hussein’s children and companions.
The Second Sermon
American swaps
The American Administration continues to try to
drag the Arabs and Muslims into a security and political unfair trade.
It wants to trade the cessation of killing innocent Palestinians by
additional concessions which could threaten the entire Palestinian
cause. It also wants to let the Lebanese forego their cause in
exchange for certain issues in the region. Moreover, it seeks to make
the Arabs and Muslims engage in a major exchange, threatening that it
will not stop inciting strife between the Shiites and Sunnis unless
they make grand concessions that entail their major strategic causes.
In Palestine, the formation of the national
unity government still faces complications and difficulties with the
US administration threatening that it will not recognize it unless it
accepts the conditions of the Quartet Committee of recognizing Israel
and ending resistance, an issue which Hamas refuses in principle and
in strategy.
In the meantime, some Arab officials are trying
to amend the Arabs’ initiative of the Beirut Summit to make the
Palestinian refuges return only to the PA lands, or to pay them
compensations paid in part by an Arab oil country to let them stay
where they are living now. There are news about some secret talks
between this country and the US to reach such an agreement. And the
amendment will be presented to the coming Arab Summit in Riyad.
In the meantime, pressures are being exerted
against those who oppose it, namely Syria, to accept it.
Strengthening Israel
On another level, Israel has asked the US to
increase its military aid to 3 billion dollars to face the security
challenges of Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas.
They want to strengthen Israel to enable it to
wage a new war or aggression, in accordance with the American position
that seeks to enable Israel to hold the position that enables it to
threaten the entire region and helps the US in dominating it.
At the same time, the Americans also wanted to
weaken the Arab countries to ensure that they will always yield to
their arrogant policies. To achieve this, the Americans continue
incite sectarian and racial strive, and force the Arab states to buy
American weapons which on the one hand will boost the US economy and
on the other hand will be held against other regional parties, namely
Arabs and Muslims, but never the Israelis, so as to serve the American
– Israeli plots of internal Arab and Muslim fighting which provides a
free service for the occupation and its allies.
The Takfiri brutality
In Iraq, the tragedy of the bombing of the
Mutanabi street, the street of bookshops, has mixed the blood of
innocent people with the ink of books, providing a testimony for the
barbarianism of those who do not respect man, whether Muslim or not,
Shiite or Sunni, a child, a woman or an old man. They also do not
respect the culture and the knowledge that illuminates the mind and
guides it to open up on the authentic civilizational Islam which is
against brutal violence against humanity, like that committed by the
Takfiris who have given a distorted image of Islam and enabled its
enemies to accuse it of terrorism.
In the meantime, the Takfiris carry on with
their barbaric explosions, which have hunted the good believers on
their way to visit Imam Al-Hussein (a.s.). They were brutally and
ruthlessly killed. The killers might think that they are trying to
undermine the security plan that they can't deal with head on.
But they are killing innocent Iraqi civilians,
thus acting as partners to the occupation in their similar practices.
It is tragicomic that they call such brutal acts a resistance to the
occupation, while in actual fact they are helping it to extend its
stay and achieve its arrogant gaols in the entire region.
The Arab International Conference
We are afraid that the aim of the proposed Arab
international conference is to pressurise those who take part in it to
save the occupation out of the political and military impasse it is
stumbling in. They tend to think that calling certain countries whose
relations with America are complicated to the conference might remove
the political barrier that stands between them and the US as a result
of the negotiations in the conference. The occupation is trying to
find a way out of the impasse, and the huge failure it found itself
in, by trying to open up on some of the neighbouring countries that
were closed in his face, but we do not see any good in this and we do
not share with certain Arab and Iraqi parties their optimism towards
the results.
Unrealistic accusation
The five permanent Security Council states, in
addition to Germany, will one again discuss imposing additional
sanctions on Iran, since it, as they claim, did not yield to the
resolution calling on it to stop enriching Uranium, although the
Atomic Energy Agency has affirmed that it is a peaceful project and
that Iran could prove it. But these states, being under the hegemony
of the US, are still playing the vicious game of cat and mouse, hoping
that this will make Iran yield by peaceful means, since no matter how
ineffective the sanctions may be, yet their own interests will be
affected.
The problem lies in the fact that the West does
not want to listen to the conclusive evidence that Iran has presented
to prove that it is not planning to make a bomb, much the same as the
Americans did when they waged the war against Iraq on the basis of
possessing weapons of mass destruction, then it was proved to be a lie
after occupation.
The Bier Al-Abd massacre
In Lebanon, the anniversary of the Bier Al-Abd
massacre was yesterday. It is one of the scenes of American terrorism
that had killed and wounded hundreds of innocent civilian, killing
infants, children women, old men, workers and shop owners, in its
attempt to kill who had become, according to the head of CIA:
"disturbing to the American policies and has to leave".
When we denounce this horrible massacre, that
was planed and followed up by the US, we want our peoples to learn
what the American terrorism did in the countries like Iraq Afghanistan
and Palestine looks like. Lebanon has also seen another example of
this terrorism in the last Israeli war. That is why we want all those
politically and legally concerned to uphold their responsibility
towards bringing the American administration, that committed such
massacres, to justice, especially that the evidence that accuse the US
of committing the massacre of Bier Al-Abd are conclusive and well
documented even in the American newspapers and in what was written by
well-know American writers, such as Bob Woodword in his book "The
veil".
Barriers obstructing the solution in Lebanon
The Lebanese have been living unrealistic hopes
concerning the imminent solution in Lebanon, to be surprised later by
hearing some Lebanese officials stating that the conflict is still
hanging on in its place, and others who are used to hinder and
undermine any attempt to solve the crisis stating that there is no
solution, whether they were those who hold official positions or not…
This is because the solution is still hindered
by the American – French alliance that whisper to some of the
officials. The Lebanese crisis has become the favourite topic to the
American officials, receiving every now and then Lebanese ministers,
deputies and notables to prevent any project to resolve the crisis as
soon as it emerges. The foreign heads of state, especially George
Bush, have turned into internal parties and the Lebanese crisis has
turned into an international issue. Could any resolution then pass
unless it carries their seals?
To sum up, the resolution to the Lebanese crisis
has become a part of an international – regional deal in which the
Lebanese have no part. We are not being pessimistic, but rather
realistic in that we study the situation on the ground and leave our
hopes aside.
|