FRIDAY SPEECH September 28, 2001

” Allah only wishes to remove uncleanness from you Members of the family, and to purify you”.

”Your only supporters and protectors are Allah

his Apostle, and the faithful: those who attend to their prayers, pay their alms-tax, while kneeling down in worship”

”But there are others who would give away their lives in order to find favor with Allah. Allah is compassionate to His servants”.

Ali bin Abi Talib (A.s.) is one of symbols of the Members of the House whom Allah (SWT) has purified. When we recall in our minds all the events in the life of the Commander of the Faithful, we would certainly better understand the meaning of the second Ayah we cited above. For Ali’s life was dedicated to the love of Allah and the sole aim of earning His pleasure and getting closer to Him. Even his relationship with Muhammad was part of his love to God and the Message.

We also recall what the third Ayah had recorded :that great moment in time when Ali was praying and a man came asking for charity, he gave him some money while he was kneeling in prayer. His prayer did not prevent him from doing another act of worship, since both acts serve the cause of worshipping God (SWT).

We also recall when Ali and Fatima (A.S.) vowed to fast if their sons AL-Hassan and Al-Hussein get cured from their illness, but when break fast time came a poor man. an orphan and a captive came asking for food. They give them all what they have and left nothing to break their fast with.

Allah (SWT) honored them by revealing these Ayahs:” Who though they hold it dear, give sustenance to the poor man, the orphan, and the captive, (saying): We feed you for Allah (SWT)’s sake only we seek of you neither recompense nor thanks: for we fear from Him a day of anguish and of woe”.

This is the secret of Ali, Fatima and their children. They loved God (SWT) obeyed Him and called the people to believe in Him.

Because Ali lived with God (SWT) and His Message as a soldier for both, and as a leader after the prophet’s death, Allah (SWT) the revealed to His Messenger on his return from the farewell pilgrimage that you ought to convey what has been revealed to you from your Lord, and if you don’t you would not have conveyed His message. Muhammad by that time had conveyed all what Allah (SWT) has revealed to him except the part about Ali’s imamate. Thus, the Messenger (P) stood up and gave a speech saying: O people, Am I not the leader who have more say on you than you have on yourselves. When they all agreed the Messenger raised Ali’s hand and said: “Whoever believes that I am his leader then Ali is his leader.

O’ God (SWT), side with those who side with him and be the enemy of those who are hostile to him…”

The Messenger (P) used to tell the people about the traits of Ali and why he is qualified to assume the leadership. He said:

“I am the city of Knowledge and Ali is its gate”. ”Right is with Ali and Ali is with the Right”. ”Ali and the Quran will always be together until they come to in heaven”.

When Muhammad did not take Ali with him to fight the tribe of Tabouk, Ali asked why, because it was not the custom of the Prophet to leave Ali behind. The Messenger (P) told him: “Aren’t you satisfied to be with respect to me like Haroon was to Moses” A partner in everything with the exception of not being a prophet.

Ali was born on the 13th of Rajab which will fall next Monday. His birth also was unique, because he was born in the Kaa'ba, as his mother Fatima bint Assad was doing Tawaf there when she gave birth to him.

The First thing he saw in this life was the house of Allah (SWT), and then his whole life was a journey to Allah (SWT) and on God’s (SWT) path. He was also martyred in a house of Allah (SWT). As he was dying with blood all over him and with all around him in a state of panic and confusion, he said with the calmness of someone going to meet his God (SWT): In the name of Allah and on the religion of His Messenger (P). I have won by the Lord of Kaa’ba”.

Ali was brought up and educated by the Messenger (P) who used to live in the house of Abi Talib, Ali’s father, who took care of him after the death of his grandfather, Abdilmutalib. Ali’s father always supported his nephew although he used to keep his faith a secret, so as to maintain a neutral posture that would enable him to protect the Prophet no matter how much he had to endure. When Quriash offered to give the Prophet a kingdom, a huge sum of money and wed him to the most beautiful woman they can find, Abu Talib heard form Muhammad the answer he had excepted: If they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hands provided I leave my mission I would not until Allah grants it success or until I die for its cause”. Abdilmutalib expected such an answer because he knew that his nephew was above all worldly gains, and he did all he could to protect Muhammad from the harm of the unbelievers.

Ali’s mother was Fatima bint Assad, who raised the messenger, and treated him better than she treated her own children. In gratitude, the Messenger used to say: She was my mother after my mother” She was also a faithful believer whom when she died the Prophet covered her with his shirt, went down into her tomb and buried her himself.

Those were the parents of Ali(A.S.).

Although Abu Talib had a lot of children, the Messenger (P) chose to raise Ali (a.s.) and take him in his care. The Imam describes his childhood with the Prophet(p) as follows:

“You know how close I was to the Messenger… He put me in his lap and hugged me, and made me sleep in his bed, touch his body and smell his beautiful smell. He used to chew the food and give it me to eat. He never found me tell any lie or do a wrong deed… I was always with him, following him as a baby camel following its mother.

He used to teach me everyday one of his good norms of ethics and ask me to abide by it. He used to go each year to the cave of Hiraa where I was the only one who could see him. The first house of Islam was that of Muhammad Khadija and me. I used to see the light of the Message and the revelation and smell the smell of Prophethood”.

He was the first to pray with the Prophet, and he was the only one of the Messenger’s companions who did not bow or kneel to any idol. Because he used to live with the Messenger the spirit of Islam before Muhammad was told to commence his mission. He continued to accompany the Messenger (P), day and night, after the Message was started . He slept in his place when the Messenger (P) went to Medina, and he stayed in Mecca to return the trusts the Prophet (p) was entrusted with. When he joined the Prophet in Medina, he wed him his daughter, Fatima, who was very dear to her father’s heart. Some of the Imams of Ahl El-Beit say: If it weren’t for Al,i there would have been no equal to Fatima”.

When certain complications made him loose his legitimate position, he did not cause strife to demand what was rightfully his, instead he felt that he bore the responsibility of keeping the Muslims’ unity. Thus, he turned to give advice to the Muslim rulers, and the stand he took at that time became famous: “I will keep the peace as long as the affairs of Muslims are not wronged and the wrong is limited to me only.”

Let us listen to one of his companions, Darar bin Ghamrah, describing him to Muawiah upon the insistence of the latter:

He was of broad horizons, great strength , his say was the decisive one, his ruling was always just, and he is the one who said: the strong among you is weak in my eyes until I take the right of others from him ,and the weak is strong in my eyes until I return his right to him. If he talked about a certain matter you would feel that the rivers of knowledge spring from him… He does not like this world and feels lonely in it, but he loves the night and feels at ease with its loneliness. He used to cry a lot and he used to be always thinking and talking to himself. He liked rough clothes, and simple food. He used to sit among us like anyone of us….”

Talking about the Imam could never end. He lived for Islam and was always with Allah. He used to say to the people around him: My concerns are different than yours. You want me for yourselves and I want you for God “Ali was the man of Islam and the Imam of Islam. If you want to be with him you have to be with Allah, His Messenger and Islam. We have to be reborn with the birth of Imam Ali, Our minds ought to be reborn by the right and our hearts by belief and our life by justice

Worshippers of Allah (SWT)…

Be pious and follow the guidance of the Imam in all what you do or say, for it is the guidance of Islam . And always be with the weakened and against the arrogant …

Today is the last day of the first year of the Intifada, with the Palestinians still holding fast against the barbarian brutal Zionist actions that are backed by the Americans, who still insist that the Palestinian Mujahideen are terrorists. It is as if they were still talking about the Islamic Resistance in South Lebanon and denouncing the fight against occupation as an act of terror.

But with the new developments in the international front, the Americans have begun to calm things down. America needs to bribe the Arab and Muslim countries to induce them to join the international coalition against what it calls terror. For America knows that these states cannot join unless the Palestinian issue was solved.

But the problem is that the American strategy views the solution from an Israeli perspective… The U.S. does not exert any pressure to enable the Palestinians attain their legal rights because it does not consider Israel as an occupying power, but rather a party in a land dispute, which the Palestinians are not its rightful owner. Thus, it does not give them a chance to become stronger and consequently , enable them to counterbalance the Israelis in the negotiations.

With the Israelis holding all cards in the negotiations the brutal force, the American and European support, the Palestinians engagement in these negotiations is meaningless…

They do not have any chance to obtain any of their rightful demands in self-determination. The end result will be that the Israelis will impose their conditions including the Palestinian agreement on the existing settlements that will turn the remaining Palestinian lands into isolated islands that are under Israeli dominance. The Palestinians will also have to forego their demands concerning Jerusalem and the return of the refuges.

All of these demands will turn the Palestinian state into a protectorate that could do nothing without the Israeli permission.

Therefore, I believe that our brothers in Palestine should continue the Intifada, being the only way to make the world recognize the Palestinian rights and pose a heavy burden on its conscience as a result of the tragic massacres of Zionist brutalism. Furthermore, it would intensity the region’s rejection of the American policy of support to Israeli terrorism, and make the Arabs and Muslim countries doubt in the soundness of their decision to join the coalition.

I would like to warn these countries not to yield to the American pressure and force the Palestinians to accept the American Zionist solution for this is nothing less than treason to the Arab and Muslim future.

Since it asks the world to condemn the attack that killed thousands of Americans as well as other innocent civilians of various nationalities, why does not it share the Arab and Muslim world its condemnation of the Israeli state terror it backs? How could ruining houses and dislocating the people that live in them… How could plowing gardens to starve the Palestinian people and using airplanes and helicopters to assassinate Palestinian officials, as well as killing civilians be considered self- defense, while the Palestinian legitimate defense of his own existence and his lands is an act of terror? How could the civilized world accept this American logic that considers freedom fighters to be terrorists.

I have denounced the killing of American civilians and considered it inhuman act that could not be considered as martyrdom, but if America is serious about fighting terrorism it should begin with the Israeli terror.

It should force Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories, and change its policy of support to several autocratic regimes in the region.

We want the Intifada to start its second year with a new awareness and a new strength that enable it to go on until it achieves liberation no matter how long it will take. For no right is lost as long as there are those who continue to claim it… We want the Arab and Muslim peoples to continue their support to the Palestinians and to exert pressure on their regimes to support the Palestinians. Let them meet in the Arab league or in the Islamic conference –even if only for once- and decide to resist the Arrogant pressure and stand against the Israeli terror that targets the very humanity of Human beings… commits crimes against the innocent, and violates their freedoms..

For this is the only way that restores the pride and dignity of the Arab and Muslim nation.

There is a movement in Lebanon that looks like the movement of ghosts emanating from the American secret demands, as well as other international pressures and intimidation scenarios.

It looks like a campaign of psychological warfare waged against the Resistance and aims at undermining the Lebanese strategy of coordinating with Syria and the region.

Therefore, the Lebanese people ought to find their strength in their national unity. They should rely on dialogue on the only way to solve a political difference or find economic solutions. All parties should join hands in finding a solution for the weakened among the Lebanese especially with the beginning of the academic year with the school feels and several other expenses the poor in this country can no longer afford. we demand a decrease in the taxes levels, as well as providing all the vital services for all deprived regions.