FRIDAY SPEECH July 06, 2001

“Oh you who believe do not laugh at others, for they might be better than you… Nor defame or be sarcastic towards one another, nor call each other by offensive nicknames. It is an evil thing to be called by a bad name after embracing the true faith those who do not repent are wrong doers” (S49v11).

These are some of the principles of Islam that ought to govern all social relations whether at home at work; or in the neighborhood and in the community as a whole, whether among Muslims or between Muslims and another communities: Man should respect his fellow human beings and he should be realistic in his attitude towards himself, his ethnic group and nationality. He should always keep in mind that while he has his special talents, others might have their own abilities in other spheres.

God (SWT) has created each of us with different qualities and skills so that we may complement each other.

Each individual needs the others, because they have what he doesn’t and vice-versa. And this is the meaning of knowing one another:

“We have created you from a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you might get to know one another the noblest of you in God’s sight is the most righteous.” (S49v13).

We were created each with different qualities which God wants us to keep, develop and act as a source of interaction and widening the basis of knowledge of all those concerned.

God (SWT) wants us to respect others and not to make fun of their appearance if we happen to be good looking, or ignorance if we are well educated or even of their social or political status.

In every case, they might have other good qualities that you do not have. If you enter into a comparison with others and see that there are certain good things, which God (SWT)’s Grace has bestowed on you, thank God (SWT) and praise Him, but do not despise others. Rather you should be grateful. Moreover, if you see someone with a certain deformity or a handicap, you should feel God (SWT)’s grace and say: I thank God (SWT) that He has not tried me with this handicap.

Do not call others bad nicknames.

Calling others bad names, although in certain cases the name could be widespread, is a kind of humiliation to fellow human beings that God (SWT) has commanded us to refrain from. He has considered those who do so as wrong doers, no matter how much they pray or fast. And if they do not repent, then they will be wrong doers, both against yourselves and others, for they will have committed a sin and transgressed the rights of others.

Imam Jaafar Al-Sadiq quotes the Messenger (P) as saying:

“God (SWT) said: Whoever insults one of My followers has decided to fight Me and I would rush to support My followers”.

Do not return to pre-Islamic Mentality.

God (SWT)’s love for the believers and of all human beings is enormous and it has been expressed in various verses of the Glorious Quran as well as in many Hadith narrations.

One of these narrations is the following quote of Imam Ja`afar As Sadiq (AS):

“ If you humiliate a believer because of his poverty it will be denounced publicly on the Day of Judgment.”

Therefore, just as Islam wants us to respect man being a human being who possesses certain good qualities, and just as it wants us to live in a community where man is respected, it also wants us to adopt the same principle in our individual, family and social lives. Let us stop treating women as second-rate humans.

Men ought to respect women as their equals in their rights:

“And women have rights similar to the rights a against them according to what is equitable. But men have a degree over them” (S2v228).

Lets us respect our humanity in our social relations, so that a new generation based on man’s respect to fellow men will emerge. When this respect extends to our political life, there will be no wrongdoing in the community and justice will prevail.

This is the reality of Islam and all our fanaticisms is merely a form of pre-Islamic era of ignorance.

Worshippers of Allah (SWT):

Be pious towards God (SWT) and let the human side that God (SWT) has created in you and built on the basis of love, right and good to nourish you in order to build your lives on the basis of these principle that God (SWT) wishes you to adopt.

The Battle for The Future

The Intefada has reached its tenth month. More and more martyrs are falling daily, the Mujahideen continue their struggle towards liberation, and the enemy is still in the impasse the Intifada has forced it down. Their prime minister is calling on the international community to exert pressures on the Palestinians to stop their uprising ... While orders to assassinate the intifada activists and arrest scores of Palestinians are being given every day. But, despite all the pressures and complications, the Palestinian national unity between the various factions remains firm against the same enemy and towards the same goal.

The Arab world is still merely watching without taking any real tough political stand, while America continues to stand by the enemy and to create excuses for the enemy’s terror against civilians and their lands under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

If America lightly condemns from time to time certain Zionist practices, it does so to cover its bias and to be able to provide more support for the occupation. Europe for its part, does not have the power to play an independent role. Thus the situation now is as follows: America and the Israelis maintain that there could be no negotiations as long as the “violence” continues, while the Palestinians maintain that they will not end the Intifada before it achieves its goals. Thus the Intifada holds on and provide more martyrs with the Mujahidean willing to die for their cause and the elderly, woman and children dying as a result of the Zionist barbaric brutality.

The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon stands with the Intifada and continues its struggle to restore the nation’s soul. They have proved that we can now fight back rather than just being content to be victims of the killing.

I say to the Arab world that the battle now is a battle that will determine our future. It is a battle for our very existence.

An international terror network in the South

In its disinformation campaign in the media, the enemy has returned to one if its favorite topics: It now claims that Iran is “building an international terrorist network in Lebanon” and that it has deployed land-to-land missiles that are run by Iranian army units. Of course, such false accusations aim at destroying the Iranians’ reputation in the eyes of the international public opinion, but they also aim at portraying the battle in the south as a battle between Iran and Syria on the one side and Israel on the other, and not between the Islamic Resistance and the enemy. They aim at destabilizing the Lebanese internal front on the one hand and finding an excuse to carry out aggressions against Iran just as it did when it destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor.

Both Israel and America know that there is not a single Iranian soldier or a military base in the South, and that the Mujahiden alone are the ones facing the occupiers in the South. They have even not accepted any Muslim or Arab volunteers simply because there is no need.

The Tragedy of the Iraqi people

The Iraqi people continue to live in an unfolding tragedy, they have to endure all the wrong doing of the Iraqi regime that has forced them to leave the country, the international siege, as well as the International American and British plots that try to pit the Shiites against the Sunnis. The Iraqi Shiites do not think in terms of sects. They stand by their Muslim brothers in the country and they know that the problem is one that involves Iraqis as a whole and not only the Shiites.

On another level, the refuges in the Rafha camp in Saudi Arabia went on a hunger strike to protest against their intolerable conditions and the neglect by the UN of their needs. I ask all the counties concerned to save those refugees , as well as the whole of Iraq from its plight

Lebanon the Making of Strength

The Mujahideen in Southern Lebanon are actually creating a new situation in which the rules of the game the enemy has imposed are changing. They are proving that the battle against the enemy is one both in Lebanon and Syria and that the Liberation could not be considered as such , unless it is complete. They are also demonstrating the falseness of the illusion that stopping the Resistance will improve the economy and that international support would come flooding in. The truth of the matter is that we will not receive any aid unless we accept the Israeli conditions of peace in the whole region and we can cite the Jordanian example as a case in point.

Lebanon’s importance in the course of the Arab-Israeli struggle lies in the fact that has become the only Arab front to produce strength, and thus it gives the Arabs and Muslims the political strength they need to confront the enemy.

The current battle between the enemy and us is about who bows first and the Palestinians and the Lebanese have proved that they are the superior party in such a game.

The need for people’s state

As I repeat my call to attend to the basic needs of the South and the freed prisoners, whose future should be secured, I also call for the on-going debate about the rights of regions, sects and workers to be continued behind closed doors; so that the government and the opposition can sit together and define the economic and political priorities.

I would also like to warn people about the return of the “sharing out the cake” game that is bound to destroy the state’s services, especially the Lebanese University.

We need a state that acts according to plans that define the future of the country both economically and politically. A government whose sole aim is to accommodate the country’s needs and not the interests of sectarian leaders, we need a parliament whose acts are defined by carefully studied priorities and not petty political interests or external suggestions. We also need people who draw their support from anyone who does not keep his electoral promises, we need a state for the people, not a farm.