Friday speeches Rajab 14 1426 H, August 19 2005 A.D

“And among men is he who sells himself to seek the pleasure of Allah; and Allah is Affectionate to the servants.”(2:207)

This is Imam Ali -the man who sold himself to God and left nothing for himself. He lived with God in his childhood when he lived with the Messenger who raised him as a father raises his son. He describes this part of his life:

“You know how close I was to the Messenger… He put me on his lap and hugged me, and let me sleep in his bed, touch his body and smell his beautiful smell. He used to chew the food and give it to me to eat. He never saw me telling any lies or doing any wrong deeds. I was always with him, following him as a baby camel follows its mother.”

“He used to teach me one of his morals every day and ask me to adopt it.”

Ali (a.s.) used to see the light of the revelation and the message and smell the smell of prophethood. When he asked the Prophet(p.) about it, Muhammad(p.) told him:

“You see what I see and you hear what I hear but you are not a prophet.”

Ali (a.s.) opened up to Islam when God sent His Messenger, although he was only ten years old, his mind was one of an adult. Thus when the Prophet(p.) called him to Islam, he thought about the new religion and was convinced by it. Describing this, he says:

“I’m the first one to believe and respond to what he heard. No one has preceded me to prayers except the Messenger.”

He used to go to the mosque with him along with Khadija, the mother of believers. And they used to pray behind the Messenger(p.).

Ali (a.s.)’s mind was an extension of the Messenger(p.)’s mind. His heart used to beat at the same rhythm. His culture was that of the Quran for Ali (a.s.) used to listen to every verse that was revealed and the Messenger(p.) used to tell him about the meaning, significance and implications of each verse. Thus, his knowledge was that of the Messenger(p.). Explaining this, he said:

“The Messenger(p.) has opened 1000 doors of knowledge for me and through each door 1000 more doors were opened for me.”

The Messenger(p.) confirmed this and said:

“I am the city of knowledge and Ali (a.s.) is its gate. Whoever wants to enter the city, let him enter it through its gate.”

Ali (a.s.) was the first hero of Islam. He was the champion of the Battle of Badr, killing half of the non-believers himself and the rest of the Muslims killed the other half. And when he started fighting in Badr, one of the angels said:

“No knight (fata) but Ali (a.s.), and no sword but Zulfiqar (Ali (a.s.)’s sword)”

For Ali (a.s.) used to represent the apex of knighthood at that stage -the knighthood of the soul, mind and the defense of righteousness. He was not a soldier but a fighter with a cause. He said that he always fought in the battlefield thinking about the Prophet(p.) and he used to leave the battlefield to check on him. He was the one who defended the Prophet(p.) in Uhud when the Prophet(p.) was wounded.

Ali (a.s.) fought all the battles of the Messenger(p.), including the battle of the clans in which the Qoraish brought assembled all their strength to try to defeat the Muslims:

“When they came upon you from above you and from below you, and when the eyes turned dull, and the hearts rose up to the throats, and you began to think diverse thoughts of Allah. There the believers were tried and they were shaken with severe shaking. And when the hypocrites and those in whose hearts was a disease began to say: Allah and His Messenger did not promise us (victory) but only to deceive.”(33:10-12)

But God relieved the Muslims of the need to fight when Amr Bin Abed Wid challenged the Muslims to a duel. The Messenger asked the Muslims:

“Who will fight Amr? And I guarantee that God will put him in heaven. He repeated the question three times and each time only Ali (a.s.) said “I will”

So when he went out to fight him, the Messenger(p.) said:

“Faith in its entirety has gone to fight non-belief in its entirety.”

And when Ali (a.s.) killed him, the Messenger(p.) said:

“The strike of Ali (a.s.) is equal to the worshiping of all humans and jinn put together.”

Ali (a.s.) was the champion at the Battle of Khaibar (The fort that Marhab challenged the Muslims to take control of). The Messenger sent one of his companions to head the force responsible for taking the fort. The companion failed and returned putting the blame on his troops, while they in turn put the blame on him. The Messenger sent another companion with the same orders. Again the same thing happened. The Prophet(p.) then said:

“I’ll give the banner tomorrow, to someone who loves God and His Messenger and who is loved by God and his Messenger(p.). Someone who attacks and does not flee and one who will not return until God provides him with victory.”

At that time, Ali (a.s.) was suffering from sore eyes so the Messenger(p.) took some of his spit and put it on Ali (a.s.)’s eyes. Its affect according to Ali (a.s.) was that he began to see more clearly than ever before.

So Ali (a.s.) went forward and killed Marhab and entered the fort. He said:

“By God, I did not dismantle the gate of Khaibar by any physical force but by a divine one.”

It was his belief, his openness towards God and his faithfulness to Islam and all Muslims that gave him this force.

Ali (a.s.) was the champion of Islam. He gave all his life to Islam whether in war or peace, for he used to teach Muslims and offer them advice. The Messenger(p.) used to tell the Muslims who Ali (a.s.) was so that they would know that Ali (a.s.) alone was the person who can take responsibility for Islam after the Messenger(p.)’s death. He used to say:

“Ali is with the Right and the Right is with Ali. It turns with him wherever he turns”

And he told Ali (a.s.):

“Aren’t you satisfied to be to me as Aaron was to Moses?”

Then when God revealed the verse that says that the Messenger has to convey was has been revealed to him and if he doesn’t he will not have conveyed His message:

“O Messenger! Deliver what bas been revealed to you from your Lord; and if you do it not, then you have not delivered His message, and Allah will protect you from the people; surely Allah will not guide the unbelieving people.”(5:67)

God was telling His Messenger(p.) to appoint Ali (a.s.) as his successor before he died. So the Messenger(p.) stood raised Ali (a.s.)’s hands and said to the people:

“Whoever accepts me as his master must also accept Ali (a.s.) as his master. May God support those who support him and be hostile to those who are hostile to him…

Then when the Messenger(p.) died and Ali (a.s.) was denied his right, how did he react? Ali (a.s.) raised himself up when others were falling. He did not think about himself. He was thinking about Islam and about God and His Messenger(p.). He said:

“… that they would be swearing the oath of allegiance for the caliphate to a different person. At every stage I kept myself aloof from that struggle of supremacy and power-politics till I found the heretics had openly taken to heresy and schism and were trying to undermine and ruin the religion preached by our Holy Prophet (s). I felt afraid that, even after seeing and recognizing the evil, if I did not stand up to help Islam and the Muslims it would be a worse calamity to me than my losing authority and power over you, which was only a transient and short-lived affair. Therefore, when I stood up amidst the sweeping surge of innovations and schism the dark clouds of heresy dispersed, falsehood and schism were crushed and the religion was saved.”

They had denied Ali (a.s.)’s right , but in return he gave them every advice and protected their lives and fought for the cause of Islam because he was not thinking about himself. He was thinking about how to prevent strife among Muslims and how to remain strong before the non-believers. That’s why he said his immortal words:

“I will keep the peace as long as the affairs of Muslims are secure and the only wrong in inflicted on me.”

This, dear beloved, is the lesson of Ali (a.s.) - a lesson for all people whether or not they are his followers. Those who incite sectarian strife every now and then to make Muslims accuse one another of disbelief so that they will fight and lose their strength. Ali says to all those who adopt negative ways, to those who are made sacred by others and to those who curse others that he had defended Islam and refused any internal fighting although he was the rightful successor. Once he heard the people of Iraq cursing the people of Syria, while he was on the way to fight the Syrians rebelling against the legitimate authority, and he told them:

“I detest committing such acts as cursing. Instead if you describe the situation and comment on their actions showing how they went wrong, it would be more correct… Instead of cursing them you should say: O lord, preserve our blood (life) and theirs, and reconcile us, and guide them out of their falsehood, so that those who are ignorant of the Right would know it, and those who aggress and wrong will refrain from such acts.”

This is the pure Imam(a.s.) with the broadmindedness that characterized his thought and actions. We have to know who Ali (a.s.) is and put him in his rightful high position. Ali (a.s.) knew that we could not be like him and accept the least possible of food and clothes in life but he asked us to help him so he can stay on the course of piety and devotedness to the cause . But people put obstacles and thorns in his way. And when he became Caliph and wanted to follow his course, the traitors, defectors and deserters rebelled against him . It was

“as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:

“Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Ali (a.s.) has been nothing but the right and he was always with the Right. He even said

“The Right has left me no friend.”

So do you want to be with Ali (a.s.)? Ali (a.s.) is not merely a tear. He is not a moment of emotion. Ali (a.s.) is the Right (truth). You have to be with the Right to be with Ali (a.s.). The Right (truth) in religion, politics and socio-political relations. The Prophet(p.) said:

“Ali is with the Right and the Right is with Ali.”

Therefore, there is no separating the two. And whoever commits evil or falsehood, whoever cheats people or betrays them or robs them does not have anything to do with Ali (a.s.) because he does not have anything to do with the right.

Thus, when we want to celebrate the anniversary of his birth, we want to be born again by his birth. We want our mind to be born through his, our soul to be born through his and our morals to be born through his. Ali (a.s.) is a treasure that we should not lose. We should be united in him, whether in his thought or in his behaviour, and reject all those want to incite strife among the Shiites in his name.

Ali has been so great that some have raised him to the position of Godliness, but Ali has rejected those people entirely because he used to humble himself before God saying:

“I am your poor lowly servant.”

He also used to prostrate himself on dirt. There are some people in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon who have begun to adopt certain exaggerated beliefs that have occasionally overstepped all bounds. There are those who are saying that Al-Zahra is better than the Messenger and Ali, and base their belief on a hadith, which is completely worthless and totally unreliable, that says:

“Had it not been for Ali I would not have created you. And had it not been for Fatima, I would not have created either of you.”

The greatness of Fatima lies in the fact that the Prophet raised her and that she lived with Ali in the home of the Messenger. And the greatness of Ali lies in the fact that he was the Messenger’s student.

Therefore, the Messenger is the most important of all humans. He is the teacher and the Messenger. The value of Ali and Fatima lies in the fact that they were his students, whose minds were developed by his and they learned their morals from his.

We have to keep away from all those who have reached the level of exaggeration. To follow the Members of the House is to follow Islam ,and obey God and His Messenger and to work for Islam as a whole. We should celebrate the anniversary of Ali’s birth by being faithful to Islam and protect it from all those who are plotting against it and from all those who are challenging it internally and externally.

On the Palestinian scene, we have an anniversary and an event. The anniversary is that 36 years have passed since the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by Zionists who were planning to build a temple on its ruins, which led at that time to the establishment of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. This organisation gathered all the Muslim countries that wanted to stand by the mosque but they did not put any pressure on either the Zionist state or the American policy. On the contrary, certain political developments encouraged some of these countries to reconcile with the enemy and virtually recognise it, as a result of their submission to American pressure that made them so weak that they did not have any remaining strength to exert pressure.

Alongside this organisation, the committee of Jerusalem (Al-Quds) was established to prevent the Judizing of the city and its annexation to the Jewish State. But it was stillborn, unable to do anything to stop the implementation of the Israeli plan to swallow Jerusalem.

The problem is the dropping of Islamic pretences by the Muslim states that began to run after the American Israeli promises. These promises aim at destroying the cause from the inside. They also oppress the people’s protests against the enemies by the violence that states of emergency produced and intelligence agencies produce.

As for the event, it is the withdrawal of the enemy from Gaza, which was welcomed by the West as the biggest Israeli sacrifice. As if the Palestinian land was Jewish land that Sharon gave in charity to the Palestinians and not a usurped land that the Jews occupied with the help of the West whether American or European in contravention of international law. When we follow the statements of western officials we only hear their sympathy for the settlers who usurped the Palestinian land, which are broadcasted on a media that turns the criminals into the victims and forgets all the tragedies that were caused by the Israeli murder and all the states that helped her in hers crimes.

This withdrawal represents an enlargement of the jail that now covers all Gaza. For Israel is besieging all the ports and crossroads, thus preventing any Palestinian freedom of movement other than that of a prisoner in his cell. Moreover, Sharon has told the whole world that he will enlarge the settlements in the West Bank, complete the building of the racist wall that leaves the Palestinians strangled. He refuses to withdraw from the major settlements and he refuses to let Palestinian refugees return or restore Jerusalem back to its rightful owners. All this means that the “Road Map” has turned into a political corpse and the Quartet Committee is trying to create favourable conditions for its burial, since the Israeli conditions that President Bush agreed on do not allow for a viable Palestinian State. It would only create a dismembered state.

Sharon’s project is to confiscate the Palestinian people and kill them economically, politically and security-wise. He is relying on his alliance with the USA, and exploiting Arab weakness that submits to American pressures allowing him to impose his agenda on them. He is also benefiting from the Police States that oppress their people to reconcile with the enemy.

We want to emphasis that the withdrawal from Gaza only happened because of the pressures of the resistance/Intifada and the unity of the Palestinian people. Therefore, we call on all Palestinians to plan for the future so as to solidify their unity and move the Intifada to the West Bank and especially to Jerusalem to broaden the enemy’s impasse and besiege its security. It is because it is very difficult to make the enemy withdraw by traditional political means especially as its occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem is in accord with his Jewish-Zionist doctrine. This is part of the Jewish conscience on the one hand and the mentality or the rational of the neo-conservatives on the other hand.

Therefore, what we want is a unity of diversity in which everybody plays different roles that are coordinated between the Authority and the Resistance factions. If those in the Palestinian Authority are serious about carrying out their strategy to achieve a Palestinian state that includes Gaza, The West Bank and with Jerusalem as its capital, then everybody should combine their efforts to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is the symbol of all Palestine.

There are those who would like Iraq to continue to be the scene of bloodshed where everything sacred is violated and where people are killed to the benefit of the occupier that aims to seize Iraq and that continues to steal the wealth of Iraq through its companies, agents and officials by means of fictitious business projects and economic games. In addition, we have these groups that accuse others of disbelief and that have become addicted to killing civilian Muslims whether they are elderly, women or children. This has made Iraq a country of daily intermittent massacres. And the latest of these in Baghdad will no doubt not be the last because those who are sucking the blood of the innocent are still very thirsty.

A British newspaper has reported that the Baghdad morgue has received 1100 corpses in July of this year alone. The hospitals have received thousands of injured. Although these numbers are repeated virtually every month, there is nobody in the world crying in the face of the occupier and telling them that they are responsible for all that blood.

As Iraqis are writing their constitution, we want them to let this Islamic country stay Islamic in its constitution and title because this what connects the present in Iraq to the past. It is a historic base for the whole Islamic world, as well as for the future of Islam. We also want Iraq to preserve its internal unity. If there is to be some balance in giving each region a little autonomy to run its own affairs, this should be within the framework of a somewhat broad administrative decentralisation. We are afraid that federalism will lead to the eventual break-up of Iraq into several sectarian and racial mini-states, which would all be powerless.

We also call on the Iraqis, especially the Sunnis and Shiites to resort to an objective rational dialogue that will allow them to establish the basis of a unity that would secure the rights of all. Such a dialogue should be carried out away from the international game that runs the conflict to suit its own rather than Iraqi interests. We also call all parties to defend one another since no one will gain from these massacres, which are made to look sectarian, except the occupier and Zionism.

The international powers are still trying to preoccupy Lebanon with the maze of U.N. resolutions 1559 and 1614 to destabilise the domestic situation and create debates that would prevent those in charge from studying the vital issues that have to do with their living conditions, especially as the new academic year is about to start. Most Lebanese families will not be able to raise enough money to pay school fees, especially as unemployment is invading the whole country. In addition, we have renewed conflict over the appointments of civil servants, and especially the heads of the security services. We desperately need of to get out of this security vacuum in which external and internal demons are threatening the country. Moreover, we need appointments to the judiciary so that it can deal honestly and transparently with all past, present and future files.

As for the economic issues and those of corruption and waste, how can we solve these? And where is the realistic security plan? And where are the trustworthy people that are planning and carrying out their plans. The people are watching and monitoring and the question is: When will these people move to bring those responsible to account, especially as some of those who are talking about reform and change will be also be affected by these changes.