The Messenger and the Imam's Caliphate

This verse, which narrators say that it was revealed to the Prophet when he was coming back from his farewell pilgrimage, on a very hot day in the middle of the desert…This verse tells the Messenger that he has conveyed the Message Allah has sent him , except for one issue.

It is the issue of the caliphate: There should be someone who takes care of and leads the Islamic march after you… He could not be just any of your faithful companions who fought for the cause of Islam wholeheartedly. He ought to be some one like you who possesses all the elements of your spirit and all you spiritualism that is acquired through his relationship with God. He should be someone who sold himself to God as you sold yourself. He should be someone who has your morals all his life, from his early childhood to his old age. He should be someone who has learnt the knowledge, religious and otherwise, that Allah had given you.

He should be someone who has given Islam all his efforts, his life, his intellectual genius and his entire struggle (by the sword as it was at that time). It should be someone who loves Allah and His Messenger by adhering to them and is loved by Allah and His Messenger as a result of his obedience to God and His Messenger. It should by someone like yourself who has your morals and your knowledge of how to run the state. It should be someone who feels responsible for Islam and all Muslims, whether inside or outside the Islamic sate… It should be someone who could continue your march and give it all the elements of your personality, to raise people to God as you did. Who is this someone? 

They struggled and obeyed God and His Messenger. But Ali (a.s.) is of a different calibre: he has lived with you, since he was a child and his personality was stamped by yours, you used to hug him and give him everyday one of your moral traits. He was the first to pray to God after you, you used to talk him about the revelations and their meanings. He was your companion. He was the man who said: "The Messenger taught me one thousand branches of knowledge” but such knowledge was a productive one since he says: of each one thousand branches are opened.

Ali (a.s) was also the man who lived with the right as his only goal that he dedicated his life for, and you have bore witness to this fact when you said:

Ali is with the right and the right is with him, it turns with him wherever he turns.

He was the man who struggled for the cause of God in all the Muslim battles.

But fighting was not Ali's job or passion. It was something he disliked and preferred not to do. Yet he was the champion of Muslims who would fight where others dared not to. That is why you said, when Ali (a.s) fought Amr bin Abdwid when others did not dare: "The entire belief faced the entire unbelief". He was an embodied moving belief, and then when he was victorious, you said that his strike was equivalent to all the worshipping of all humans and jinn because had Amr had the upper hand there would have been no Islam.

Then in the battle of Khaibar, when some of the Muslims backed and could not open the Jewish castle, the Messenger said: "I will give the banner tomorrow to someone who loves Allah and His Messenger, and who is loved by Allah and His Messenger”.Someone who attacks and never withdraws, until Allah opens "by his hands".

Then when he killed Marhab and plucked out the gate with his hands he said that it was not a human force that did this, but a Divine one.

Moreover, you have seen and acknowledged – O Messenger of God, that there is no match for your daughter, the lady of the women of the world, except Ali, for she has learned from the same source as he did, and acquired the same spiritualism and manners that he did.

She was not merely a women related to you, but a human being that possesses a knowledge, a spirituality and infallibility no other Muslim woman had. She used to love people and pray for them saying. “The neighbour comes before the household members” and she was with Ali (a.s), when Allah, the most exalted, said about them:

Thou (O Muhammad) see them bowing and falling prostrate (in worship), seeking bounty from Allah and (His) acceptance. The mark of them is on their foreheads from the traces of prostration

And they feed, for the love of Allah, the indigent, the orphan, and the captive,- (Saying),"We feed you for the sake of Allah alone: no reward do we desire from you, nor thanks.
 

So ,Ali was her only match, and you used to tell him, that you are to me as Haroun was to Musa, and that is why Allah has revealed to you to deliver what has been revealed to you from your Lord; and if you do it not, then you have not delivered His message,.

And if you were afraid that people will say that he has appointed his cousin and son in law Allah will protect you from the people. That is why you stood up and said:

Do I not have more right over the believers than what they have over themselves?"  

You then held up the hand of 'Ali and said: 

Days passed, and the cards were reshuffled and the Imam was denied his right, but he did not feel any malice or hatred for he was not concerned about any personal goals; his only goal was Islam. That is why he said: I was surprised to see the people pour unto that person to give him bay'ah; so I held my hand, until I saw the people heading backwards and turning from Islam, calling for the annihilation of the religion of Muhammad (p.), so I feared that if I did not support Islam and its people I would see its breakage and demolition, a disaster for me which would be greater than losing my rule over you, which was after all only few days long, and that it would vanish as when a mirage vanishes or the clouds disperse; so I stood up in those events until falsehood disappeared and perished and the religion felt secured and comfortable 

He was thinking about the safety of Islam and Muslims, which made him dedicate all his efforts, to help those who ruled before him, to the extent that the second caliph said: He did not been for Ali Omar would have been doomed. 

Ali (a.s) has endured severely his struggle for Islam and was very patient through out, since life or power were of no value to a person like him, had not been dedicated to this supreme goal . He says : Had they not sworn unconditional allegiance to me, had they not sworn their gratefulness in my accepting their rulership ,and had Allah the Almighty not taken a promise from the guides of religion to put a check on the luxurious and vicious lives of the oppressors and tyrants, as well as to reduce poverty and starvation of the oppressed, I would even now have left the rulership of the State... The pomp and glory of a vicious life is to me worth less than the sneeze of a goat.".

On this occasion, and as we face all challenges against Islam and Muslims we have to stand fast where Ali (a.s) stood fast, and to be patient where he was patient. We have to be aware of the interests of Islam and Muslims as he was. Being faithful to him is to follow his steps, to live with everything he said or did. He is the man who elevated towards God and drew nearer to Him. We have to draw nearer to God through him and through the Messenger. The issue is to be for God and seek to earn His pleasure… May Allah be praised for He made us among those who adhere to Islam along the line of Imam Ali (a.s) , and the Members of his House. May Allah be praised for completing His Message and appointing Ali as the wasi. ( successor).

The Second Sermon

Palestine is still bleeding with more martyrs and wounded falling daily. It is suffering from the detention of its youth and the destruction of its economic infrastructure and political framework. Meanwhile, America watches from the sidelines, and says a few meaningless soothing words. Europe follows the American footsteps and threatens to cut financial aid if Hamas wins in the elections and participates in the government.

…Thus showing, that despite all their talk about democracy, they do not respect the political choices of the people.

We have also noticed that the Americans and the Europeans have rushed to condemn the latest Martyr operation in Tel Aviv, which was in retaliation for the Israeli daily killings of the Palestinians. They did not say a word regarding the last Israeli massacre in which Palestinians were killed in their homes, including women, children and the elderly. 

America and Europe agree with the Zionist government in considering the Palestinian problem one of security that has to do with the Resistance and not a political one that is related to liberation.

That is why Israel links the final status negotiations with the destruction of the Resistance. It aims at inciting a Palestinian civil war that will enable it to be victorious without having to go to war.

We say to the Palestinians that you have to make the right choice; you have to choose whom you think is qualified and whom you think is able to protect the cause regardless of his affiliations.

I appeal to the Palestinians from an Islamic point of view to say: You have to prove to the world that you are the people that can defeat occupation, and we call upon the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand with the Palestinians and offer the urgently needed aid if America and Europe cut their aid.

Iraq is suffering from continuous suicidal massacres against the innocent civilians. We call on the wounded Iraqi people to face this with promoting their national unity and standing against those who incite sectarian strife between the Sunnis and the Shiites. They should resort to dialogue and denounce both verbal and actual violence. They should plan for a national unity government in which all parties feel that they are responsible for the entire country, so that they could end occupation and stop the terrorist massacres. Iraq would then return to its national role in its Arab and Islamic environment; to develop the civilization and build the future.

Once again, the peaceful nuclear Iranian program returns to central stage, as a result of the entire American, European and Israeli fuss about its nature. They accuse Iran of trying to make the bomb although its most senior official has denied this. On the other hand, no one talks about Israel that has a big nuclear arsenal that threatens the entire region, for they do not want the Islamic states to acquire scientific knowledge.

Faced by this reality, we call on the Islamic and Arab states not be influenced by the American propaganda that aims at spreading fear and anguish regarding the Iranian intentions. We want them to conduct a dialogue with Iran to learn about the real peaceful intentions of the Iranian nuclear project. They should protest against the Israeli nuclear project for this is where the real threat comes from.

In Lebanon, the ongoing debate is shattering the national unity, while the American interfering is thwarting any attempt to find a realistic solution between Lebanon and Syria, and even between the Lebanese themselves. These American interferences are preventing the Lebanese from reaching an agreement. The Americans are trying to intimidate the Lebanese by warning them from the consequences of the anger of a certain international axis and trying to exploit the Lebanese stands in pressurizing certain Arab countries all in the name of international legitimacy, which, as we know, is victim the US hegemony over the Security Council.

There are calls to conduct a dialogue through the media or in the parliament, but we notice that all parties have said all they want to say leaving nothing to talk about. They did not want this dialogue to reach a common factor. They only wanted to score points. They are having a dialogue that is based on the formula of a winning side and a defeated side, or trying to deny the signing of a certain agreement.

The problem is that the new government that is supposed to be building the new Lebanon did not do anything to solve the economic problems of the country, or to hold those who had plundered it accountable.