The First Sermon

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Building a healthy environment.

Islamic education calls on the Muslim to build the environment that develops his mind, heart behavior and relations with life as well as with other human beings, for one cannot underestimate the effect of the environment on thoughts and emotions.

The Islamic concern about the human environment starts before one‘s birth. A future father has to choose a mother for his children. He should strive to choose a women known for her kind heart, purity and chastity as well as courtesy and nobility.

The child will be affected by his mother, when he is still in her womb. Then when it is born it will carry through the milk the mother feeds it many of her personal traits. That is why the traditions have advised us not to nurse our children by hot tempered or unbalanced women.

Thus, the father has the right to choose the mother of his child since it represents the environment that the child will be raised in …

Similarly, the future mother has the right to choose a father for her children for they will inherit his traits, and even his grandfathers' traits.

Thus, when a man or a woman want to get married they should not be concerned by their subjective needs or moods but rather by their children. Their first priority should be choosing a partner who would be good to their children. This attitude will free the society of several problems the families are currently suffering from.

The necessity of the choice of a good partner is not limited to the effect on children, since it also affects the community you live in. Thus one should be careful not to let a harmful element interact with this community. We should realize that social relations are quite different than trading. Buying a house, for example, will not affect the community, while negative conduct by a new member will have a devastating effect on the family and on the community in general.

The basis of friendship.

Islam has emphasized the importance of friendship and the need to choose friends and companions on a solid basis of careful studying. On e should know what are the beliefs of these potential friends and find out if they are with the right or if they are kind and loving and not motivated by envy or hatred…

Therefore, this is an extremely sensitive issue, for having a fried means that you have developed a bond of affection towards him and have become as a result quite vulnerable to adopt his views and to identify with his feelings.

To avoid being led astray as a result of a bad choice of one friends our honorable traditions have focused on this issue. Imam al-Sadiq(a.s.) quotes the commander of the faithful Imam Ali(a.s.) as saying in many of his sermons A Muslim should avoid to befriend three kinds of people: the dissolute, the foolish and the liar, the first will try to influence you to imitate him. He will not help you in your religious affairs and in preparing for the Day of Judgment...

Thus we have to be cautions especially in the secondary schools and universities and never rush to establish relations before knowing the others quite thoroughly.

As for the fools, they might believe a good thing to be bad and vise -versa... while the liars won’t let you enjoy a happy life. They would keep on lying until they would not be believed when they say the truth and they would create enmity between people… through what their lies mite incite.. In this respect, the international intelligence agencies are institutions of spreading lies on the world level. They do not collect information, they make them….

This is what has been exposed in America and Britain where there is a large debate going on about the basis that made the two countries go to war. The intelligence agencies provided their peoples with false and exaggerated information to make the world believe that the Iraqi regime is about to destroy the world…

We live in a society where lying is abundant, and we have thus to follow the advice that Allah had revealed in the Quran, for if you believe what an evil-doer has told us you will end up in harming a people in ignorance and be sorry for what you have done (49:6).

Thus, dear beloved, we have to study all our friendship relations, and be all the while vigilant not to tell our friend our very private secrets, because if he turns into an enemy he is quite capable of hurting you.

The Prophet(p.) says: "The nearest a man can be to unbelief is when takes someone as a brother in religion, and starts recording his mistakes to use them one day against him.

In the Glorious Quran Allah has told us about one's friends .He says: His companion will say: Our Lord! I did not lead him into inordinacy but he himself was in a great error. He will say: Do not quarrel in My presence, and indeed I gave you the threatening beforehand: My word shall not be changed, nor am I in the least unjust to the servants. On the day that We will say to hell: Are you filled up? And it will say: Are there any more?( 50:25-27}

It is the same as when Satan leads somebody to fall astray and when he does so he denounces his act and claim that he fears God.

These are some of the things that we have to think about in a responsible manner for they have a great effect on our life and our destiny in the Hereafter. 

The Second Sermon 

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Palestine: Do not give free concessions

The situation in Palestine is still under various political and security pressures that aim to force the Palestinians to yield to the Israeli plan of establishing an proclaimed victory over the Intifada, so that Israel will assert its position as the most powerful state in the region. This is what explains the American supportive role that is based on one major aim. "Security for Israel and Israel alone."

In this respect, the role of the Palestinian Authority is to protect this security, while America and Israel do not even agree to stop the daily brutal killings and assassinations, let alone withdrawing from the occupied lands. In short, they want the militant Palestinian factions to stop their operations for nothing in return; and even the Palestinian state that Bush talks about will not have any real sovereignty; its economy security and political life will be run by the Israelis which will leave it with no more than nominal independence.

Meanwhile the American envoys who shuttle to and fro have virtually made the other Quartet Committee members ineffective have been exerting continuous pressures on the Palestinian Authority to force it to enter a struggle with the Palestinian organizations that refused to surrender unconditionally and that call for a dialogue on the basis of national unity to agree upon what serves the national Palestinian right of self-determination.

There is no light in the end of the tunnel yet. For what America wants is according to its secretary of state that Israel feels confident that the Palestinian Authority would keep its commitments while no one asks Israel about its commitment in withdrawing and releasing the prisoners.

All these developments indicate that the Palestinian cause is passing through one of the most difficult stages, and that all Arabs and Muslims, and the Palestinians in Particular, should remain vigilant and monitor all what its going on around them, making sure that no one and no party should yield to the American pressures and offer vital concessions.

The occupation is there to stay

In Iraq, the occupation forces is still drawn in the Iraqi quick sands as a result of failing to keep its promises to the Iraqi people. Instead of setting a fixed date for the withdrawal, they began to talk about staying for many years that are determined by the needs as they see them. They have not devised any political plan to let the Iraqis run their own affairs. And in the meantime they are pursing their security economic and political interests.

Our people in Iraq should be aware of all these facts and they should cling to their national unity and not let listen to those who try to incite sectarian strife, since it will lead to the fall of the temple on the heads of all Iraqis...

Iranian unity was enhanced by the American threat

As for Iran, America has initiated a political media war against the Islamic Republic . But this time it managed to win the support of many of its allies who are afraid to engage in another trouble with U.S.A. after their split regarding Iraq. America has also exerted pressure on the Nuclear Energy Agency to impose harsh and humiliating demands on Iran and has started to talk about the threat that the Iranian nuclear weapons will pose to the whole world in the near future.

Meanwhile , America ignores the Israeli nuclear weapons that threaten the region, and prevents the UN from raising this issue. Nevertheless, Iran has faced the situation with a firm stand that emphasizes its independence in protecting its security and interests into consideration the changes in the region and the entire world.

On another level, America has tried to exploit the student and other sectarian demonstrations which are within their rights and which the Islamic republic could address by responding to the legitimate demands.

But president Bush and his Administration, as well as his media, have tried to blow up the size of these demonstrations to suggest that there is a revolution against the regime… But their evil turned against them, since the American intervention has lead to the enhancement of national solidarity. For the Iranian people will not yield before the American arrogance especially that they saw what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We call the Iranian people to be aware of the Arrogance threat that plans to end the independence of Iran and spread chaos in this country, and ultimately overthrow the Islamic regime. We also call on the Iranian Authorities to study the demands of the demonstrations, and reaffirm its commitment to the public freedoms on the basis of protecting the Islamic regime and not giving the chance to the enemies to exploit the situation. The major challenge the Islamic regime in Iran faces lies in presenting a civilized Islamic experiment that guarantees the legitimate freedoms of the nation and finds realistic problems to its economic and political problems on the basis of justice that represents the principle of all heavenly messages .

Lebanon: Sectarianism has become the alternative.

In Lebanon, the rationale of the institutions has become so shaky that people go back to their sects to attain some of the privileges they offer, instead of acting as citizens who demand their rights.

The political game in this country is re-dividing the country over the shares of the leaders of sects. And those who are talking here and there about the absence of reconciliation are actually the ones who are preventing its realization when they insist on their personal and sectarian gains.

That is what made the spirit of dialogue disappear with everybody thinking of his own immediate gains, while there is a dire need to listen to what reason says, and put the long term interests of the country first. But when?