|
The First Sermon
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the
Merciful
The Wretched and the oppressed
Allah, The Most Exalted, says in His Glorious Book:
And We desired to bestow a favor upon those who were deemed weak in
the land, and to make them the Imams, and to make them the heirs.
To establish a firm place for them in the land, and to
show Pharaoh, Haman, and their hosts, at their hands, the very things
against which they were taking precautions.
Thus Allah, The Most Exalted, has talked
about the downtrodden and the weakened as well as the oppressors and
the arrogant. He refuses the weakening of the arrogant to the
downtrodden by exploiting them and depriving them of their humanity.
When Allah, The Most Exalted, created mankind, He wanted the people on
earth to establish justice.
He even sent Prophets, and revealed
books, and provided them with the balance of good and falsehood to
ensure that the people will establish justice, for justice is road of
peace and good, while injustice is the road of evil and hostility.
Allah, The Most Exalted, ordained that
this life on earth will not end before the weakened have assumed their
confiscated role. Thus, this Ayah says that God wants to bestow a
favour upon the oppressed and make them leaders.
It will end such rules as that of Pharaoh
and Haman who prosecuted the people. And this is, among others, what
we are waiting for, as we await our Imam Al-Mahdi (May Allah hasten
his return) who will establish justice among all mankind.
Moreover, we noticed that the traditions
that talk about the appearance of Imam Al-Mahdi talk only about
establishing justice, although he is the Imam of Islam who will call
the people for the Message of Muhammad; the Message of unification
that continues all what the Sharia has ordained to organize the
relations of people. This is because justice is what embodies the
religion of unification and all what Islam wants considering the
relations between Allah and humans and between humans themselves.
This is what the Quran has asserted in
its talk about justice in several Ayahs “Surely
Allah enjoins the doing of justice and the doing of good” “whenever ye
speak, speak justly, even if a near relative is concerned;, “O you who
believe! Be upright for Allah, bearers of witness with justice, and
let not hatred of a people incite you not to act equitably; act
equitably, that is nearer to piety thus you have to be just with your
friends or relatives, by not giving him what is not rightfully his and
with your enemy by not denying him his rights”.
The Quran also says:
O ye who believe! Be ye staunch in justice,
witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or (your)
parents or (your) kindred, whether (the case be of) a rich man or a
poor man, for Allah is nearer unto both (them ye are). So follow not
passion lest ye lapse (from truth) and if ye lapse or fall away, then
lo! Allah is ever Informed of what ye do.
If the entire world is based on justice
and if we are expecting that in the end that justice will be dominant
in the entire world, we have to educate ourselves and act in a way
that upholds justice and rejects persecution, whether in power or
influential positions.
God will punish all those who wrong
their subordinates. It has been narrated that One of our Imams
narrated the following story: Allah the Great, the Almighty,
enjoined one of His prophets living in a country under the rule of
a tyrant: 'Go to this tyrant and tell him that I did not make use
of you (grant authority) to shed the blood (of the people) and
gather wealth. I made use of you to soothe the cries of the wronged,
because you should not neglect their plight even if they were
disbelievers'. Allah does not want us to wrong the unbeliever, just
as he does not want us to wrong the Muslim. He wants us to give
every human his rights whether close or not and whether weak or
strong, and this is the meaning of justice.
Imam Ali has said: Know that injustice is of three
kinds – one, the injustice that will not be forgiven, another, that
will not be left unquestioned, and another that will be forgiven
without being questioned. The injustice that will not be forgiven
is duality of Allah. Allah has said:
Verily Allah forgives not that (anything) be
associated with Him…. The
injustice that will be forgiven is the injustice a man does to himself
by committing small sins; and the injustice that will not be left
unquestioned is the injustice of men against other men. The
retribution in such a case is severe. It is not wounding with knives,
nor striking with whips, but it is so severe that all these things are
small against it.
The Consequences of injustice
The Messenger(p.) and our Imams have left
a lot of Hadith about wronging. Imam As-Sadiq says: Wronging
someone who has no party on weapons to resort to, whether by letting
his right or by persecuting him is the most sever kind of wronging.
Imam Zein Al-Ibedien advises his son
Muhammad Al-Baqir saying: I will advise you with what my father
advised me when he was dying: Do not wrong those who will not find no
one to support them except Allah.
Imam Sadiq says about he who lives the spirit of justice:
who wakes up and does not intend to wrong anybody, Allah forgives
him what he will sin on that day",unless he spills the blood of an
innocent man or usurps the money of an orphan.
Thus, a man who does not think about
injustice and starts his day not intending to harm or wrong anyone
Allah will forgive all his sins except killing another unlawfully, or
usurping the wealth of an orphan.
The Messenger says: "stay away of
wronging for it is the darkness of the Day of Judgment."
There are also some certain acts of
injustice practiced by some members of the community whether by the
government or by a third party. There are some people that are
accepted by a part of the community saying that the wronged party
deserves what happened to him. A case in point would be those who
justified the atrocities of Yazid against Imam Hussein's family and
companions. To those Imam As-Sadiq says: O those who justify the
wronging of the wrong-doer. Allah will send him someone who
will wrong him. And if they invoke Allah, He will not respond to them.
Imam Al-Hussein says that those who
wrong, support the wrongdoer or accept his act are partners. The
Messenger says: He who is afraid of punishment should stop wronging
the people.
Educating on justice
Two parties of litigation filed their
case before Imam as-Sadiq (a.s). After he had listened to both of
them, the Imam(a.s.) spoke: “It is quite true that he who seizes
something by wrong means is not seizing goodness. Certainly, the
oppressed party seizes from the religion of the wronging party more
than that which the wronging party seizes from the oppressed party’s
property. He who does evil to people should not show loathing
towards the evil that is done to him. As a matter of fact, man will
harvest nothing but that which he sowed. No one will harvest
sweetness from the bitter, and no one will harvest bitterness from
the sweet.”
These words of the Imam (a) made the
two parties settle their litigation before they left him, because
when you open your heart and mind on good preaching, you will
withdraw from anything that can put you in the position of wronging
others.
Dear beloved:
We have to remember that we will stand
before Allah, where the wronged will ask God to punish those who
wronged them saying:
O most wise, and just, judge between him,
and me for he has wronged me
Therefore, we should not wrong anybody,
not our wives, nor our children or those who work for us.
This is what we should educate our selves
on.
The Second Sermon
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the
Merciful
The Bush Administration failures
President Bush continues to give advices
to the Iraqi officials and political leaders to conform with his
policies of occupation that has shaken his position in the American
public opinion including both houses in the Capitol who are asking him
to withdraw the troops from Iraq as soon as possible. Nevertheless,
the whole world knows that he has failed in running his occupation and
that the increase in troops was not able to provide the Iraqi people
with security. On the contrary, the American troops continue to bomb
civilians and kill innocent women, children and the elderly, whenever
it engages in an offensive that aims according to its claims to detain
extremists.
On another level, Bush's friends in the
Administration especially those whom he relied on to set his policies
continue to resign. Then there is the corruption that has
characterized his administration even in the ministry of justice that
would certainly have a negative impact on the American's legal and
judicial affairs.
Iraq and the American world terrorism
In addition, the Media continues to
reveal the big scandals of robbing the Iraqi wealth by the top
military and Administration officials in Iraq. If we add to that, the
brutal torture of Iraqi prisoners, and the bombing of civilians, we
will see the general picture of the ugly American terrorism,
especially, when we add to that what the Americans are planning with
the Takifiris and the calls for reaching an understating with them.
In Iraq too, we met with the bloody
events in Karabla, that accompanied the celebrations of the birth of
Imam Mahdi, which constitute a new tragedy to be added to the
tragedies the Iraqis are already suffering from.
We strongly condemn these actions and
declare that those who committed them, killing the worshippers and
violating the sanctity of the holy places will hold the full
responsibility of what they did, which could only be worsened by the
emotional reactions that is represented by following individuals
instead of principles.
We are afraid that things will develop in
other places along the same lines, which might encourage the
occupation to prolong his stay, claiming that those in charge cannot
protect the Iraqi people, and that those who are talking about
protecting the scared shrines are actually aiming at destroying them.
On another level, the war against
terrorism that was declared by Bush and his Administration, did not
take into consideration the conditions of the Arab and Muslim peoples,
especially their sufferings from their harsh regimes and their
economic and political problems. On the contrary, it practiced
violence and murder to ensure the continuity of usurping the region's
wealth, using similar methods of the terrorist of nine eleven.
The US Administration did not take into
consideration what these arrogant mad wars would do to the peoples of
the region, which made these peoples deploy all its abilities to face
these destructive wars, turning many countries into bloody fronts. In
Pakistan, for example, there is an open confrontation between the
people and the American installed regimes that persecutes those who
oppose the American policies and want their countries to be free in
its policies, security and economy.
And this is what we have noticed in the
American policy of supporting Israel and turning it into a striking
military power against the Arab and Muslim worlds, to the extent of
talking about an Israeli aggression against Iran. On the other hand,
if the US is talking about an international and regional peace
conferences, it is doomed to be a failure as a result of the
prevailing circumstances, the Israeli impossible conditions, and the
Arab submission to all the American and Israeli demands. This failure
was evident through all the meetings between the head of the PA and
the enemy's prime minister, for he refused to offer any concessions
that would enable a viable Palestinian state to exist.
Freeing Israel's hands
An European official has always announced
that he is a friend of Israel and that he will not engage in any deal
that will compromise its security. But we have not heard him once say
that he is a friend of the Arabs and Muslims or that he respects their
security. He even does not accept the Palestinian resistance against
occupation and constantly talks about the relationship between terror
and Islam. Yet he has never talked about the Israeli terror in driving
the Palestinians out of their own country or preventing them from
coming back. He also forgets to mention anything about the American
terror in occupying Afghanistan and Iraq or threatening Iran with war
if it plans for a nuclear bomb.
But he forgets all about the Israeli
nuclear threat, which he tries to portray as a peace bomb despite the
Israeli constant aggressions and threats to the region.
The problem with most of the EU states is
that they leave Israeli to destabilize the entire world, but do not
acknowledge the right of the Arab and Muslim right to protect
themselves.
And this is what the Arabs and Muslims
should understand to protect themselves.
The Lebanese crisis
In Lebanon everyone awaits the answer of
the US government conveyed by the US ambassador on the situation in
Lebanon. The Lebanese are also eager to learn about the French
initiative, which continues to move from one complication to another.
Another issue is the insistence of
political blocs that the next president be from their ranks and not
the other's, with the two parties exchanging statements, that are
packed with foul and obscene language, where there is a constant
denunciation or verification by this person or that about of being
subject to foreign tutelage . In addition, there are the complications
on the Arab-Arab front, which in turn will have negative effects on
the Lebanese front.
The Lebanese people are drifting away
from ethical and moral values and for being consumed with personal
sectarianism and attraction to regional affiliations.
There are parties working to pull people
toward fanaticism, which enslaves them to this leader or that. This
will erode freedom of thought and movement to the extent that they
will forget their vital issues, and live in the caves of darkness that
will only turn darker in the future, not to mention the physical
darkness they suffer from as a result of power shortage.
Anniversary of the disappearance of Imam
Musa As-Sadr
Today is the 29th anniversary of the
disappearance of Imam Musa As-Sadr; this figure of dialogue that
opened up on Islamic and national unity and that had a major role in
founding the Resistance against Israel.
As we commemorate this occasion, we feel
how a great loss his disappearance has been, and the huge magnitude of
the crime those who caused his disappearance or the helped in
committing it, when they drove him away from the battle front with
Israel or the front of national internal dialogue.
We call on all concerned, be they states,
parties or even nations to reveal his fate, and expose all those who
participated in committing this huge crime.
Verbal condemnations are not enough, and
the Lebanese state has to shoulder its responsibility on all local,
regional and international levels.
|