Friday speeches 5 Ramadan 1423h/31 October 2003AD

God says in His Glorious Book: O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard (against evil). (2:183). In this month, the blessed month of Ramadan God wants us to develop our Islamic personality on the basis of strengthening our will and resolve in the face of all challenges. Knowledge alone in not enough unless it is backed by will power... This sense was reported in several sayings of the Members of the House including Imam Al-Sadiq (a.s.) Who said: “Nobody is weaker than what the will power has decided “. If you have the resolve and the will you will have the physical ability to carry out what you have intended to do.

Thus this will power and the resolve are the weapon that defeats all the whims, desires and bad habits, like smoking and masturbating which many, especially the teenagers, practice though they pray and fast.

You might meet an addict whether on smoking or drugs, and advise him to stop for obvious medical reasons, but he will tell you that he cannot. But this is not true.

He certainly can, although his will has been weakened by his addiction. Many analysts explained why does a person return to a bad habit after he has been successful in quitting it. They said that such a person thinks about the good aspects more than the bad ones. And to quit for good he has to take both aspects into consideration.

In the light of this, Allah, the most Exalted, wants man to take a training course in this month to learn how to say “ No”… When he stops taking coffee breakfast...etc. Why does he do that? Because he has been commanded by God. But as the month unfolds his will power will gain strength. Thus, one should not tread fasting as a habit. It is a method to liberate oneself from every habit, to become one that could say “no” to every bad thing and “yes” to every good thing that elevates what is human in man.

What makes you strong and able to practice your freedom in front of those who try to enslave you...

It is the will of power in you: When you believe that Allah has created you as a free person…your freedom will be stronger than your desires... Man derives his value from what he accepts and what he rejects…but some always says “yes “while others always say “no”, while there should be a certain balance between the two.

This is what makes the nation capable of challenging and fighting the arrogant powers… They see in their freedom their pride and self-respect… What else makes the Mujahideen all over the world ready to sacrifice themselves...It is their belief in the freedom and their will power to defend it. Any nation that accepts oppression and arrogance does not live its freedom and consequently its human nature.

Imam at Sadiq linked freedom with being able to endure deprivation. He said: A free man is free in every situation… He will not be broken by any misfortune, even if he is enslaved or imprisoned”.

We have to consider fasting as a school that develops our personality and strengths our freedom, so as to become a nation that stands on the same footing with the rest of the nations of the world.

Do you know why most of the rulers of the Muslim world do not stand firmly in front of the arrogant powers? Because they threaten their thrones and wealth, and thus they enslave them as a condition to keep them in their positions. The rulers have chosen this slavery and preferred it to the freedom of their nations.

Eating and drinking is not an issue, the issue is to be free in obtaining your food. This is what we should stress on when we fast. For example: There are those who usually treat their family members and employees harshly and they grow more ill tempered during the month of Ramadan... Their excuse is that they are fasting... They should fast on this bad temper… If you are afraid of God’s punishment if you eat or drink, you should know that breaking your fast by being unjust is more dangerous.

There is also a kind of human and social fasting that we are told about by the Prophet and the Imams. They tell us that the rich and the well off in general feel in the month of Ramadan, the pain of hunger and thirst, thus they could share those who do not find food to eat what they suffer from.

The role of fasting is to make a free and strong person who could say “no” to anything that he rejects and yes to anything he accepts.

Lest it will be the same whether your fast or not. The Messenger (p.) said: “There are those that [earn] nothing from their fasting except hunger and thirst...” To fast is to make your mind fast on falsehood your heart fast on hatred and your actions fast on deviation”.

In this season of Mercy and forgiveness ;of accountability and hard work. Let us live in a state of spiritual and social emergency…Let us become by the end of this month closer to God and those who need us.

May Allah, the most Exalted, accept our repentance and have Mercy on us. He is the most Merciful.

In Palestine, Israel continues to destroy the infrastructure, demolish houses leaving the children the women and the elderly with no place to sleep in, close schools, kill the Mujahideen, bulldoze the farms and continue to build the racist separating wall, extending it eastward to confiscate additional lands and isolate villages… In all this, it is encouraged by the American silence that is always complete had it not been for some soothing words by the American president regarding the wall, which in actual fact not more than a way to deceive Arabs and Muslims, as well as providing a way to avert embarrassing questions a concerning the Israeli massacres…

It is interesting to note that even the top-brass of the enemy’s army have begun to criticize Sharon’s catastrophic policy against the Palestinians which indicates that there is a growing internal tension as a result of the inability of the extremist right government in Israel to break the resolve and the readiness of the Palestinians to sacrifice their lives for their cause, or to create any opening in the deadlock of the peace process… It is the Palestinian steadfastness that created this rift between Sharon and the Zionist Army chief of staff who criticized Sharon and his policies towards the Palestinians.

Thus this Zionist official who acted as the right arm in executing the brutal Likud policy of massacres and destruction now describes this policy as devastating and one that will unite all the Palestinians behind the “terrorists”.

Nevertheless America did not do anything to stop this entire killing, because according to the Administration, they are practicing self-defense. This is how President Bush understands the nations’ right of self-determination; by perpetuating occupation.

Faced by these sufferings of tragic dimensions, the Palestinians have shown an almost incredible steadfastness, they have shown their unrelenting resolve to continue to fight till they drive out occupation…

In this respect, we would like to warn that Sharon talks about a light in the end of the tunnel in which the Palestinians, will raise the white flag meaning that Sharon is betting on the forthcoming American elections in which America will be preoccupied in its own internal affairs to intensify his war of eradication.

The Palestinians should confront this plot by means of political planning for the future and military planning to strengthen their present position…

In Iraq, military operations haunt the occupation army to the extent that they have become concerned with the safety of their own soldiers only. Iraq, according to the American Administration, has turned into an arena for all those who oppose the American policies… Bush, his defense and foreign secretaries have gone as far as complaining about the unforeseen difficulties and the impasse they have fallen into, in an effort to justify their occupation under the pretense of liberating the Iraqis, which has turned into a big lie…

That is why we have seen that demanding the end of occupation has turned into a demand that unites almost all Iraqis who are firm in the belief that the Iraqi people are able to run their own affairs with out any American trusteeship.

On the other hand, we do not accept the targeting of medical and service international agencies or the Iraqi police, for they give the occupier the excuse it needs to elongate its stay in Iraq to provide security for the Iraqis and protect the international agencies.

We also want to stress yet again, the importance of Iraqi national unity, for it’s the major source of strength in the face of the occupiers.

President Bush have given a break fast dinner to the Muslims in the US to congratulate them on the occasion of the advent of this month, announcing that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the Muslims have played a major part in establishing the welfare of the US and the world…He added that America refuses all forms of religions, bigotry… despite the fact that his administration practices both in political doctrine and daily conduct a high degree of hatred towards Islam.

The Muslims that were invited to dinner were hoping that they would receive a gift on this occasion, by firing the defense department official that publicly offended Islam and hurt millions of Muslims.

We say to the American President: You, who might well believe in what this general who is a member of your Zionist religious team is saying…Why do you consider the Muslims as naïve who might be looking forward for a presidential dinner at a time you support those who are planning for additional massacres against the Muslims especially in Palestine?

In Lebanon, we do not believe that the Israeli threats are going to be materialized, but they are more a kind of deterrence and intimidation… Israel knows that the opening of the Lebanese front that might concur with the opening of the Syrian front will not be a picnic.

They know what to expect in Lebanon, and they know that opening this front means that the Mujahideen in Lebanon and Palestine will join hands to fight Israel together, something that the political and security circumstances in Israel cannot tolerate, even during the American election campaign in which Israel could be tempted to see as a golden opportunity for aggression.

Moreover, there have been reports about a new American pressure on the Lebanese government to dismantle the resistance and send the Army to the south. The Lebanese should confront these plans in a wise and realistic manner, that is based on national unity and keeping away from any political strife in which the various agencies have tried to make it take the form of a confessional one. Moreover, the various governmental institutions should act as such and stay away from any personal petty interests.

Dear Lebanese. The future of the country is your collective responsibility; do not waste it by your trivial differences.