His Eminence Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah considered that the American officials are frightening the American public about new attacks similar to those on World Trade Center in order to restrict freedoms there. H.E. also warned of American and British attempts to enter the Islamic arena under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

This came in a break-fast dinner organized by the Islamic Education Association in the presence of Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nassrallah, deputy Nasser Qandil representing premier Rafik Hariri, Hizbullah deputy Secretary General sheikh Naim Qassem, former speaker Hussein Husseini, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Beirut Mohammed Ali Sobhani, in addition to several political, social, economic, military, security, religious, educational and public personalities. In his speech Sayyed Fadlallah said:

In a world that is shaking under the impact of arrogant powers’ aggression who are attempting to be the leaders of this world, and who are trying to confiscate Islam in its culture, security, economy, and politics...In a world that is planned to acquire the arrogant forces’ image (cultural image which is the most dangerous) since anything outside culture whether politics, economy, or security can be confronted by the strength of the concepts that we hold

Confronting the false judgments:

{surely Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition} change yourself, probe deep into it, and probe into your concepts. What is your understanding of Islam? What is your understanding of reality and intellect? Think, scrutinize, study thoroughly and do not remain superficial so that the change turns to be methodical. That is the issue. They want to change our concepts. They even tried to talk about Islam, about tolerance in Islam to abort all the meanings of our nation’s strength that oppose and challenge. All of that in the name of being tolerant, not fighting the occupation and accepting its conditions; be tolerant and accept the accomplished fact (fait accompli), do not disturb the arena with the concepts of rejection; be tolerant and protect your head from the storm because there is someone who is blowing the storm to root out all your values.

The questions of identity and reality:

We heard Bush (the U.S. president) talking about Islam. We also heard the British prime minister (Tony Blair) talking about Islam and he wants to counterfeit the Muslims’ mentality with the kind of Islam that he is calling for -the Islam according to the arrogant powers’ understanding. Therefore, dearly beloved, in a world where concepts are shaking, we know what is the meaning of having an Islamic education . Hence the issue is not only in other’s distorted reality about Islam, but also their perception of Islam that is perhaps subjected to cultures governed by deposits, and cultural plans that attempt to confiscate the expressions.

But the problem is that we need this balance in understanding Islam within the Muslims. There is chaos. The chaos of concepts in Muslims through the judgments that collide rather than resorting to dialogue, and through backwardness that produces preaching outside the balanced road and guidance away from the precision of concepts.

This chaos in Islamic reality is the one that has disturbed all the situations. Are there questions that the challenges would ask us? Does Islam encourage openness or does it move within a circle of isolation? What are the conditions of openness and its guidelines? Does openness mean that you open your Islam to others to enter it so that no authenticity is left inside of you? Or, are there guidelines that consolidate this openness and methodize it? Is Islam with extremism or with moderation? Does extremism represent the line that meets with religious obligations? Or is extremism to move so that you put yourself on the brink of hell without gaining a strong footing there?

Is Islam extremist or moderate? Does moderation represent a submission to the accomplished fact (fait accompli) or does it represent a study of the accomplished fact and an attempt to change it?

The Third World:

The problem is that they do not want you to discuss their logic is that you should accept whatever they decide. Every stance against the arrogance, that rejects and resists for the sake of freedom and human-justice causes must be decided by them. They are the ones who philosophize freedom and play with it. The problem is that they legislated curbing freedom under the name of protecting democracy . Thus, they have turned into what looks like the third world.

Do you know why American officials talk now about collapsed bridges and gas that is about to burn? Instead of assuring their people, they are frightening them, do you know why? Perhaps, because they want to restrict freedoms. They have started to put restrictions on freedoms under the name of protecting freedom, civilization, and democracy. And many of us (Muslims) started to move like an echo, saying what those say and philosophize what they philosophize. When they call someone a terrorist, then every one of the sultan’s entourage applaud and bless that. Lo! How many retinues do we have today?

We differ with the Taliban:

We differ with many who are being accused of using violence outside the legitimate right of resistance and Intifada. We said, as many religiously educated Muslims did, that the Taliban regime does not represent Islam. They have studied in schools that have focused on stillness and narrow-mindedness rather than focusing on openness and dynamism. Thus, They refrained from focusing on human values being the heart of spiritual and moral values.

We disagree with them. Many Muslim intellectuals have declared that they do not agree with their view about women, not even with their fanatic view of the followers of other religions. We disagree with the Jews aside from the issue of Israel. We also disagree with Christians and other religions same as they disagree with us. But the Holy Koran has taught us how to argue, in a friendly manner, with those whom we disagree with. Because that way the argument can be stronger {And not alike are the good and the evil. Repel (evil) with what is best, when lo! he between whom and you was enmity would be as if he were a warm friend.} {come to an equitable proposition between us and you that we shall not serve any but Allah and (that) we shall not associate aught with Him}. The Koran does not even reprimand against man, same as our differences with the Christians about theology {and you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say: We are Christians}. It also emphasizes the humanitarian meaning that Christianity symbols holds {this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly.}.

Useless methods:

The intellect intensifies in dialogues because the intensity of the intellect is the intensity of the argument. But the method remains the one that paves the road to the human mind by paving the road to his heart.

We disagree with them and with their politics as well as much of their political background. We also disagree with (Osama) Bin Laden despite the fact that he may have some personal human characteristics that we cannot but appreciate. But if this method of confrontation is his method then we reject this method, because {no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another}. The American administration is something and the American people are something else. Moreover, if some people argue that major causes (issues) may overrun in its course some non-humanitarian issues then we say that’s true in principle. We can kill Muslim captives if infidels use them as sandbags to prevent victory for Muslims. However, is what had happened in the U.S., if they were the ones behind it and this something that we cannot judicially believe, in the interest of Islam? The problem is that the outcome of these events is not in the interest of Islam. It may undermined the arrogant vigor. Or may have shaken the security of people there. Or perhaps those who have done this, if they are the ones behind it, may have thought that this kind of earthquake may drivee the people there to oppose what their government is perpetrating of grievances all over the world particularly against the Palestinians. But the outcomes were not in the interest of Islam and Muslims. Perhaps there were some positive aspects regarding the concern of some Americans to study Islam as they have said. However, the events were able to open the world to the U.S. and gave it many a chance to pressure and implement its policies. Therefore, we have said that it is the war of American interests, and Afghanistan is the psychological war to vent out the congestion of the American people and restore confidence in its government.

Bin Laden and Taliban are not devils as the U.S. sees them:

Is it normal to talk about the Taliban just as we talk about devils? Is it normal to talk about the Bin Laden just as we talk about a devil? The American president consumed these religious words and started to talk about a devil in the Islamic reality. He stole these words from the late Imam Khomieni but he did not come across the word the Great Satan and confined himself to the word devil. Therefore, we must consume what they want us to consume, and disprove the event and take all the negative and positive outcomes to employ them for the future.

One of our friends who was in the U.S. told me that in all of his relations even with the highly educated he was able to make a discussion or an objection because things have turned out to what looks like psychological hysteria which may have also turned into cultural hysteria.

They tried to tell us: do not object; say what we say. Either you be with us, fight in our ranks, carry out our policies, and serve our economy or else you are with terrorism.

The issue, dear beloved, is that we need a moment of thinking and quietude not just for this issue, but because there are cultural globalization. They are preventing our students who go there from studying in many majors because they do not want the third world to benefit from these majors as they might loose certain economic interests.

Consolidating the conceptions:

The problem is: do we stay inside or keep on borrowing our identity from outside. That is the issue. There is a lot of cultural talk that tell us that the Arab and Islamic intellect is a supernatural intellect, a superstitious intellect. Intellects that cannot give us progress, so adopt the western intellect and think like them . They want you to be confused between an eastern personality, which drags you to some of your habits and traditions, and a western personality that takes you away from your true personality. This problem, dearly beloved, needs an Islamic cultural movement that focuses on the method; what is way for thinking? How can we differentiate between superstition and reality? How can we differentiate between the unseen, which faith is based upon as a basis for the belief, and the unseen that lives in mazes without solid grounds in consolidation and discussion?

The legitimacy of the martyrdom operations”:

The martyrdom operations have had quite a significant role in our Jihad movement and modern history. We have clarified, from a juristic viewpoint, that these kinds of operations are not heresies in Jihad issues, because Allah did not specify to us the means for Jihad. Any means that aims at strengthening the legitimacy of war without offending a major human value is considered Jihad.

Therefore, we do not need special juristic evidence that legitimizes these kinds of operations to conform with the martyrdom path if the war was legitimate. Yet, we have to know where this Jihad method lies, and what are the major causes that it serves. Or, is it some kind of propaganda that serves narrow and minor causes.

We are addicted to backwardness:

We are well addicted to backwardness, and to non-intellect. The Holy Koran has guided us against other opinions, and has given freedom to the intellect to argue loudly. It has condemned those who say: {We found our fathers on a course, and surely we are guided by their footsteps.}

Scholars are not infallible; they make mistakes and also do the right thing. For the Mujtahid (high ranking scholar such as a Marjaa) there is a double reward if he is correct and one reward if he was wrong. The educated people are not infallible; we all make mistakes. How come we allow those in the past to accuse each other of mistakes while we have no right to argue about them? Is it so that if a man from the past justifies us to make him infallible? Does time provide infallibility to man?

The arrogants’ offensive that we are confronting now on the security and political levels in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan, and in many Islamic countries is the most dangerous. There is a cultural offensive that aims at counterfeiting the Islamic lines so that Islam becomes American at times and British at others, just as the late Imam Khomeini used to express “understand Islam very well so that you can distinguish between the genuine Islam and the American or arrogant Islam”. But if we cannot understand the genuine Islam then how can we distinguish right from wrong.

And we stay in our genuine battle in Palestine, in Lebanon, and the Arab world. We have to freeze all the marginal differences and all the minor things, because people are plotting against us. They are saying that the new battlefield for the American war is in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, or Sudan. They may even introduce new names every day.

What is needed is much of awareness, unity, solidity, planning, and future outlook in addition to protecting the Mujahideen and taking care of them with all the possible means. We also have to expel all those who represent the “cultural ignorance”, so to speak, and not to allow them to introduce an immature or counterfeited culture. We have to choose those who talk and work because the stage, which we are going through, that they called as international coalition or rather American coalition is aimed at making a new world order. They want to make a world according to their interests, so we have to think how to prevent them from approaching our world. We have to plan for the future the same way they do. And we have to make our world according to our values and interests. We have to build the individual human who moves as a pathfinder, and to build the human who personify the society and the nation.

Shall we make the first step? Shall we freeze all the marginal issues or kill our major causes for the interest of our narrow and minor causes? This is the major challenge. This is path of the Islamic religious teaching that this enduring and blessed association has taken upon itself and whom we want to progress in its Islamic teachings through its curriculum, techniques, and contents.

Date : Ramadan 12 1422 H. November 27 2001 A.D.