| Fadlullah's Letter on the occasion of celebrating the New Hijri Year. Sayyed Fadlullah calls upon all Muslims to unite their stands |
Commemorating the New Hijra Year, The Religious Authority, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, delivered a letter addressing all the Arab and Muslim peoples. He said:
On the occasion of celebrating the New Hijra New Year, we would like to shed light on certain milestones:
Firstly: In our historical reality, the Hijra reflects the difficult state of sufferance and the great challenge that the Prophet (p.) and his Muslim companions have faced at a time the Islamic movement started to enter a new stage in the call, culture and movement as well as in building the state, facing the challenges and directing the struggle, until Islam was able to impose its existence in the Arab reality alongside other forces. This issue requires us, as an extension to the Islamic line, to shoulder our responsibilities to remake history and not to live on our past glories, while our reality is falling. Allah says: "This is a people that have passed away; they shall have what they earned and you shall have what you earn, and you shall not be called upon to answer for what they did."
Secondly, the current stage is one of the most dangerous periods in Islamic history in which arrogance and evil have started to destroy Islam in its political, economic, security and cultural spheres. Besides, this period has drawn Islam into the labyrinth of international politics and economics and has made the Muslims preoccupied with the trivial and marginal issues, in a bid to deprive Islam of its power of participating in the world decision-making process. It has also prevented Islam from being a system that is open on the Muslim's life, to the extent that demanding for putting Islam into practice became an accusation in which those who call for it should be executed, even in the Muslim countries.
Therefore, Muslims should grasp the implications of the Hijra in order to grant Islam the dynamism in the generations' conscience as well as in the balance of the entire reality. They should also unite their positions, stands and opinions in order to prove the real power that they possess through the natural wealth that is stored in their land, the strategic positions that are extended in their countries, their intellectual potentials, the spirit that is far above the matter, or through the values that are extended in the movement of reality. In addition, they must reject arrogance in order to emigrate from weakness to strength, from incapacity to power and from being on the margin of history to being effective in making decisions.
Thirdly, we should not blame only the foreign powers for this fall although they have played a big role in it. Thus, we should beware of our weak points in which ignorance, fanaticism, isolation, and exaggeration are at their forefront… such weakness that drove some parties to be Takfiris, to kill, explode, and destroy, and thus dividing the Muslims into parties that are not open on one another and do not support each other. Therefore, we should return to Allah's Book in which He says: "then if you quarrel about anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger." The Prophet says: "The believer to the other believer is like a firm and compact structure ".
That ruptured reality has caused us to lose Palestine and is still making us lose more than Palestine. It has also provided for the occupation the suitable environment for staying long in our countries, confiscating our wealth, abusing our capabilities, instigating strives and chaos in our communities and exploiting the means by which some Takfiri groups are moving in order to present Islam as the religion that resort to violence, encourages terrorism, and does not believe in justice and peace, and thus distorting many Islamic spiritual, moral, and humanitarian concepts, and considering Islam as a religion that is not worthy of living and that can not participate in building the human culture.
Fourthly, if the beginning of our Hijri calendar is open up on the commemoration of Ashoura, we want this occasion to be an Islamic one that is open on the issues of unity while refusing all means of instigation that offend the power of Islam in its unity and future. Hence, Al-Husseini values are the Islamic values on which all Muslims meet. So, let us realize the importance of the movement of the role models in history and leave its particulars that represent the actions of those who made this history.
Lastly: The early Muslims have shouldered the responsibility of Islam for the sake of conveying it to us. Each one of them, according to his own experience and culture, has participated in making the history. As an extension of all Muslim generations, we should consider Islam, as a thought, method, and Sharia, as Allah's trust to us. Thus, we have to turn the difference between us into a source of richness that is organized by dialogue, a position of pride that is based on unity on our common issues, a base of power in facing challenges in order to rebuild – in our current stage – a new history for the entire nation. Such a history that retrieves the nation's pride and gives Islam its dynamism and vitality.