In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
The Religious Authority, Grand Ayatullah H.E. Sayyed M. H. Fadlullah delivered the two Friday prayer sermons at the Imamain Al-Hassanain Mosque on Rajab 17, 1427 AH/ August 11, 2006, AD. Several prominent religious scholars, dignitaries, officials, and thousands of believers attended the Jumu’a prayer. (Edited version of the Sermons)
The First Sermon
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Resistance, Unity, and Piety: The Path to Victory
Allah, the Most Exalted, says in His Glorious Book: "O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except as Muslims [in submission to Him]." Surat Al 'Imran (3:102).
In these verses of Surah Al 'Imran, Allah instructs the believers on several points that have to do with their private and public lives. Allah, the Most Exalted, asks the Muslims in these verses to make their faith a movement in their minds, an emotion in their hearts, and a guide in all their lives. He wants the believer to know that Allah is watching him in all his affairs, so that he will not think except in a way that conforms with unifying Allah, and he will not love except those whom Allah loves, or hate except those whom Allah hates. When he wants to take any step, either backward or forward, he should be sure that his move pleases Allah. This is what has been narrated that Imam Ali (a.s.) meant when he said: "I have not seen anything, without seeing Allah behind or with it." He considers that all manifestations of the universe are images that indicate the existence of Allah.
Thus Allah, as evident in the verse, wants Muslims to fear Allah as He should be feared and die as Muslims, meaning that the Muslim should preserve his faith in the face of all deviations and complications, and not be affected by Satan’s influences and turn into an unbeliever without knowing. The believer should be cautious towards all the ideas that the deviations, Satan, and the deviators spread, to remain on the path of belief until he dies. This is what Prophet Yusuf (a.s.) asked Allah when he met with his father and reconciled with his brothers. His wish, the wish of a man whom Allah gave a superior position of power and taught him how to interpret the narrations and visions, was to die as a Muslim. This is, too, what we read in the supplications of Ahl al-Bayt. Imam Zein al-Abidin (a.s.) says in his supplication of sublime morals: "Let me stay alive as long as my life is in Your obedience. But if it becomes a playground of Satan, then take me to You before Your anger on me becomes firm." He also says in his Tuesday supplication: "Make life an increase for me in every good, and death an ease for me from every evil. And make my future better than my past, and my best deeds the last of them, and my best day the day I meet You."
And we read Allah’s saying: "And hold fast to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favor of Allah upon you - when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favor, brothers. And you were on the edge of a pit of the Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be guided." Surat Al 'Imran (3:103). To hold fast to this rope is to adhere to it both in ideology and in practice. The Messenger talked about this rope and considered it to be the Holy Quran that stretches from Heaven to Earth. Thus, the believers ought to adhere to the Quran and hold fast to it in the face of every challenge and deviation.
To strengthen the unity of believers and to further emphasize its significance, Allah, the Most Exalted, says: "And let there be [arising] from you a nation inviting to [all that is] good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and those will be the successful." Surat Al 'Imran (3:104). This is the great responsibility that Allah, the Most Exalted, has placed on the believers, for this is what ensures their success in this life and in the Hereafter. He wants us not to be like those who dispersed and were divided although clear evidence was sent to them. Those will endure great torment. They are those who have turned their religion into many parties and did not remain firm in their belief in all that affirms Allah’s oneness and everything that ties people to Allah.
He, the Most Exalted, then says that on that day, "[Some] faces, that Day, will be bright - Laughing, rejoicing at good news. And [other] faces, that Day, will have upon them dust. Blackness will cover them. Those are the disbelievers, the wicked ones." Surat 'Abasa (80:38-42). As for those whose faces will turn white, they will immortally enjoy Allah’s bliss.
Thus, this chapter aims at outlining all the elements that join the believers in one solid unity, obeying Allah and believing in His Oneness, and this is what all Muslims should compete to achieve.
The Second Sermon
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
America continues to wage war against Lebanon through the Israeli Army it provides with sophisticated weapons and smart bombs, to enable it to bomb civilians—women, children, and the elderly—and ruin their houses on their heads, and to pursue those who are displaced to the places they consider safe. Israel even threatens the Red Cross to prevent them from saving the people and providing them with aid. It warns the people to leave their villages, and when they do, it hunts them in their cars and in every means of transport they might use. The American President and his Administration continue to watch the tragic Lebanese scene, feeling joyful for this Israeli "victory," demonstrated by destroying the Lebanese infrastructure. They continue to promise the Lebanese a democratic future, although the country has no means to defend itself against any American-Israeli aggression. They want Lebanon to be powerless against Israel to the extent that the US will not give the Lebanese Army a tenth of what it gives the Israeli Army, despite all the talk about the will to arm the Lebanese Army. Nevertheless, the Resistance was able not only to face the Israeli army but also to inflict strong blows that undermined its morale.
President Bush is trying to fool the International Community he controls by saying that this war was a result of abducting the two Israeli soldiers, which could have ended in an exchange of prisoners, like several previous similar exchanges. But all political and military strategists know that such a war needs a political plan that is based on rejecting any force that challenges the American-Israeli policy in the region, which should, in their view, be free for establishing the new Middle East that they want to usurp its wealth and resources, especially since America still suffers from its political and military failure in Iraq and its stumbling in some other axis in the region, despite the efforts of the regimes they installed to turn every country into a big prison and a theatre to execute the American and Israeli strategies.
The American President and his administration, which is composed of Jewish groups, the Neocons, and the Zionist Christians who control the monopoly companies that control the Arab resources… This Administration is trying to topple every position of Arab and Muslim strength, to leave the region free to promote arrogant interests, even if it means, as they are doing today, eradicating the people and the economies in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq, with no one but the Resistance to face them heroically and courageously.
America also continues to wage a diplomatic-political war in the Security Council through its draft resolution, which in effect is an Israeli resolution. It is regrettable that France has become a co-sponsor for this resolution, for it has hurt the Lebanese reality, giving Israel in peace what it was unable to take in war. America and its allies are still trying to promote this resolution, despite the fact that Lebanon has presented its national project, which the Lebanese have all agreed on and which was supported by the Arab League and the Islamic Conference, with France drawing nearer to it. Nevertheless, they all can do nothing in the face of the American insistence to pass its resolution through those it controls in the Security Council. Perhaps America is trying to gain more time to enable Israel to execute some of its military plans through a land offensive to achieve anything it can call a "victory." America, which did not accept a ceasefire, does not mind killing the Lebanese children and destroying the country if it leads to letting Israel be victorious and realizing some of its plans in Lebanon and the region. We want the Lebanese Government to hold fast because this is what earns it the world’s respect.
As for the Arab and Muslim states, we have repeated several times that we are not asking them to engage in a war with Israel so that they will not claim that they are incompetent and that their economies will suffer. We are asking them to exert certain political and economic pressures that make the Americans feel that they are facing certain difficulties in the region and that earns them the respect of their nation that is facing eradication in Lebanon and Palestine. The Arab peoples are watching the attitude and the movements of the Arab League envoys to the Security Council. They are afraid that they will not attain any political gain, even at the level of minor amendments of the American-French draft resolution. This will constitute a diplomatic defeat and demonstrate Arab incompetence, which will affect the entire situation in the region. Lebanon is waiting, but until when will Lebanon swing between hope and despair?
Lastly, we say to our steadfast and patient people, who are aware of the current situation and the American-Israeli strategy: you have proven to the world that you can bear the responsibility of a free, independent, and sovereign people that did not compromise or surrender but remained steadfast, proud, and dignified. Moreover, we still need to remain steadfast and conscious of what is going on, while remembering what Allah told us regarding that they too are suffering, but we have the advantage of seeking Allah’s support while they do not.
On another level, we appreciate the honorable stand of all the Lebanese sects in Sidon, Beirut, the North, and the mountains, who received the displaced with love and generosity, proving that the Lebanese live the spiritual Muslim and Christian values. This suggests that the tragedy has proven that the national unity is still alive in the minds and hearts of the Lebanese. We hope that this humanitarian unity will constitute a basis for political unity through a national objective dialogue that is void of all sectarian and partisan complications. The new Lebanon needs all its children, despite all the differences in points of view, all of which seek to serve the motherland. Lebanon should be a homeland for everybody and not for any regional or international axis, with its relations with others based on mutual respect and interests, sovereignty, freedom, and independence.
Everybody in Lebanon and the Arab and Muslim worlds should stand with the heroic Resistance, which is the only force that gave Lebanon its dignity, Pan-Arabism its content, and Islam its spirit. It was able to punish the enemy, for the first time in history, for the crimes it committed.