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 Jumada al-Awwal 15, 1428 AH/January 05, 2007, 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
Piety: A Responsibility Towards the Past, Present, and Future
Allah says in His Glorious Book: O you who have believed, fear Allah. And let every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow - and fear Allah. Indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do. And be not like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves. Those are the defiantly disobedient. Surat al-Hashr (59:18-19)
In this Ayah, there is a call from Allah, the Most Exalted, to all believers to be pious in studying the history that they made and lived, each according to his age and circumstances: You should study what you had done in the past; how did you perform your religious duties. Did you perform them as Allah has ordained? How did you perform your duties towards your family? Did you plan to establish an Islamic family that opens up on Allah, good and justice? Were you just or did you wrong them as the strong wrongs the weak?
Then in the broader Islamic community… How was your relationship with fellow Muslims who are your brothers in faith and whom Allah wanted you to be good and fair with … to give each what is due to him and to provide advice for all believers to safeguard their dignity, strength and unity to the best of your capabilities so that the Muslims will feel that they are but one body, if any part of it gets sick the other parts will look after it.
What did you do in your past? Did you follow the straight path… the path that Allah has bestowed on the believers, those whose portion is not (His) wrath or did you deviate… to understand yourself and evaluate your entire history. Since this history is not a thing from the past. Allah will preserve it. He will preserve it for you and against you… If it is good you will be rewarded and if it is evil you will be punished.
So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it, And whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it. Surat al-Zalzalah (99:7-8)
Everything that you have done will be recorded by the writers that Allah has appointed. Then you will read your own book: "Read your record. Sufficient is yourself against you this Day as accountant." Surat al-Isra' (17:14)
So, read it in your life while you can still change it:
O you who have believed, fear Allah. And let every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow - and fear Allah. Indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do. Surat al-Hashr (59:18)
Whatever you plant in this life you will reap in the future. Since tomorrow is also the rest of this life on earth, that is why Allah says fear Allah in what you have left in this life, and try to gain a credit that you will need in the Hereafter, since Allah knows about all that you do.
Responsibility Over Time
In the light of this, we receive any new year whether the one that starts with the birth of Jesus Christ or the one that indicates the Hijra of Prophet Muhammad. You have to know at the beginning and at the end of the year, what did you save from the last year to your new year? Have you gotten better, worse, or stayed in your place?
How did you assume your responsibilities? Did you develop yourself in the realms of piety, knowledge and experience… etc?
But, it is regrettable that people celebrate the New Year by dissolution and getting unconscious, forgetting everything about the realities. Thus they enter the New Year in a blind way without planning what they want to do in it. Many businessmen live in a state of emergency at the end of the year to review their books and learn if they have lost or gained. Yet, although financial loss could be compensated in the following year, when one loses himself, his soul and his relation with Allah nothing can compensate for such a loss.
We inspire, my dear beloved, from the supplication of Imam Zein Al-Abidien on the beginning of the day since it is similar to the beginning of the month and the beginning of the year, when he says:
"This is a fresh, new day, over us a ready witness. If we do good, it will take leave from us with praise, and if we do evil, it will part from us in blame. O Allah, bless Muhammad and his Household, provide us with the day's good companionship and preserve us against parting from it badly by doing a misdeed or committing a sin, whether small or great! Make our good deeds within it plentiful, empty us therein of evil deeds, and fill what lies between its two sides for us with praise and thanksgiving, wages and stores, bounty and beneficence!"
We inspire that Allah wants us to start the new year as we start a new day by sitting before Allah and asking Him to give us in our new year a sense of right, justice and wisdom.
Dear beloved,
As we celebrate the Christian new year and the Hijri new year that will follow in a few days time, I would like to say that we have no complexes in celebrating the birth of Christ and the new year that marks it. Because, we as Muslims, believe that Jesus Christ(p) is Allah's Messenger, and His word that He gave to Mary, therefore we glorify him just as we glorify all prophets. Then when we commemorate the Hijrah of our Prophet(p), we study the lessons of this immigration in an effort to learn how did the Prophet(p) act in every situation for Allah has told us that the Messenger(p) is a role model of perfection that we should emulate if we have hope in Allah and in the hereafter.
In these beginnings of the years, we ask Allah to strengthen Islam and unify all Muslims. We ask Him to make us a force in the face of the enemies of Allah, the Most Exalted, and His Messenger (p). We ask Him to make us one body that if any part of it gets sick the rest of the body will look after it. We ask Him to let us stand against anyone who incites sectarian strife among Muslims for Sunnis have only the Shiites (as supporters) and the Shiites have only the Sunnis.
We say to all Muslims in the world, those whom the international arrogance is trying to incite sectarian strife among them: Your responsibility is to unify and make Islam a formidable power. The international arrogance and the West are trying to destroy Islam both as a doctrine and a culture.
To counter that it is our responsibility to become a power that is able to protect itself and its nation. We should also plan for a future of dignity, unity and strength both for Islam and the Islamic nation.
The Second Sermon
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
America is Inciting Strife
The American Administration continues to destabilize the Muslim and Arab Worlds, by creating the so-called constructive anarchy that utilizes the media and every possible means to create civil strife and war.
In Iraq, the American President is considering increasing his troops to calm things down in Iraq or to avoid losing. But the entire world knows that the American failure in Iraq is not due to the number of troops, but to the policies of the occupation that hinder all solutions to the difficult internal problem. It is in the occupation itself that the Iraqis now reject, having been disillusioned with America's false pretensions of their mission being to save the Iraqis from the dictator whose rule was all in all a product of the CIA, this rule that made Iraq enter into internal and external adventures that impoverished the Iraqis and appropriated the free, displaced the citizens and destabilized the entire region.
That is why the patriotic and honorable resistance has taken on itself to confront the occupation on the military and political levels, based on the Islamic rule that rejects occupation in principle since Allah wants the Muslims to be strong and dignified.
Thus, those faithful to Islam and to Iraq and its citizens have rejected the sectarian strife Israel and the occupation are inciting by making spilling the blood of Muslims permissible through the black Takfiri mentality, thus making the killing of Iraqi innocent civilians a priority to the extent that children, women, elderly, workers, farmers and religious scholars killed have reached hundreds of thousands, creating a basis for a sectarian strife and ultimately a civil war.
We believe that the Americans are behind all this security anarchy and these shortages in vital services, since they intend to prolong their stay in Iraq to save their strategic interests, and continue their efforts to create sectarian strife between the Sunnis and the Shiites in the entire region. They are talking about two Arab parties; a moderate one and an extremist one, and trying to make the Arab regimes fear Iran instead of Israel, which should become a friend of these regimes at the expense of the Palestinian people.
A Blind American War Against Islam
We are afraid that increasing the number of troops in Iraq, sending aircraft carriers to the Gulf, and creating an atmosphere of tension through all that talk about the Iranian nuclear threat aims at paving the road for an aggression against Iran, which could lead to a huge fire in the entire region. The American President suffers from a hysteria that makes him look for any war that enables him to achieve a victory and through him a victory for the neo-conservatives and the Jewish Lobby.
In this respect, it is a pity that the EU has yielded to the American aggressive policies in the region.
We call on the Islamic world to be aware of the threats the American Administration poses and confront this president who has become a raging bull, and this blind Administration that plans only to wage a war against Islam and Muslims.
Benefiting from the Painful Situation
We say to those in charge of the Arab and Muslim regimes that they have to be with their peoples' vital interests and their critical causes. And that they should not yield to the American-Israeli dictates, lest their peoples will see them as dictators. They should stop acting as tools who realize the dictates of those who want to usurp their wealth and undermine their independence. History will not have any mercy on those who do not respect the trust they have been entrusted with. They will be attacked by all the forces of freedom like all dictators before them.
We call upon the Iraqis to learn the lesson of the tragic experience their country is drawn into, and acknowledge that there is no future for them as long as this fragmentation persists and as long as they do not seek to unify on the basis of reconciliation and rational dialogue that brings everybody safely ashore.
We also call on all Palestinian officials to be aware of their political and security situation and not to be deceived by the promises the enemy's prime minister has made to the PA President.
They should know how to meet on the ground of national unity that encompasses the Authority, the government and the resistance, since there is no way to achieve liberation other than unity.
We also call upon the downtrodden in Somalia who are being manipulated by the Americans who have commissioned satellite states to execute their plan to avenge a previous defeat ... we call upon them to learn from all their past experiences that shattered Somalia into pieces.
Lebanon: A National Unity Government
In Lebanon, the first step on the way of establishing political and national reconciliation is by confronting all the calls that incite sectarian strife between the Shiites and Sunnis and pave the way for what some of those who are implementing the American plan have sought: a civil war which we do not want the Muslims to fall into.
Islamic unity is the only Muslim option, and we call on their scholars, politicians, and social dignitaries to seek to build the power that Allah wants to build, and so that the conscious Muslim unity will pave the road to the national unity.
We say to all parties that the differences between the ruling coalition and the opposition over the issue of the international court or the legitimacy of the government are not that complicated, which means that the Arab initiative should be given a chance. We also warn those who incite sectarian strife that fails any reconciliation attempt:
Everybody should know that no reforming plan or foreign initiative could succeed unless a national unity government that acts as a forum for dialogue is established. This means that the dialogue will be conducted inside the institutions, instead of the dialogue conference which was not able to achieve positive results.
Adopting real politics that does not deviate from the national constants can solve the Lebanese problem. Can we reach the shore of safety?