The first sermon

Allah, The Most Exalted, says in His Glorious Book: Say, [O Muhammad], “I do not ask you for this message any payment [but] only good will through kinship.

    Allah, The Most Exalted, speaks the truth. This Ayat descended to the Messenger(p.) to inform him about  the reward he should ask the Muslims for all what he had done to them as he took  them out of the darkness of ignorance, backwardness and fragmentation to  become the best nation ever created. This reward was the good will through kinship. This announcement makes us wonder if it is possible that The Prophet whose call surpassed all familial, fanatic and tribal considerations, could ask people to love his close relatives for the soul reason of being his kin, even if they did not believe in his call. This contradicts what Imam Ali (a.s.) who was the closest to him said about the Messenger : The friend of Muhammad is he who obeys Allah, even though he may have no blood relationship, and the enemy of Muhammad is he who disobeys Allah even though he may have near kinship.”

 And we have seen how he disavowed his uncle, Abu Lahab, because he was an idolater and how he considered Salman the Persian to be a member of Ahl El-Beit because he was a pious believer…

The Messenger (p.) answered all these questions when he explained that what is meant by kinship” is only a specific part of them. After this Ayat was revealed, people came to him and asked about what was meant by this and who the people they should love were. The Messenger(p.) explained that they were Ali, Fatima, Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein. Thus, the Messenger was not calling on people to love his kinship because they were merely his relatives. He was talking about those who were distinguished with the traits of piety, belief, giving, knowledge and sacrifice… that made them deserve this love. Those whom Allah has purified .Allah intends only to remove from you the impurity [of sin], O people of the [Prophet’s] household, and to purify you with [extensive] purification.

They are those who acted as a security valve that prevented strife and deviation, as they were described by the Messenger: I am leaving behind me two very weighty things for you. So long as you will remain connected with them you will never go astray after my departure and they (the two things) are heavier than one another. One of them is the Book of Allah and it is a rope which hangs from the heavens to the earth and the other is my progeny, my Ahlul Bayt (a.s.). Doubtlessly they will never be separated from one another until they come to me at the side of the pond of Kauthar in Paradise. By this Ayat, Allah, The Most Exalted ,   wanted  Muhammad(p.) to tell Muslims that I am not asking for any reward except  the love of these people whom I have entrusted with Islam. If they do this, they will not fall astray or disperse. Furthermore, this religion will preserve its purity.

Dear loved ones: we are called by the Messenger to love Ahl El-Beit. This love that Allah, The Most Exalted, made a duty, which everyone who follows the Messenger should perform.  Yet, this love transcends emotions and extends to the love of Islam which they ( Ahl El- Beit)lived and sacrificed for. They expressed this fact by the following Hadith: it is not sufficient for one to associate himself with Shiism and say “I am a lover of Ahl ul-Bayt (a.s.)?  By Allah, our Shia is not, but the one who fears Allah and obeys His Commands.”  The Imams did not want their followers to love them as persons. They wanted them to adopt their principles, morals, behavior, worship and Jihad. Such love is the love we should adopt these days as we recall the memory of Ashoura in which Imam Al-Hussein sacrificed his life and those of his companions for the cause of Islam. We should inspire the imam when he said: “By God, I did not rise out of selfishness or with the aim of oppression or corruption! But rather, I rose to seek reform in my grandfather’s nation, I want to enjoin good and forbid evil…  We should not compromise or flatter in such matters of principle. Rather, we should follow Al-Hussein example when he said: I do not give you my hand to give humiliation, and I do not comply with what you are asking me as slaves.

Dear loved ones:  to love Al-Hussein is to enjoin good and forbid evil. It is seeking reform, fighting corruption and stealing public money. It is to be with the right and justice no matter how big the sacrifices are … to be as truthful and as loyal as the companions of Hussein who were martyred at Karbala and refused to leave although he urged them to.

 Dear loved ones: We are in a dire need to benefit of this occasion to strengthen our will to reform what was corrupted in our religion and society, and be one of those talked about by the Ayat that the Imam used to recite in Karbala, whenever one of his companions was martyred: Among the believers are men true to what they promised Allah . Among them is he who has fulfilled his vow [to the death], and among them is he who awaits [his chance]. And they did not alter [the terms of their commitment] by any alteration.

The second sermon

Worshippers of Allah, The Most Exalted: I advise you and myself, to inspire the stance of Al-Hurr bin Yazid Al-Riyahi on the tenth of Muharram when he decided to leave Yazid’s army and join Al-Hussein. It was a very difficult decision for it meant that he was about to leave all the fortunes and authority he had expected to gain. He began to become agitated and worried. A friend of his was surprised and asked him “What is wrong with you Hurr? I am puzzled, for by God if I were asked about the bravest man in our army I wouldn’t hesitate to mention your name, and now you are so disturbed and worried?”

 Al-Hurr said “I find myself between the Hell and the Heaven, and I have to select between them, and by God I will not choose but Heaven, even if I were cut to pieces or burnt to ashes!” The choice Al-Hurr made should be the option we ought to adopt in every stand we take between the right and the wrong and between good and evil and between wronging and justice no matter what the cost is. When we do that we will earn the Heaven Al-Hurr sought, and become more capable of facing challenges.

 We begin by Lebanon where coronavirus continues to be the obsession of the Lebanese, especially after the daily big increase in the number of infected people. In this respect, we renew the call to all citizens to abide by all protection measures to save themselves and those around them.

Moreover, we support every measure the government takes, even if it leads to the closure of several sectors, but this does not exempt the government from the responsibility of compensating for them so that they will not have to lay off their employees or give them an unpaid leave.

The government should take all measure of helping its citizens, so that they will not be forced not to obey the shutdown measures to sustain their living.

In the meantime, the Lebanese sufferings from the dreadful social and economic conditions  continue to increase ,especially after the Governor   of the central bank had hinted that the subsiding of the essential commodities will ultimately  come to an end, which will increase the intolerable burdens the Lebanese are already suffering from.

We call on the government to make every effort so that it will not have to take this decision and prevent a social catastrophe, which will lead to a flooding rage whose consequences will also hit the decision makers in this country.

On the security level, we would like to comment on the dangerous and regretful incident that took place in Khalde and that could have spread to many other places and taken a sectarian dimension.

As we appreciate the awareness of the relevant responsible officials and the role they played to end this incident and prevent it from turning into a strife, we call on all Lebanese not to fall in the trap of those who seek to inflame it. We also call on the security and judiciary authorities to deal with the aftermath of what happened and perform a thorough investigation to punish those who were involved in it as well as those who instigated them, and do their best to ensure that it would not be repeated.

In the meantime, the Zionist Enemy continues its violations in land, sea and air; the last of which was the bombing of the Lebanese villages on the southern borders. These repeated violations reveal the enemy’s   intentions towards this country and the need to make additional effort to prevent it from realizing them.

It is regretful that all this is happening while the Lebanese political parties continue to give priority to their internal differences and calculations that are accompanied with external pressures.

 Faced by all this, we renew our call to the political parties to shoulder their responsibilities to the citizens and stop caring solely about their own interests or settling their accounts. They should speed up the formation of an affective and capable government that could perform the reforms that will earn it the confidence of the Lebanese and the whole world…

The political parties should try to evade the rage of this nation that will not have mercy on those who do not care about its interests and that is no longer able of more suffering.

At the same time, we call on the Lebanese not to use offensive language when they talk to one another and not to enable those who seek to stir strive to succeed. The religious leaders should be faithful to their values and call for mercy and leniency and saying what is best. They should not be an element of creating a rift between the Lebanese and increasing the tensions among them.

Lastly, on the painful occasion of the disappearance of Imam Moussa As-Sadr who was an example of the scholar that was open to the issues of life and who constituted a symbol of Islamic and national unity, as well as opening on the Arab and Muslim worlds… He also sought to immune the country from strife and stood fast against corruption, deviation, and supported the Palestinians against the Zionist enemy…

On this occasion, we renew our call to unveil this case that is important to all Lebanese, since the Imam was not an Imam of one sect, but an Imam of the homeland as a whole. And it is our responsibility to inspire him as a role model and to be united on the aim of revealing his fate.