Allah, The Most Exalted, says in His Holy Book: Allah has promised those who have believed among you and done righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession [to authority] upon the earth just as He granted it to those before them and that He will surely establish for them [therein] their religion which He has preferred for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me. But whoever disbelieves after that – then those are the defiantly disobedient. (24:55). Allah, The Most Exalted, speaks the Truth.

The 15^th of the month of Sha’ban is the blessed birth anniversary of the seal of the honorable chain of the Imams of Ahl El- Beit, Al-Qaim , The Awaited Justice, Imam Muhammad bin Al-Hassan Al-Askari – Al-Mahdi – The master of the time; may our souls be sacrificed for his coming .

This Imam whose anniversary returns every year to bring hope to the souls of the oppressed, downtrodden and the wronged. And to remind them that the future will not favor the tyrants, the arrogant, the wrongdoers   and the corrupt. It is for the pious worshippers of Allah, The Most Exalted, and the callers for the Right, freedom and justice, as well as the downtrodden… This hope, which will be fulfilled when the Imam appears, for  the Holy Ayats and authentic Hadiths have indicated that he will spread justice in the entire world. This is not an illusion or a day dream as some say. It is a promise that Allah, The Most Exalted, made in His Holy Book, as in the Ayat we recited in the beginning : Allah has promised those who have believed among you and done righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession [to authority] upon the earth just as He granted it to those before them and that He will surely establish for them [therein] their religion which He has preferred for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me.  And We have already written in the book [of Psalms] after the [previous] mention that the land is inherited by My righteous servants.    And We intended to favor those who were held as weak in the land, and to make them leaders and make them inheritors…  The interpreters have pointed out that this means that these promises will be realized when The Imam emerges. The Messenger(p.) too, has mentioned this in his Hadith. He says: if the entire duration of the world’s existence has already been exhausted and only one day is left (before the day of judgment), Allah will expand that day to such a length of time, as to accommodate the kingdom of a person from my Ahle Bayt who will be called by my name. He will fill out the earth with peace and justice as it will have been full of injustice and tyranny. He also said: I leave among you two valuable things: the Book of Allah and my Ahl Bayt. If you hold on to them firmly, you will not go astray. They will not be separated from each other until they meet me together at the Fountain (Hawd). This indicates that the Quran and The Imamate are inseparable, which means that an Imam  would be present at all times.

 Thus, our belief in the Imam (May Allah, The Most Exalted, hasten his   honorable emergence) is founded on the belief in the truthfulness of God’s promises and the Hadiths of the Messenger who does not speak from [his own] inclination.  It is but revelation revealed (to him) … If some raises doubt about how he lived that long we say that Allah, The Most Exalted, is capable of everything.

 In this blessed occasion, we have to ask ourselves: what is the role we have to play as we wait for his emergence?  Should we wait until he emerges to practice what we have been commanded with of enjoining good and forbidding evil and establishing justice and confronting oppression and tyranny … watching tyranny, deviation and oppression around us without confronting them? This is not right, since these are our duties that we were ordered to do as long as we are capable of doing them in every time and place …Or should we be preoccupied by the signs of appearance? This is what the Imams have called on us not to do. Imam As-Sadiq said  ; “Liars are the timers. We did not time in the past, nor do we time for the future”.

 Thus, every timing for his emergence is baseless, even if one of the signs appears, this sign might be for a different era.

We ought to know that the time of emergence of the Imam is in the hands of Allah, The Most Exalted, Who informed no one about it.    He kept it a secret until the ground is set and the time is right and the nation worthy of him is ready. Then, when he emerges all the signs will be clear. What we ought to do in this stage is to wait for him as we strive to realize the goals our Prophet talked about when he said that the Imam will fill the world with justice. We should establish this justice by being just to ourselves and others … with the friend and the enemy… to make justice the criteria by which we measure our words, feelings and support to individuals and parties or opposing it … We should stand with all just causes and fight wronging and oppression, even if it were at our own expenses and regardless of the sacrifices. For he who stands with Imam Al-Mahdi cannot be neutral between right and wrong, good and evil and justice and oppression … Neutrals, in his logic, are partners to the tyrants and arrogant…

 That is why, dear loved ones, when we ask Allah, The Most Exalted, to hasten his appearance, we have to make sure that we have played our part on this road and that we are ready to shoulder the big responsibility he commissioned us with. We should not be like the man who saw in a dream that the Imam is asking him to forgo some of his money or position, thanked Allah, The Most Exalted, when he woke up and realized that he had been dreaming.

 We are going to wait for the Imam eagerly in all the arenas of Jihad, knowledge, building, fighting oppression, work …and pray that we will have the chance of seeing him and fighting under his banner:

O Allah, (please do) show me his magnificent mien

and his praiseworthy forehead,

delight my eyes by letting me have a look at him.

And expedite his relief,

make his reappearance easy,

clear a spacious space for him

guide me to follow his course,

give success to his issues,

and confirm his strength.

O Allah, construct Your lands through him…

By Your Mercy

O Most Merciful.

The second sermon

Worshippers of Allah, The Most Exalted, I advise you and myself   to observe the eve of the middle of Sha’ban; this blessed night which The Hadiths have described as the best night after the night of Qadr.  It is a night in which Allah, The Most Exalted, bestows His rewards on the believers and forgives them. In this night that, as Allah, The Most Exalted, vowed, God will not fail any one who asks Him unless it involves a sin.  According to one of the Prophet’s wives, The Prophet (a.s.) used to spend the night praying, supplicating, mentioning Allah, The Most Exalted, and reciting the Quran.

 Let us, dear loved ones, follow the example of The Messenger, and seize this opportunity to pray to Allah, The Most Exalted, to relief us from our calamities and make our future better than our past and become more capable of confronting challenges.

We begin by Lebanon, where the Lebanese expected that the political parties involved in forming the government would sympathize with them, forgoing their partisan and personal interests, and reach an agreement on forming a government that paves the way to relief them from their sufferings. But the results were   disappointing and showed, yet again, how much the political class is heedless towards the interests and security of the Lebanese. Not only did they leave the country in the hands of fate, but they also took their differences to the social media and the media in general without taking into consideration its effect on the already tense “street” the economic stability and internal peace of the   country, as well as Lebanon’s image abroad.

 Therefore, we want to say once again to all those who are forming the government that they should stop tampering with the country and opening it to the winds of foreign interference. The solutions will not be reached by creating tensions, muscle flexing, intransigence and scoring points. Only constructive dialogue and mutual understanding based on reciprocal concessions that take into account the people’s interests would yield positive results.  Drawing strength from their sects or foreign powers or domestic and external alliances is no longer   fruitful.

The country is already facing a catastrophe, especially after the rise in the price of the dollar and the aggravation of the economic and health crises   that the Lebanese cannot endure, yet it does not seem that the conscience of the responsibles is about to wake up nor does it seem that the greedy traders and smugglers would show any sympathy towards the people.

In this respect, we appreciate all the gestures in our society whether on the individual level or those ventured by institutions to aid the needy or participate in giving loans to the poor and those with limited income. We hope that these initiatives would expand so that we can pass this difficult stage in which the foreign pressures have overlapped with the corruption and irresponsibility of those who were put in charge by the people and disappointed them. We will not bet on the external powers that will take much more than what they give.  We will also not bet on those who want the country a milking cow. Our bet is on building a just state and humanitarian leaders who share then suffering and hunger of the people.  

In occupied Palestine, where the enemy continues to    execute its schemes of Judaizing Jerusalem through its decision of demolishing tens of houses in the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem, benefitting from the normalization agreements and the official Arab rush to gain  the Enemy’s  satisfaction.

  In the meantime, the latest elections in the Zionist Entity have shown an increase in the inclination towards the extreme right, which would lead to the increase to the pressures on the Palestinians, through further Judaizing and annexation. This calls for enhancing Palestinian internal unity, and Arab, Muslim and all freedom fighters support. 

 In Yemen, where the suffering of its people as a result of the aggressive war against it increases leading to an incomparable tragedy, we support any initiative that ends this absurd war and call for a reconciliation that takes the interests of the Yemenis and their free decision into consideration. It is high time for the blockade to end and the raids and battles to stop and the dialogue to save the afflicted millions to begin.