Lebanese prayer leaders warn:

Pan-Arabism plan aim at confrontation with Iran

Rasa – Lebanon Friday prayer leaders stressed necessity of vigilance in national and regional changes and highlighted the importance of national unity and also warned against Turkey’s regional policies.

News ID: 3971

Date: 20 February 2016 - 20:36

RNA – Ayatollah Afif al-Nablusi, the Friday prayer leader of Sidon, slammed the extremist policies of Turkey warning that the plague of war will spread to both neighbouring countries and within the country as well.

He referred to the efforts of Turkey to expand the crisis in Syria, imagining that it can realize the dream of Ottoman Empire and said, “There was a time that Ottoman Empire imposed its rule on the Arab countries and we will not let that happen again.”

The Lebanese cleric slammed Turkey for supporting and arming terrorists, allowing them to pass through Turkey to Syria, looting Syrian assets and collapsing the ancient heritages in the country noting that, “The Turkish government’s behaviour is in contrast with the claims made by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that Turkey does not intend to trouble neighbouring countries because not only it has brought big problems for other countries but also it has create problems for some other countries to the point that there are words on outbreak of third world war.”

Ayatollah Shaykh Abdul-Amir Qabalan, deputy of the Shi’a Supreme Council, in his weekly sermon stressed Arab and Islamic regions are plagued by clashes and disagreements portraying the area as a prey to feed greedy colonial powers.

“Why should your (Arab) ethnicity be stimulated against Iran who backs Palestine and the resistance but it does not move you against the Turks who have destroyed Syria and support ISIL?” he said, calling Muslims and Arab nations to unite based on the holy book of Islam and said, “The Quran is a resource for all Muslims, a book which invites all to unity and forgetting dissension.”

He also demanded that Iran and Saudi Arabia start talks for solving regional issues saying, “These problems have engulfed the region and threat it with phantom of dissension and disintegration and the pending quagmire of catastrophic chaos which will drown Arab and Islamic countries.”

Shaykh Maher Hammoud, the Sunni prayer leader of al-Quds Mosque in Sidon noted, “We are hearing an illogical cries of ‘We are Arab’ as if someone is in ambush to rob us of our Arab identity. It then announces that the move aims at uniting all agents against Persian-Iranian threat or a Shi’a threat.”

He added, “It should be noted that calls for Pan-Arabism is in full contradiction with Islamic principles that the Islam says that Arabs is not greater than non-Arabs since the only principle for ascendance is piety.”

Shaykh Maher Hammoud addressed some extremist Arabs who propose Pan-Arabism in confrontation with Iran and said, “Here I ask these extremists that why should your ethnicity be incited against Iran who backs Palestine and the Resistance but it does not move you against the Turks who have destroyed Syria and support ISIL?”

He said, “What is the principle for Pan-Arabism? Is there anything from the Arab identity of a country which cries out its incapability against the Zionist regime and reconciles with illegal regime of Israel out of weakness?”

Sayyid Ali Fadhlullah, prayer leader of Imamayn al-Hasanayn Mosque in Beirut, stressed the necessity of efforts to maintain unity in confrontation with the projects aimed at the fragmentation of Islamic nations.

He noted every regional and international territory is harassed in a battlefront and it is natural that Zionist enemies will try to enter due to the conflicts.

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