Qom Friday Prayer Leader:‎

Ashura and the Sacred Defence are alive

Rasa – Ayatollah Arafi said, “Today, we say to Donald Trump, Muhammad ibn Salman and ‎all the enemies of Islamic ideals and the ummah that Ashura and the Sacred Defence are ‎alive. Today, this nation, despite all the problems, has formed a solid barrier against them ‎whenever necessary and the arrogant powers will once against taste defeat.”‎

News ID: 440636

Date: 21 September 2018 - 20:37

RNA – In his Friday prayer sermon to a large and fervent crowd of believers at Qom’s Qods ‎Prayer Hall, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi offered his condolences to the people on the anniversary ‎of the martyrdom of Imam al-Husayn and said, “We must thank all the dear mourners in ‎Iran and more than one hundred countries around the world who have raised the flag of ‎mourning for Imam al-Husayn and commemorated this great movement.”‎

The member of the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom referred to the efforts of the ‎three branches of the Iranian government to solve the problems facing the country, “Our ‎people are facing a wave of increased expenses and difficulties in their lives. It’s expected ‎that these issues will be addressed more seriously. The government must work harder to ‎solve problems.”‎

He added, “It’s true that we face sanctions but we must pay attention to foreign relations, ‎industries and internal capacities to solve our problems. The people must make efforts in ‎this regard as well.”‎

Referring to the martyrdom of Hujjat al-Islam Mohammad Toulaei, a seminary student in ‎Mashhad who died after being attacked by unknown assailants last week, Ayatollah Arafi ‎said, “In recent days, we have witnessed the killing of a pure scholar. Some people think ‎that with such measures they can separate the clergy from the people. The clergy will ‎always remain with the people and will never separate from the people and the aspirations ‎of the nation and these issues cannot harm the Islamic Seminary and our youth.”‎

Commemorating the Sacred Defence [Iran-Iraq War], the member of the Supreme Council ‎of the Cultural Revolution explained that the Sacred Defence is a great guide for our day and ‎for the future and noted, “The Sacred Defence was a very unequal war but Iran was ‎victorious in this war and taught a lasting lesson to the enemies.”‎

He added, “During the eight years of war, we encountered a variety of conspiracies such as ‎assassination, influence on the pillars of power and coup d’états, the Ba’athist enemies were ‎equipped with all the modern weapons of the world and even used chemical weapons. ‎Except for nuclear weapons, they used all modern weapons available against Islamic Iran.”‎

Ayatollah Arafi said that all the countries and powers of the world supported former Iraqi ‎dictator Saddam Husayn in this unequal war and the Gulf states supported Saddam by giving ‎him several billion dollars but our hands were empty.‎

The dean of al-Mustafa International University said, “We were committed to the principles ‎of humanity in the war but our enemies didn’t observe any principles of humanity. With ‎empty hands and with the presence of well-equipped powers and the support of powers of ‎the day,  the [enemies] couldn’t achieve their sinister goals. The glory of the faith and the ‎soul of Ashura of the nation resolved all the conspiracies and pushed the powers aside and ‎witnessed a new model of resistance.”‎

His Eminence noted that today, the model that the Iranian nation has created has been ‎spread all over the world and added, “This model emphasizes that even with empty hands, ‎we must persevere on the path of God and not retreat against the enemies. This model has ‎been demonstrated in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and other nations.”‎

Ayatollah Arafi referred to the exportation of the Islamic Revolution in the form of the ‎production of thought and said, “The supply of new models for resistance against the ‎enemies of the people and God were the important issues that we witnessed in the war and ‎the waves of the Sacred Defence were propagated in the world. In accepting [United Nations ‎Security Council] Resolution 598, Imam Khomeyni declared, ‘We weren’t defeated in the ‎Sacred Defence and in the war of thought, we exported the Islamic Revolution to the entire ‎world.’”‎

He stated, “Today, we say to Donald Trump, Muhammad ibn Salman and all the enemies of ‎Islamic ideals and the ummah that Ashura and the Sacred Defence are alive. Today, this ‎nation, despite all the problems, has formed a solid barrier against them whenever ‎necessary and the arrogant powers will once against taste defeat. The voice of Ashura in ‎Iran and the region is alive and will continue.”‎

Referring to passing of more than 1000 days since Hujjat al-Islam Ibrahim Zakzaky, the ‎Islamic Movement of Nigeria, was detained by the Nigerian government, His Eminence ‎stated, “As always, we ask the Nigerian government to pay attention to a large part of its ‎people according to the laws and restore this educated scholar to the people.”

Rasa News Agency

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