Ayatollah al-Sistani motivates Iraq with a two-line fatwa

Rasa – An interesting story from Ridhwan Aqil, the correspondent of an-Nahar News, about ‎meeting with Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani, the great source of emulation of Shi’ah ‎Islam.‎

News ID: 444463

Date: 25 April 2019 - 15:37

RNA – Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani, the greatest source of emulation of Shi’ah Islam, ‎lives in an old and narrow alley with a small distance from the Holy Shrine of Imam Ali ‎‎(peace be upon him) that is the religious centre of the Shi’ahs in the world, in the city of ‎Najaf where its seminary has dealt with challenges and difficulties for centuries. There is no ‎barrier and blockage for citizens and pilgrims intending to cross the alleys and streets around ‎the al-Sistani’s house, the house from which the fatwa’s were issued and millions of Shi’ahs, ‎both inside and outside of Iraq, follow them and would adhere to their messages and ‎advices.‎

In the newly paved street which leads to a rental house, where he has lived for more than ‎fifty years, dozens of young people are guarding him without weapons. It is contrary to the ‎manner of the most of the Iraqi authorities of different ranks. They come out from their ‎palaces and gardens accompanied by military convoy and modern vehicles as well as ‎electronic equipment while the citizens who lost their trust in many of the politicians would ‎curse them. They pass the streets of Baghdad, Basrah and other provinces while neither ‎Ayatollah al-Sistani nor his family have any property for themselves.‎

The difference between these politicians and this Shi’ah authority (Ayatollah al-Sistani) is that ‎not only he is not afraid of the Iraqi people, but also his home is a focal centre of ‎jurisprudence, an open door for all Iraqi tribes, and a place to listen to the story of their ‎suffering and misery. al-Sistani is the one who prefers to meet with the underprivileged and ‎oppressed people of the Mesopotamian land rather than accepting celebrities and powerful ‎people who have piled up treasures for themselves from money, gold and the remained ‎heritage of that country.‎

These politicians do not differ much from the discharged Saddam Husayn and his relatives ‎who were living in 70 palaces in Baghdad and other provinces. The palaces that Iraqi clerics ‎and politicians today roaming at their halls, rooms and gardens; the palaces whose walls ‎have stood on the flesh and blood of Iraqis and also on the sorrowful Tigris and Euphrates ‎are in flood of tears for the lost civilization, the plundered resources and billions of dollars ‎spent inappropriately. Besides, there is not any electricity, road, university, hospital, palm ‎garden, or anyone who may plant a tree.‎

On the way to Ayatollah al-Sistani’s house you may face vendors. It is while when the ‎capitalists offered Ayatollah al-Sistani to let them ruin the entire neighbourhood in order to ‎build new houses and special residence for him. Ayatollah al-Sistani refused and told them to ‎spend the budget on the poor people. Although his neighbours are ordinary and poor ‎citizens, they adhere to every word he says, like most of the other classes of the society. ‎They see him as a source of encouragement and aspiration for the future of a country that ‎is plunged into the war, chaos, bloodbaths, religious strife, power of the nomads, the ‎separatist murmurs and the call for the formation of autonomous regions

At the entrance to the house, few young people kindly ask the guests not to take their cell ‎phones with themselves. Along with Nabih Berri, I get to Ayatollah al-Sistani’s room, a man ‎who calmly stands and shakes his guest’s hand, a lot of kindness in his glittering eyes and ‎tired face. He wore aba that is all his clothes for covering his lean body. Due to the doctors’ ‎advice, he has accepted to sit on a simple wooden chair, but before that, he had spent ‎many years working, writing and teaching on an ordinary straw mat on the ground and was ‎welcoming his guests there. He does not accept lavish gifts and such things have no place in ‎the house of a man who receives many funds daily to be spent as the cost of the food, ‎education and health for the poor. He sends one of his companions to the nearby bazaar to ‎provide him with his supplies including two tomatoes or cucumbers, a little olive and dates, ‎and a loaf of bread, which forms a meal with a cup of tea.‎

He gets up before the adhan for morning prayers and says prayer and starts his day by ‎studying and pursuing news, after that he accepts the seminarians who come to hear his ‎religious and jurisprudential words and continues until the rest time. His son, who is more ‎likely to be the manager of his office, helps him to stay connected with all his agents ‎throughout the world, follow up on affairs, and answer questions of his followers. When you ‎sit down in a very simple room, you do not believe that you are in the presence of Ayatollah ‎al-Sistani who can move all Iraqis from here just in less than two lines fatwa.‎

According to ijtihadnet, Iraqi people say an anecdote about how he visit a Sunni doctor and, having paid $ 1 million, ‎requested him to build a hospital in his own area. Without Considering religion and race, in ‎his viewpoint, there is no difference among humans and as long as he receives these ‎charities to give them to the poor, such things are not important for Ayatollah al-Sistani, the ‎one who saved Iraq by issuing a fatwa about Jihad al-Kifa’i [jihad as collective obligation] in ‎the war with Daesh. If that decree had not been issued, Iraq would have become an area ‎for Takfiri congregations.‎

In the dark years that Daesh was ruling on a large portion of Iraq’s territory, Shi’ahs in Najaf, ‎Karbala and other cities were opened their homes to sh\elter the Sunni refugees, Christians ‎and Yazidis in order to provide them with house and food, so they show their faith and true ‎nationalism to civil society without any claim and avoiding any sectarianism. That’s how ‎Nabih Berri, in describing the reality of Ayatollah al-Sistani has not understood anything other ‎than describing him as the “Guard for the Integrity of the Iraqi People.”‎

Anyone who travels to Najaf will returns with this feeling: At a time of the agitation of ‎religiosity, and singing the songs of separation and rejection of others, new plans are ‎mapped out to the region leading to changing several regimes; undoubtedly, it is Ayatollah ‎al-Sistani that inspires the integrity of the Muslims and their correlation with other religions.‎

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