Tonight's gathering
Is not a normal Thursday night gathering that we have on the weekly basis.
Tonight we are commemorating this majlis
Dedicating it to the lady of light
Bibi Fatima
The daughter of the Prophet of Islam.
Based on one narration that we have
The day of shahadat was today.
although we formally
commemorate that event two and a half weeks after.
This is also the gathering where we would like to remember the martyrs of iraq
Who protected the shrines of Ahlul Bayt.
and also specially to remember those who
passed away in the air
Disaster in tehran just yesterday.
Especially those members of our community who had gone for ziyarat to the shrines of our imams
It is a difficult moment for us from all different aspects from different
occasions that we are commemorating and remember remembering those events.
But I would like to take this opportunity tonight to very briefly
Give the sense of what is going on in the Muslim world at the moment and
relate to what we are remembering tonight.
And I would like to very briefly as I said, I'll keep it very brief
the roots of violence in the modern Muslim history.
Muslims like any other religious groups have internal differences. different groups and sects.
There have been theological disagreements among the Muslims from the early days
But those disagreements were mostly confined to religious discourses
either in books or
speeches or religious debate that the scholars from different groups would have with one another.
It's actually the first group in the history of Islam
which resorted to using the sword to
Kill those who disagreed with them is a group known as the khawarij.
This is a group with emerged during the days of our first IMam Ali.
They're rebelled against him.
They opposed him.
and
Our Imam  told them that as long as your opposition is verbal, I don't have a problem, I will tolerate you.
They used to actually use abusive language right in the Masjid, in the mosque, when he was giving a speech.
They would interrupt his speech, he would still tolerate that. but he told them,
You can do whatever you want. We have a disagreement with one another,
but the day you resort to violence against innocent Muslims, I will not tolerate that. and
that is what it ended in the
Battle known as the Battle of Naharwan, against the khawarij group.
Moving fast forward in history
Very quickly, we come to our own era/ and we see that this mentality of khawarij,
To kill those who disagreed with you in the belief system,
This emerged in the ideology, which is known as Salafi Wahabi
ideology.
And this is what was
Advocated by Saudi Arabia. Actually the kingdom that is best on that ideology
of Wahhabism and Salafism.
Wherever they and their allies have been in power two things will happen for sure
Number one they will destroy the shrines and
Number two, they will go around
killing the people who believed in visiting the shrines.
This is what I would like to connect to the events that we see around now.
You look at the example of Saudis
When they captured the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in 1920s
Almost a century ago.
The first thing they did was to destroy the shrines of the members of the
family of the Prophet and the companions of the
Prophet.
later on we see in history during our own time the
group emerging in Afghanistan known as Taliban
were interestingly,  trained
To fight against Soviets. trained by the Americans, financed by the Saudis and their allies in the Gulf region.
And they did the same thing when they came to power
The most obvious example is destruction of the statue of the Buddha, which has been there for centuries.
It means muslims ruled that land for centuries
No one said, we have to destroy this. Taliban came and did this.
This is the hallmark of the Wahhabi Salafi mentality. They're the ones who went around
killing and torturing the Shia minority.
why? They say these are the people who go and visit the shrines.
Then you move forward and you will come to the situation in Syria and Iraq.
And you see this group known as Isis.
same pattern. The
Hallmark of what they are is,
The first thing, they will go and destroy the shrines, including the shrines of some of the prophets
respected by
Muslims in general in Iraq's area and Syria where they controlled for a
Brief time and that they have no respect for that at all. and this is where even the issue of beheading
Muslims and non-muslims
alike, who disagreed with with their corrupted version,
distorted version of Islam.
And this is where I would like to say that the majority of Muslims
The Sunnis, the Shi'as, the Sufis,
believe in this concept of having the shrine of the holy figures.
Majority of Muslims who go to Mecca even now,
For the pilgrimage, the Hajj, they consider it to be the religious duty to also go and visit Medina
which has the grave of the Prophet, and
then they go to the gravesite of
Jannat ul Baqi, where they see the graves of the family and the companions of the Prophet. the
Salafi Wahabi have a very distorted view.
They say that
this
Act of showing your respect to the grave of the Prophet and the companions and the family is an act of worship
therefore you are
Worshipers of the shrine. they do not distinguish between what is known as ta'zim and ibadat.
Respecting something is different from worshipping it. and this is where they have not been able to separate one from the other.
if you look at the
statements in the Sunni books, even in the Wahhabi literature,
You will see that the prophet of islam and the 4 khulafa of the Sunnis
Even Muawiyah,
used to specially go to visit the gravesite of the martyrs and shuhada of Uhud.
The graves of the
Shuhada of Uhud is not in Medina, it's outside Medina, you especially go for that purpose. So
You have the Prophet and the Khulafa Rashidoon,
according to the Ahle Sunnah wal Jama', even Muawiyah, doing that.
This is where you come to realize that they may call themselves, Salafi
But they really have nothing to do with the first generations of the Muslims. They are
distorted, group who had come and
Unfortunately because of the oil and the money,
the Western powers
Consider them to be the best one.
This is the problem there. This is where we see,
for us Shias when we talk about visiting the shrines and the graves of the Prophet and his family members,
Whether it's the Saudi Arabia or in Syria, or Iraq or Iran,
For us when we go, and visit those shrines we feel connected to them.
We connect, we feel more connected to them because of the physical
visitation. it gives us the opportunity to refocus on our values,
and it gives us the opportunity to reform ourselves to become better Muslims, better Shias, and
eventually better
human beings.
And it is this positive impact of this process of
visitation and the pilgrimage to the shrines which bothers the Salafis and
Therefore wherever they go, The first thing they do is to destroy the shrines and
then
prevent people from going for the visitation and the pilgrimage.
And it's in this background
that when we look at the current situation in the Middle East,
You know, we as a Shia Muslim community we appreciate anyone who protects our shrine,
Anyone who arranges tour groups to facilitate these pilgrims, and
Also those who take time,
And use their own resources,
Who go for the actual ziyarat and visitation.
We respect and we appreciate all those who do this.
And therefore
Let me be very clear
that we as a shia community, and this is not a political statement, This is our religious sentiments,
we salute and
Pray for those fighters from the Mediterranean coast to Pakistan,
Who gave their lives to protect the shrine of Bibi Zainab, which is in the outskirts of Damascus,
against the extremists and the ISIS groups in that area.
If it hadn't been for them
Today that shrine outside Damascus of Bibi Zainab would have been totally erased to the ground.
And therefore we pray for them and we salute them.
We salute and pray for those who gave their lives, in
fighting against ISIS in Iraq. If
It had not been for their courage and sacrifice of these Muslim fighters,
Isis had full plans to destroy the shrines of our Imams
In Samara, in Kadhmain, in Karbala, and Najaf.
It was when they reach very close to Samara, that's where our Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq,
Issued his famous Fatwah
asking the people of Iraq
irrespective of their religious background
to stand up and
mobilize to fight this menace of Isis.
It was because of that,
what is known as the public mobile mobilization force, which emerged because of his fatwah, that they were able to
destroy this problem of Isis and
One of the senior officers of that was Abu Mahdi,
And his mentor and guide was Haji Qasim. if it hadn't been for these people in this group in Iraq
Today we have seen we would have seen that the shrines of our Imams in Samara in
kadhmain, in karbala, and Najaf would have been totally destroyed.
And
Therefore we appreciate their work, their sacrifice, and their fight against the extremists
Who represent the Wahhabi Salafi ideology.
We especially pray for those travelers who lost their lives in the recent air
disaster outside Tehran.
Especially those who had gone for the purpose of visiting the shrines of our Imam.
They had come from Iraq to Iran, and now they were coming back.
We have even a shrine of an imam in Iran itself, in Mashhad.
especially for us
It is very close to home.
Because as you heard three individuals were from our community.
There are many others shi'as from other
centers in the Toronto area.
Some of them we know, others we do not know. and we pray to Allah
For special blessings and all those travelers who lost their life in this disaster.
We pray, especially for those were gone for Ziyarat.
that Allah place them among the Ashab of Hussain
and
May Allah give this strength
And
Patience to their families here, especially the Dhirani and Tarbhai families during this tragic and difficult moment in their lives. I
Don't have words in
Order to
console them.
But remember tonight we have gathered to remember the shahadat of fatima zahra.
And I'll ask them during this very difficult time in their life,
To remember the tragedy of that daughter of the Prophet.
And inshallah that will in a way help
in the healing process of this suffering, and the tragedy that you're going through.
Let us recite surah Fatiha for all of them.
Some people would say
Why do we pray for those who defended the shrines of the Ahlul Bayt?
in Syria, in Iraq, the shrine of Zainab in
Damascus. The shrine of the Imams in Kadhmain, in Samara, in najaf, and karbala.
Let me tell you that if it hadn't been for their courage, and their success and their sacrifice,
ISIS would have turned those shrine places
Into the same situation that you see in jannat al-baqi in Medina.
What happen almost a century ago in Medina in in Saudi Arabia,
would had happen in Iraq if it hadn't been for them.
You know we go to Iran to visit the shrine of imam Ridha in Mashhad.
We visit the shrine of
Imam Ali in Najaf, then we go on to Karbala
the shrine of Imam Hussain and Hazrat Abbas.
There we move on to Kadhmain and we see the shrine of the two Imams,
the seventh Imam and the ninth Imam.
We go to samarra. We see the shrine of the
ninth Imam and
Eleventh Imam. And you look at the buildings, they are so beautiful, the domes shining.
Especially after the downfall of Saddam things have even become better there. You see the light,
There is no darkness there.
You see the domes, shining.
But then you remember when you go for Umrah or Hajj to Saudi Arabia,
When you go to Medina, what do you see there?
You go to jannat al-baqi,
This is where we go to
Visit the gravesite of Fatima, the
daughter of the Prophet and the
Imams from her
descendants,
who have been buried there. But
What do you see there?
You only see pebbles, stones, sand.
It's not that the Shia's didn't want to build something there.
it's not that the Muslims didn't want to build shrines over there.
Shrines were there till about
1926.
It is the Wahhabis and Salafis who destroyed them.
We go there to do ziyarat of Fatima.
But you ask the ulama, they will tell you we are not sure where is the grave of Fatima.
That itself is a tragedy. she was the only daughter of Rasulullah, the Prophet of Islam.
how come we don't know, whether she was buried inside the home, or
Was she buried in that graveyard known as jannat al-baqi?
Was it that Fatima didn't want the people to know where she's buried?
No, it's not that she wanted that privacy in that way no, but she had asked her husband
That I would like you to bury me not during daytime,but at night time.
Why?
She says because I don't want certain people to attend my funeral.
Why Fatima?
Why didn't you want these people who were in power not to attend your funeral? You are the only daughter of the Prophet.
She says they hurt me. She
Said I don't want them to attend my funeral.
Because they have been unjust to us.
They humiliated us.
They have attacked us, and they have tried to destroy us. and I don't want them to be in my funeral.
They tried to destroy them all.
That was just an attempt, but they destroyed the baby who was in the womb of Fatima.
What happened in Medina?
We talk about Karbala, which is very far away in time.
Medina was Medina-e-Rasool
The city of the Prophet.
And what happened there?
After the Prophet's death, Ali and his companions gathered at the home of Fatima,
They declined allegiance to the ruler.
The ruler sent some people to the home
to forcefully remove them.
