Shia Strength: Muslim Unite Sunni and Shia KHUTBAH : TRIBUTE TO AN ISLAMIC LEADER: IMAM KHOMEINI PART 2

THE STREET MIMBAR

JUM'AH KHUTBAH (13 July 2012)

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It is in such a manner that We make plain Our signs so that the course of the

Criminals may become clear.

Bismillah Ar-Rahmaan Ar-Raheem.

Alhumdulillah. Peace and blessings on Muhammad (sallalahu alaihi wa sallam), his Noble Companions and Family.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, As Salaamualaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.

Audio on http://www.islamiccenterdc.com/apps/videos/videos/show/16744261-tribute-to-an-islamic-leader-imam-khomeini-part-2-khutbah-imam-muhammad-al-asi-06-09-2012 (06-09-2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVqV2_8kI_o

TRIBUTE TO AN ISLAMIC LEADER: IMAM KHOMEINI PART 2

We would like to begin by thanking all of you who are here this late afternoon and in particular those who combine their efforts to organise this commemoration of the passing away of the late Imam (may Allah rest his soul in eternal peace). We would like to also express my appreciation for the attendance of the scholars and the well informed Muslims among you for your presence here at this program.

We would like to begin by saying that obviously Al Imam Al Khomeini had a lifetime that is rich in experience and in lessons that we can all learn from. Sometimes Muslims are slow learners; you get to know that when you observe what is happening to today's world- which we will get to in the course of the presentation. Trying to relate to you some of the what you may consider limelight moments of his lifetime is going to have to be a selective process. We're going to have to pick out certain incidents or certain events in his life that will hopefully shed some light on our current affairs. We think the most remarkable breakthrough that the late Imam presented to us is what may be called a game-changer. Some of you are old enough to remember (that) we had something like a political game that was being played out by two superpowers. They had a monopoly on world affairs more or less and they were playing this exchange of geographical areas, (i.e.) "you take this country we take that country; we'll challenge you in this part of the world and counter challenge you in another part of the world." That was going on back and forth between the United Sates and the Soviet Union and they thought that they had an iron clad control of more-or-less world affairs. They never expected something to break out of their control and that is precisely what happened with the leadership of Al Imam Al Khomeini and the Islamic leadership in Iran something unpredictable happened and that was (that) for the first time on the watch of these superpowers there was a truly sovereign and independent leadership and country- something that threw their political game into a tizzy. They did not expect that a substantial geographical area in the world right now no longer reports to Moscow or Washington. If we take a closer look at this, it is attributable to the revolutionary- and mind you the word revolutionary is seldomly used and we hope maybe now the tide is turning. In the past ten, fifteen even twenty years people who used to use the word revolutionary dropped it from their vocabulary. They don't use it anymore but now we think things are beginning to happen, even in the context of the non-Muslims that will, (we think), usher in a new stage or a new chapter in which the word revolutionary will be in vogue once again. The revolutionary idea that brought about this radical change in world politics can be summed up by two words which were mentioned earlier a few times. Those two words are walayat al faqih. Just for those who know a little bit of Arabic- we just want to make (it clear). There's a common mistake. Many people pronounce it wilayat al faqih; it is walayat al faqih but we're not here for a linguistic course. Simply stated, this revolutionary idea gave Islamic scholars the enlightenment and orientation to assume the civic, the social, the political, the military- in other words state responsibilities which was not, prior to this, an idea that was very popular. Muslims and even non-Muslims had resigned themselves to the fact that "superpowers more-or-less are in-charge and there's nothing much we can do about it so we either have to live with what we have in a very passive manner; we may not agree with it but you know let's just live with it" or there could be some expressions of opposition from individuals here and there but never was it to snowball into a popular movement that could knock out a subservient regime as was that of the Pahlavi of Iran. This idea to some individuals- and some of them may fashion themselves as scholars- was a negative addition to the Islamic literature. They didn't feel comfortable with this and here we encounter a psychology that because of the peculiar history that we have just could not muster enough confidence to say we can do it. Al Imam Al Khomeini at this particular juncture said to those who were opposed to this idea- whether they were internally exposed or externally doesn't matter- "we can move forward and it can be done." He began his opposition to the regime of the Shah early on in the 50's and 60's in the Hawzah and it went through phases. He was expelled from the hawzah. He had to go into exile to Turkey and then to Al Najjaf in Al Iraq and from there gradually with Allah's assistance a revolutionary momentum began to pick up until finally it caught on. The regime (or) the government of Iran at that time was considered to be an American stronghold in the area. That American point of reference in all of the politics of what they call the Middle East crumbled. We all saw how that happened.

Some of the unspoken details, (and we were mentioning earlier), there's some type of effort now, there has been some kind of effort for the past seven or eight years or more to factually collect all the information pertaining to the years that led up to the revolution, to they years of those turbulent clashes that took place that resulted in the expiration of an American client regime in the area and the emergence of an Islamic Republic and then throughout the war years (or) the years of war culminating in the passing away of the late Imam. This effort is in progress. We don't know where exactly they are but when it is finished it will present us with the facts about what had happened throughout all of these years; but one of the unspoken realities of the life of the Imam is he did not know fear. Many Muslims nowadays are gripped by fear- we don't know why but they just fear. It's as if some of them even fear from their own shadows. Some of them fear to come to a meeting like this?! What wrong are we doing? What is there to fear? What is there that is scary? If you're doing something wrong then you fear but no one is doing anything wrong so how does this fear come in? Where does it come from? One of the lesser known details of the life of the late Imam is (that) when he was returning or before (that), there were two incidents before he returned from Paris. When he was still in Paris in exile- not even a Muslim country would accept him! Kuwait initially said "yes" then they said "no." Still the same rulers- the same rotten royal families that rule there could not accept a person who expresses his conscience and his mind on the matter. When the Imam was in Paris and the Shah was receiving American advisors- political and military and his henchmen, generals and all- "what are we going to do? This is getting out of hand. People are on the streets! There are demonstrations everywhere. What are we going to do?" So they came up with the idea (that) "let's place an opposition figure as something like an interim ruler of the country and have the Shah leave Iran and bring in this character called Shahpur Bakhtiyar. Let's bring him in and have him rule. He was during the time in the past considered an opponent of the Shah; he was put in prison for that so there's some type of credibility here so let's bring him in and try to negotiate something with this religious person in exile, in Paris." So this Bakhtiyar and his circle of confidants began to leak information to the Imam "look- we are willing to accept much of what you are all about. Let's sit down and broker a deal." This was the words coming from Iran to the Imam so the Imam's advisors, (some individuals around him), approached him and said this is what these people in Tehran now are saying, "the Shah is on his way out. Bakhtiyar is right now the person that is in-charge and he is saying, you know, he has a whole package of reforms. What is it that you want to be reformed and he's willing to accept." The Imam said "he has to go."

Now, you take that one incident and that development in his life and put it in today's world. In today's world there is what the Western mainstream media calls "the Arab spring" and we have some "Islamic leaders" who are being offered the same thing "look- let's broker a deal here. What do you want? Let's work something out. You want some Ministers in the government? You want to become the Prime Minister? You want this portfolio? You want that position? Whatever it is, let's work something out." You look at Morocco, you look at Tunisia, you look at Egypt, you look at Libya and other places- all of these things are going on. We haven't heard anyone of these leaders who said to these interlocutors the whole system has to go. None of them! To the contrary, some of them have been coming to Washington DC and explaining to the Americans officials "look, you have nothing to fear. We're your friends. We can work things out." There's a troubling aspect to this.

Another limelight or another significant development that we are still living with is the liberation of Palestine. Some Shuyukh who report to Saudi royalty recently have almost turned neurotic. They say that… You see- Muslims have a problem. There's nothing wrong in looking at ourselves and saying "look we have a problem." The problem that these particular types of individuals have is- and they are somewhere located in the leading role of Islamic movements- they say "we have a problem. Actually it is a problem that is made up of two components- one of them is Zionism." Listen brothers and sisters, we want you to listen to this very carefully because this is not some person who is isolated i.e. an individual's opinion. This comes from high up in certain quarters. As we said they give an Islamic appearance but behind the scenes they report to their financial masters in the Arabian Peninsula. They say "we have a dual problem- it is Zionism and…" (this is their word- we're not saying this because this is the occasion today, we're saying this because this is the fact), "… Zionism and walayat al faqih." They say that's their problem. You'd expect something like this to come from maybe an uninformed person or maybe someone who is maliciously and in the raw anti-Islamic. You would never expect this to come from people who are supposed to know better but that is exactly what is happening in today's world. Then they quote and we're paraphrasing- they don't even say Al Imam Al Khomeini, they say "Al Khomeini had a meeting after the Islamic revolution. He had a meeting with his closest advisors and he said to them this Islamic revolution is directionless and meaningless without the liberation of Palestine." Now this is a statement that is perfectly normal and perfectly Islamic and perfectly reasonable, (i.e.) something everyone is supposed to understand and anyone who has an Islamic pulse in them would understand that if we are going to have an Islamic polity (or) an Islamic political order eventually what that would mean (is) if it is to take its course is the liberation of Palestine. (This is) something very normal, very logical but these people say "no. What Khomeini meant with that was he wanted to gain popularity." (Take a) look at the way they are looking at things. (Take a) look at the way they interpret things. "He is saying this for the purpose of gaining popularity. Then, everything that was done after that was an under handed movement. Closing down the Israeli embassy in Tehran..." It appeared to the average person to be the right thing to do but to them- now they are giving us their own esoteric interpretation of events- they said "no. Don't be fooled by this. This is a gimmick." Once again brothers and sisters- if this was being said by some uninformed person you can sit down with the person very calmly and explain to him and say look "you're misinformed. You're reading the events wrong"; but it is coming from those who are leaders or in the position to lead. You open an embassy for Palestine- something they don't have in their own countries and they say once again "don't believe that. This is one of these political charades. It's not meant for the propagandistic purposes for by which it is presented." They say "we have to take away Hamas and Islamic Jihad from walayat al faqih." They look at this and they see that they themselves have not done anything. What have they done? You know- when the American forces went into Iraq, (all of you know this is just ten years ago or so), they went via the Persian Gulf states and the Arabian Peninsula states. The military bases that were there were used to go inside of Iraq. These Islamic types of figures use the shallow memory of some of us and say "Iran collaborated with the United States to invade Iraq." What were they doing? It's totally the other way around but this is how they are trying to take advantage of the shallow information that is out there.

Then finally, (because I know you gave me a certain amount of time and I'm going to try to honour that within the couple minutes that I have left), there is right now a state of fear in the Anglo-Saudi quarters. They fear from what they call At Tashay'yu. That scares them and they are right now trying to play up this issue and what is happening in Syria. Now we know this opens up another presentation (and) there's no time for that (but) sufficed it to say that right now, (and you'll here much much more about sectarianism in the coming months and probably years), "we don't want people going to Sunni areas of the world and converting Sunnis to Shias and likewise we don't want Sunnis going to Shia areas of the world and converting them to Sunnis." All of this is under that broad headline that scares them- it says walayat al faqih even though in the Islamic Republic of Iran every year there are Muslim scholars from across the fiqhi spectrum- Sunnis and Shi'is and all of their denominations- who come there and meet so that hearts and people can understand themselves. There's no gaps here in which a common enemy can come and play the cord of sectarianism. This has been going on for the last one quarter of a century and the final result is the Arabian client regimes who report to Washington are scared of Muslims. They are scared of independence. They haven't done anything. They say "they want to wean away Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Iran." Iran is supporting them- why can't they support?! They have over a trillion dollars over here in the United States which doesn't belong to them anymore. They can't give a little of that the crumbs to the Palestinians who are living the largest concentration camp on Earth in Gazzah?! They look around and they want to blame someone. The concept- the government of walayat al faqih has built right now and is building technology. (It) is the only Muslim country in the world that has satellites in the orbit. You know, we have a short surah and all of you we think have memorised. At the end

… And from the envy of the evil one who practises envy. (Surah Al Falaq verse 5)

That is where we are today. We have the trouble and the problem of people who are viciously jealous of others who have relied upon Allah. This didn't come easy. There were hundreds of thousands of Shuhada'. No one can forget them. Then they turn around and they say, (again these are their words, we're not trying to play around with words here), "Zionism and wilayat al faqih." They didn't say Jumhuri Islami, they didn't say Al Jumhuriya Al Islamiyah, they didn't say the Islamic Republic. They said "wilayat al faqih." I'm sorry that my time has run out. I will end with as salah ala Muhammad.

As Salaamu alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh. Thank you very much brothers and sisters.

This presentation was presented by Imam Muhammad Asi on 9 June 2012. The Imam previously led the daily and Jum'ah prayers inside the Masjid. His speeches were revolutionary and thought provoking, and irritated and threatened the Middle-East Ambassadors who control the Masjid. Finally, the Imam, his family, and other Muslims faithful to the course of Islam were forced out, into the streets. This khutbah originates from the sidewalk across the street from the Islamic Center, currently under seige.

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