Thousands of Shia Muslims march in Dearborn in Muharram for faith and justice

Pumping their clenched fists, the crowd in a Dearborn park chanted Sunday in support of the grandson of Islam’s prophet, Imam Hussain (PBUT): “Labayka ya Hussain,” they declared in Arabic, which means “We’re with you, oh Hussain.”

The scene inside Ford Woods Park was part of a procession and gathering for Shia Muslims during a holy season known as Ashura, which refers to the 10th day of the first month of the Islamic calendar Muharram. During the first 10 days of a 40-day mourning period taking place now, many Shia Muslims gather to remember the battles of Imam Hussain, who was martyred on Ashura while fighting forces with the tyrant Yazid in the 7th Century in what is now the country of Iraq.

Participants and speakers at the rally said the message resonates today in battles against modern-day tyrants and terrorists. ISIS and other extremist groups were strongly condemned at Sunday’s rally.

“We’re here to remember Imam Hussain and for Ashura, to remember his mission,” said Hussein Berro, 33, of Dearborn, carrying a banner with Imam Hussain’s name. “He stood up for justice, he stood up against oppression, he stood up for the weak ones, to refuse tyranny and to spread peace and justice.”

“He does not only belong to Muslims. Imam Hussain is for everyone. He’s for humanity.”

Escorted by Dearborn police, thousands marched from Fordson High School along the sidewalk to nearby Ford Woods Park. Some gathered in circles to rhythmically sway their arms and tap their chests while chanting religious tributes called latmiya. Many waved large flags that fluttered, carrying tributes and depictions of Imam Hussain and the battles he led.

Various signs at the rally read: “Muslims Stand Against ISIS”,  “Muslims Against Terror” and “Live Free or Die with Dignity!!.” Other signs criticized racism and police abuse, with one large banner reading “In Solidarity With the Victims of Police Brutality.” And some signs called for the release of Shia leaders held captive in countries and criticized Israel and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for what they consider oppression.

Mohammed Makki, 23, of Dearborn Heights, who carried a big flag that read “Oh, Hussain” in Arabic, said the gathering is “a stand against oppression.”

“It’s important to remember the message,” Makki said. Imam Hussain “was living in a time when oppression was ruling … a lot of slavery going on, a lot of injustice.”

Kassem Elhawli, 50, of Dearborn, said “we learned lessons from” Imam Hussain. “We stand against any tyrants in the whole world.”

Sunday’s event was the 4th annual one organized by the Ashura Project, a Dearborn-based group that promotes the holy day.  A similar procession in Dearborn by Shias that’s scheduled to be held in about 40 days, on a day they call Arbaeen, to commemorate the end of the mourning period has taken place annually in Dearborn since 2004.

In a statement, organizers for Sunday’s procession said it was “done in the footsteps of Hussain, to publicly express their opposition to oppression in all its forms, regardless of who the perpetrator is…to demand justice and an end to all oppression … lending its voice to the voiceless.”

With ISIS in the news often, Berro and others said they hoped to send a message that Islam is about peace.

“The message of Islam is to spread peace, but some like ISIS and all these terrorists have their own agendas,” Berro said. “They hijack Islam. The Quran says, whoever kills one soul it’s as if he’s killed the entire humanity. That’s how much Islam appreciates the life of a human being. These people do not represent Islam … We’re the true Islam.”

Pope expresses gratitude to Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi for his letter to Vatican

 Pope Francis has send a letter to respond Ayat. Makarem Shirazi’s letter earlier in August who cherished Pope’s position on Islam.

Mehr News has been informed that Pope Francis, leader of the Catholic world, expressed gratitude to Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi for his letter to Vatican.

In response to the recent letter by Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi to Pope Francis in which the senior Shia cleric thanked Pope for his stance on Islam and the fact that Islam did not equal terrorism, Vatican sent an official letter stating:

“Pope Francis was pleased upon receiving your eminence’s letter and expressed his gratitude,” reads the letter, “as his eminence, Ayatollah Makarem is already aware, the message of all religions, particularly monotheistic religions, is primarily the absolute worship of God by mankind in addition to expressing love and respect for all the people with whom we interact. Therefore, administering violence, especially when carried out under the name of God or religion, is considered as a major insult to God almighty, it is further a form of great injustice against the oppressed,” Pope said in the letter.

“Therefore, present religious leaders of the world need to stand united, more than ever before, to voice their support for the entitlement of every human being to their dignity and legitimate rights,” it concluded.

During his Poland, visit, Pope Francis had asserted that Islam had nothing to do with terrorism and violence and no divine religion should be associated with such terms.

40% of Brits, 33% of Americans say Israel boycott ‘justified’: poll

Over a third of Americans and nearly half of the British people say the Israeli regime deserves to be globally boycotted under the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for its atrocities against the Palestinian people, a poll shows.

Some 1,100 adults in the US and Britain participated in the Ipsos survey, whose results were released this week.

Thirty-three percent of the US respondents and 40 of those polled in Britain said they believe boycotting the Israeli regime is “justified”.

In addition, about a quarter of the Americans and 33 percent of the Britons said they are ready to support the anti-Israeli movement.

The BDS campaign has gained popularity even among Israeli academics, with a report released last month revealing that prominent Israeli professors encourage, legitimize and often promote anti-Israel boycott efforts.

The report said dozens of Israeli academic figures, through petitions and letters, have encouraged the American Anthropological Association(AAA) to boycott Israeli higher academic institutions. They have urged the association to continue pressing for an academic boycott against Israel, drawing an angry response from a Zionist extra-parliamentary group.

Palestinian women read a placard stuck on the window of a shop to indicate to customers that it does not sell Israeli goods in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, February 24, 2015. ©AFP

“Decision-makers and presidents of Israeli universities look to combat the international BDS movement, but completely ignore the boycott phenomenon from within Israel that is being led by Israeli academics,” Israeli media outlets quoted Matan Peleg, the CEO of the Zionist group Im Tirtzu, as saying on May 27.

The developments come as over 300 groups in Europe have recently urged the European Union to and join the BDS and hold Israel accountable for its human rights violations.

The BDS, initiated by over 170 Palestinian organizations in 2005, is a global effort that uses economic and political pressure on Israel to comply with the goals of the movement — the end of the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, full equality for Arab-Palestinians living in the occupied territories, and respect for the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Thousands of volunteers worldwide have joined the BDS ever since to help promote the Palestinian cause.

source : presstv

British diplomat: Imam Khomeini was a revolutionary leader and a noble philosopher

dxss023Imam Khomeini was an Islamic cleric, a philosopher and a poet of high standing: pursuing what is often a private and personal voyage of inner intellectualism. He somehow, incredibly, in the words of Jaques Berques, “took in hand his people” ; gave them healing, authenticity and a solution to their crisis. He gathered up a tradition and forged a new equilibrium: one which would offer renewal through a grand ‘sewing together’ of dispersed parts, making the present ‘an organic whole’, not some mere syncretic assembly of parts. The tradition, on which he drew, was of Mulla Sadra, Ibn Arabi, Mir Damad’s.

In an interview with Khamenei News Author and Director of Conflicts Forum Alastair Crooke answers questions: on the Islamic Revolution, JCPOA and the neo-cons vs neo-liberals in Middle Eastern politics. The following is a full text of the interview:

We celebrated the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of Iran which eradicated the dominion the U.S. held over Iran and paved the ground for Iran to rank 1st in the world in terms of scientific growth in 2011. What do you think the Revolution’s greatest achievement for the world is?

I have written the following (from an, as yet, unpublished piece) about what I see as the significance of the Islamic Revolution and of the Imam’s intellectual contribution to the world:

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“He was an Islamic cleric, a philosopher, and a poet of high standing, pursuing what is often a private and personal inner intellectual voyage, but who, somehow, improbably, in Jaques Berques words, “took in hand his people”, gave them healing, authenticity and a solution to their crisis.   He both embodied the missing dimension of interiority, and reconnected this to the outer world in a wholeing synthesis of inner and outer: even the symbolic doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih seemed to hint at this.  Wali in Arabic does have the connotation of guardianship, but it also has a depth of other meaning.  It means too, a sage; someone possessed of inner knowledge.  It intimates the possibility of a linkage between inner knowledge and transmitted knowledge: of a synthesis of the two poles of human knowing.

He gathered up a tradition, and forged a new equilibrium – one which would offer renewal through a grand ‘sewing together’ of dispersed parts: making the present ‘an organic whole’, and not some mere syncretic assembly of parts.  And that tradition, on which he drew, was Mulla Sadra,  Ibn Arabi, Mir Damad  and there in the background to these authors, as Christian Bonaud perceives, one finds – beyond the Islamic Masters, the ancients: the Neo-Platonists and, notably, Plotinus.

It was Mulla Sadra however who wove the template for the new Islamic nation.   The fourth stage of the Asfar indicated that one who had succeeded in integrating inner and outer, who had ‘emptied’ the snares of ego and other arbitrary restraints, to reach a higher reason, must then reverse his tracks, and return to multiplicity, in order to finally rise above all polar opposites.  Imam Khomeini saw that a political path, a path fixed within the extent of being, was something integral to this journey, rather than be disdained, and from which those who had the intellectual capacity, should not hold aloof.  This was the intent of Sadra’s fourth stage, he believed.  Similarly, this insight also underlay his notion of rulership.

But how to realize the Islamic nation?  Here, transformation of society was key, and the symbol of ijtihad yielded multiple Sadrist meanings:  The dynamic, ever changing, quality of nature, in itself, impelled the need for ijtihad; but the very awareness of being, of tawhid (monotheism) is in itself transformatory.

The metamorphosis of consciousness comes not from transmitted knowledge, but from actualizing the understanding of tawhid as a value, as well as a metaphysical real.  Such a realization takes one out of linear, historical time.  Awareness is not contingent on the momentary circumstance of a community: Victory or defeat now is not of import, but what matters is the progress of transformation – the change to the mode of being.  The nation had to be shaped around the principle of tawhid which alone could ‘shock’ it into a different mode of consciousness, and empower it.

The idea of tawhid as a transformatory principle, of ijtihad as symbol of that transformation, of a wholeing synthesis of inner and outer, of bringing past and future into the present through the symbols of revelation and the preparation for al-Mahdi, can be understood as a preparing for justice.

But there was something else which he shared with Sadra: both were recipients of the antipathy of the orthodox for their pursuit of interiority and Irfan.  The Imam himself relates how one day when he was speaking with fellow clerics, his eleven year old son asked for a glass of water, but when the boy had finished drinking, none of the assembled clerics would touch the glass from which the son of a teacher of Irfan (mysticism), a teacher of philosophy, had drunk his water.

But, as we have seen, any such attempt to steer a people by the compass of a meaning-giving ‘interiority’ inevitably constitutes a hugely fragile vessel, and its particular ‘moment’ often has proved ephemeral, though its consequences resound through the centuries – e.g. an Empedocles or an al-Hallaj.  The rhizome, the matted, invisible, underground knotting of root, from time to time, thrusts up through the earth, a solitary flower; it blossoms in the light, but fades away, with the passing of summer.

It is too early to tell; but nonetheless – after half millennia – the ‘other’ tradition, always present but so long obscured, has broken surface again – and at a singular moment of hunger and neediness in our world.

What is the main point you want to make in your book “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution”? What is Imam Khomeini’s role in forming the resistance in the Islamic world?

The main argument is that the crisis in Islam, which was to provoke both resistance and revolution, originated with the project of the European powers to intervene in the Middle East in the name of ‘modernization’.  This project, still afoot in the contemporary era, has its roots stretching far back, into the eighteenth century.

It was the impact of the drive to construct the powerful, ethnically unitary, centralized nation-states in the western Ottoman provinces that originally precipitated a rolling disaster:  It was a tragedy that created millions of victims – just as a similar social upheaval had so done, a century earlier, in Europe and the US.  Then, in the West itself, it had brought European societies to the brink of revolution – and beyond.  It was to do no less in the Islamic world.

Five million European Muslims were ‘cleansed’ from their homes between 1821 and 1922 – as the West leveraged-up Christian-majority nation-states in the former Ottoman western provinces. And in the Ottoman heart, the anti-religious Young Turks, inspired by this European redemptive vision, determined on emulating Europe’s secular, liberal-market modernization. It came at terrible cost: competing identities and affiliations were perceived by Europeans to dilute the homogeneity necessary to empower a strong top-down, central government from emerging.  In the attempt to create an ethnically unitary and secular Turkey one million Armenians died, 250,000 Assyrians perished, and one quarter of a million Greek Orthodox Anatolians were expelled. Kurdish identity was suppressed, and finally Islam was demonized and suppressed by Ataturk.  Islamic institutions were closed; and the 1400-year-old Caliphate was abolished.

It was precisely the enforced secularization of Turkey – with its contingent metaphysics of modernity, which more than any other aspect, threatened the very existence of Islam.  It was in response to this threat, taken up and replicated in Persia and Egypt, that resistance sprung.

The Imam’s role, as described above, was to gather up the elements of a nearly lost tradition, to lift up his people; to offer them an explanation for their pain and tribulations; to show them a vision of the future, to draw out for them another ‘way of being’ – beyond that of economic determinism, and to renew the metaphysics of a meaning- giving world, in the face of the meaning-less cosmos of the West.

Do you think we will witness any change in US interventionist policies toward Iran, now that the implementation of the JCPOA has begun?

No, I do not think that the American ‘establishment’ wants a substantive and comprehensive shift in its relationship with Iran. Rather, the ‘establishment’ (that is to say, the broader coalition of US financial and security interests) sees the JCPOA as a ‘stand alone’ US achievement.  In a sense, the US approach towards Iran seems to be mirroring the so-called ‘middle way’ policy which it pursues towards Russia, whereby the putative ‘reset’ with Russia was set aside (when President Putin assumed the Presidency for the second time), and Obama – rather than seek outright confrontation with Russia (i.e. rejected renewed ‘cold war’) – ruled that America however, would only co-operate with Russia when it suited it, but the US would not deign to address Russia’s core issues of its ‘outsider’ status in Europe, or its containment in Asia — or its concerns about a global order that was being used to corner Russia and to crush dissenter states who refused to enter the global order on America’s terms alone.  And Obama did little to drawback the NATO missile-march towards Russia’s borders (ostensibly to save Europe from Iranian missiles). (For more on this, see here).

Jeremy Shapiro, a former special adviser to the US Assistant Secretary for State for Europe and Eurasia, recently warned, however, “that the ‘middle way’ could not last” in respect to America’s policy towards Russia.  And it seems to me that the same caveats that Shapiro identified will apply equally to Iran, too. Shapiro warned:

“Political and bureaucratic factors on both sides would force ever-greater confrontation”. [In the case of Iran, the US Congress’ zeal for adding further sanctions on Iran will be one obvious factor]. “We [Shapiro and his co-author] argued that it will become politically untenable for the United States to maintain cooperation on global issues with Russia while explicitly seeking to counter it in Ukraine. This dual-track approach, condemning Russia as an aggressor one day, [whilst] seeking to work with Moscow the next, creates regular opportunities for Obama’s critics to decry him as weak and feckless. Meanwhile, powerful actors in both governments will continue to link the Ukraine crisis to those aspects of bilateral interaction that continue to function”.

“And indeed that dynamic appears to be unfolding both in Syria and in Europe. In Syria, the Russian intervention was in large part aimed at demonstrating to the United States that Russia would no longer tolerate US regime change policies in the Middle East. It is, in this sense, a forward defense against what the Russian establishment tends to see as a global Western effort, running from Tripoli to Kyiv and ultimately to Moscow, to overthrow regimes through externally supported democratic uprisings. Russia took [the decision to intervene in Syria, as it believed the] US will only take its interests into account when it is forced to do so … The United States, recognizing the Russian challenge in a region where it has long been the dominant outside power, began a counter-escalation [in Syria] that sought to make Russia pay a price militarily for its intervention”.

“[Paradoxically], despite his reticence about greater US military involvement in Syria, Obama may end up taking military action against the Assad regime not to further a particular objective in Syria itself but rather to uphold America’s global reputation. He is under enormous pressure in Washington even from within his own government to demonstrate that the United States is not backing down in the face of Russian military aggression.”

So although the US, it seems, will not be seeking a fundamental ‘re-set’ of relations with Iran, the former will still look to co-operate with Iran on key issues – especially Syria and Iraq –  for which it needs Iranian help.  However, it seems quite possible that Iranian disappointment with the practical effects of the formal lifting of financial sanctions (the efforts by the US Treasury to limit the JCPOA benefit to Iran) will impede Iranian confidence in co-operating with the US in these other areas.  In any event, Iran has interests in respect to Syria and Iraq, which are different to those of America.

In respect to whether the JCPOA will lessen US (and European) direct intervention into Iran’s internal affairs, the answer, I suspect is that whereas the accord itself may offer greater opportunities for the West to intervene (i.e. the inspection regime), the prospects for direct intervention of the kind associated with 2009 are lessened.  This is not a result of the JCPOA, per se, but because Iran in the intervening time has, of its own doing, become more cohesive, more confident and more at ease with itself.  This is what will limit the prospects, more than anything else.  Iran simply is less vulnerable to those type of tactics – and more alert to them.

During the years you were advisor to European Union High Representative Javier Solana in the Middle East, did you see any real will to resolve the nuclear issue with Iran?  

I think I have to answer this question by calling attention to the circumstances in which the EU intervention was conceived, and brought to birth.  America had just completed its ‘shock and awe’ destruction of Saddam Hussein’s rule.  The neo-cons were on ‘a high’.  They literally were levitating off the ground in pure excitement, and planning all the next Middle Eastern dominoes that needed to be toppled over.  I recall worried Europeans at the time returning from Washington, shaking their heads, and saying that the neo-cons kept repeating that “it was only the wimps that went to Baghdad; ‘real men’ were going to Tehran”.  Of course such expressions seemed ridiculous, but the narcotic impact on certain psyches of raining cruise missiles onto Iraq made such threats seem quite plausible …

In this heightened context, I recall a very senior EU official saying that the need for EU involvement in the nuclear issue was not so much to contain Iran, but to contain America [from widening the war].

Yes, Javier Solana seriously wanted to resolve the nuclear issue, but the EU approach was compromised from the outset:  the EU wanted to be involved; it wanted to put a brake on US military euphoria, but it never summoned the courage to challenge the ‘Albert Wohlstetter doctrine’ (the Rand Organization’s then prevailing doctrine) that there was no material difference between peaceful enrichment and weapons enrichment of uranium; that the two could not be meaningfully distinguished from each other, and that therefore any enrichment – any at all – could not be permitted to Iran. (It has taken a long, long time to get beyond that point).

But Javier Solana’s efforts were compromised in another way: firstly, the British had implanted a ‘watch-dog’ into the High Representative’s cabinet to curtail any deviation from US doctrines. This person watched over all initiatives on London’s and therefore, Washington’s behalf.  And secondly, when the Iranian delegation precisely offered its solution to the Wohlstetter paradox, shocking the ambassadors of the EU-3 (as it then was), who immediately understood its significance, Mr Blair intervened to ensure that the Iranian initiative was suppressed, and any circulation of its details, stopped. (See this short book, A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong About Nuclear Iran (Peter Oborne & David Morrison, 2013).

Now that Iran’s nuclear issue has been settled, when do you think the world would begin looking into the issue of Israel’s over 200 nuclear warheads in order to have a Middle East free from nuclear weapons?

Unfortunately, whereas the weapons ‘issue’ – if it ever was an issue – may be no longer in question, I am not so sure that the JCPOA processes, as such, are so ‘settled’, especially in respect to Iran’s normalization into the non-dollar denominated global banking system, or on the matter of IAEA inspections. There may be further heated contention ahead.

To extend to Israel any process similar to that which Iran has now agreed would require a complete generational change of the US Congress, and a radical shift in the mental paradigm of western élites.  Only a major crisis could bring about such a change.

The U.S. has always considered Iran an enemy. This is while over the past 37 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has held one election every year on average and in these elections, individuals with various approaches, even those with very different opinions than that of the mainstream ideology of the Islamic Republic, have entered the realm of decision making in the Iranian government; moreover, followers of all divine religions who live in the country as minorities, have their representatives at the Parliament (Majles). How does the government of the United States form strategic alliances with the most reactionary states in terms of politics, where no election has ever been held and where the rights of minority groups are clearly violated?

In foreign policy, the West has never set much store on democracy. It has looked more to work with those who accept the notion of America as the global ‘benevolent hegemon’; with those who accept that America has been author of the ‘global order’, and who must remain as its guarantor (enforcer); and those who accept (and wish to profit from) America’s governance of the world financial and trading system.  This basic framework was later extended to polarize the world between those who are inside the global ‘market’ sphere (and therefore not potential trouble-makers) – and those who resist, and remain outside the global economic hegemony (and who therefore, by definition, are ‘bad actors’, or possibly ‘terrorists’). This distinction has trumped any considerations about democracy.

These notions are pure neo-con ‘boiler-plate’ (standard doctrine).  It reflects the fact that though the neo-cons now are less influential, and have much less credibility, their basic tenets nonetheless have been so thoroughly assimilated by much of the western élites and nearly all the media, that this paradigm is seldom questioned in the mainstream.

We celebrated the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of Iran which eradicated the dominion the U.S. held over Iran and paved the ground for Iran to rank 1st in the world in terms of scientific growth in 2011. What do you think the Revolution’s greatest achievement for the world is?

I have written the following (from an, as yet, unpublished piece) about what I see as the significance of the Islamic Revolution and of the Imam’s intellectual contribution to the world:

“He was an Islamic cleric, a philosopher, and a poet of high standing, pursuing what is often a private and personal inner intellectual voyage, but who, somehow, improbably, in Jaques Berques words, “took in hand his people”, gave them healing, authenticity and a solution to their crisis.   He both embodied the missing dimension of interiority, and reconnected this to the outer world in a wholeing synthesis of inner and outer: even the symbolic doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih seemed to hint at this.  Wali in Arabic does have the connotation of guardianship, but it also has a depth of other meaning.  It means too, a sage; someone possessed of inner knowledge.  It intimates the possibility of a linkage between inner knowledge and transmitted knowledge: of a synthesis of the two poles of human knowing.

He gathered up a tradition, and forged a new equilibrium – one which would offer renewal through a grand ‘sewing together’ of dispersed parts: making the present ‘an organic whole’, and not some mere syncretic assembly of parts.  And that tradition, on which he drew, was Mulla Sadra,  Ibn Arabi, Mir Dimad  and there in the background to these authors, as Christian Bonaud perceives, one finds – beyond the Islamic Masters, the ancients: the Neo-Platonists and, notably, Plotinus.

It was Mulla Sadra however who wove the template for the new Islamic nation.   The fourth stage of the Asfar indicated that one who had succeeded in integrating inner and outer, who had ‘emptied’ the snares of ego and other arbitrary restraints, to reach a higher reason, must then reverse his tracks, and return to multiplicity, in order to finally rise above all polar opposites.  Imam Khomeini saw that a political path, a path fixed within the extent of being, was something integral to this journey, rather than be disdained, and from which those who had the intellectual capacity, should not hold aloof.  This was the intent of Sadra’s fourth stage, he believed.  Similarly, this insight also underlay his notion of rulership.

But how to realize the Islamic nation?  Here, transformation of society was key, and the symbol of ijtihad yielded multiple Sadrist meanings:  The dynamic, ever changing, quality of nature, in itself, impelled the need for ijtihad; but the very awareness of being, of tawhid (monotheism) is in itself transformatory.

The metamorphosis of consciousness comes not from transmitted knowledge, but from actualizing the understanding of tawhid as a value, as well as a metaphysical real.  Such a realization takes one out of linear, historical time.  Awareness is not contingent on the momentary circumstance of a community: Victory or defeat now is not of import, but what matters is the progress of transformation – the change to the mode of being.  The nation had to be shaped around the principle of tawhid which alone could ‘shock’ it into a different mode of consciousness, and empower it.

The idea of tawhid as a transformatory principle, of ijtihad as symbol of that transformation, of a wholeing synthesis of inner and outer, of bringing past and future into the present through the symbols of revelation and the preparation for al-Mahdi, can be understood as a preparing for justice.

But there was something else which he shared with Sadra: both were recipients of the antipathy of the orthodox for their pursuit of interiority and Irfan.  The Imam himself relates how one day when he was speaking with fellow clerics, his eleven year old son asked for a glass of water, but when the boy had finished drinking, none of the assembled clerics would touch the glass from which the son of a teacher of Irfan (mysticism), a teacher of philosophy, had drunk his water.

But, as we have seen, any such attempt to steer a people by the compass of a meaning-giving ‘interiority’ inevitably constitutes a hugely fragile vessel, and its particular ‘moment’ often has proved ephemeral, though its consequences resound through the centuries – e.g. an Empedocles or an al-Hallaj.  The rhizome, the matted, invisible, underground knotting of root, from time to time, thrusts up through the earth, a solitary flower; it blossoms in the light, but fades away, with the passing of summer.

It is too early to tell; but nonetheless – after half millennia – the ‘other’ tradition, always present but so long obscured, has broken surface again – and at a singular moment of hunger and neediness in our world.

What is the main point you want to make in your book “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution”? What is Imam Khomeini’s role in forming the resistance in the Islamic world?

The main argument is that the crisis in Islam, which was to provoke both resistance and revolution, originated with the project of the European powers to intervene in the Middle East in the name of ‘modernization’.  This project, still afoot in the contemporary era, has its roots stretching far back, into the eighteenth century.

It was the impact of the drive to construct the powerful, ethnically unitary, centralized nation-states in the western Ottoman provinces that originally precipitated a rolling disaster:  It was a tragedy that created millions of victims – just as a similar social upheaval had so done, a century earlier, in Europe and the US.  Then, in the West itself, it had brought European societies to the brink of revolution – and beyond.  It was to do no less in the Islamic world.

Five million European Muslims were ‘cleansed’ from their homes between 1821 and 1922 – as the West leveraged-up Christian-majority nation-states in the former Ottoman western provinces. And in the Ottoman heart, the anti-religious Young Turks, inspired by this European redemptive vision, determined on emulating Europe’s secular, liberal-market modernization. It came at terrible cost: competing identities and affiliations were perceived by Europeans to dilute the homogeneity necessary to empower a strong top-down, central government from emerging.  In the attempt to create an ethnically unitary and secular Turkey one million Armenians died, 250,000 Assyrians perished, and one quarter of a million Greek Orthodox Anatolians were expelled. Kurdish identity was suppressed, and finally Islam was demonized and suppressed by Ataturk.  Islamic institutions were closed; and the 1400-year-old Caliphate was abolished.

It was precisely the enforced secularization of Turkey – with its contingent metaphysics of modernity, which more than any other aspect, threatened the very existence of Islam.  It was in response to this threat, taken up and replicated in Persia and Egypt, that resistance sprung.

The Imam’s role, as described above, was to gather up the elements of a nearly lost tradition, to lift up his people; to offer them an explanation for their pain and tribulations; to show them a vision of the future, to draw out for them another ‘way of being’ – beyond that of economic determinism, and to renew the metaphysics of a meaning- giving world, in the face of the meaning-less cosmos of the West.

Why do Western politicians and media demonize Iran? And this happens while we know that Iran has never attacked any country by atomic bombs or massacre thousands of civilians by Agent Orange .Iran has never been a warmonger at different corners of the world seeking to achieve more benefit for its weapons industry. In fact, the U.S. with a record of invasions over the past 300 years, calls Iran ‘aggressive’, while Iran has never attacked any country over the past 300 years. Based on what rationale do you think such rhetoric is made?

It is not based on reason.  Until quite recently, the West was convinced that the world was converging towards shared values – towards its particular cultural values.  Simply, it was felt that they – the West – had emerged predominant. And that this convergence on liberal democracy and liberal markets, marked not only the end of history, but an end to politics and ideological struggle, too.  The future was theirs.

But now that formerly powerful ‘narrative’ is in crisis – itself a marker that an era is beginning its end: and that the hitherto prevailing elitist imposition of the neo-liberal conceptualization that markets, market economics – and therefore, our whole market-orientated governance – could be reduced to ‘technicals’ (and little more), has lost much of its hold on human imagination and is being questioned even from within ‘the establishment’ itself.  This development hints at the renewal of global ideological struggle (both internal and also global), after two decades of hiatus in which the neo-liberal hegemony has been more or less global.

The point here, is that the pursuit of a neo-liberal monetary and financial order is deeply entwined with the western neo-conservative, geo-political project of hegemony over the political order too.  They are two sides of the same coin – and so entwined with each other, that they are likely to rise and fall together.  And both, in their seemingly different ways, are failing – and are being widely rejected in other non-western societies (and by substantial minorities within their own societies: “in an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy” (the Washington Post recently noted), a recent poll by Harvard University showed that most – 51% – of young American adults do not support ‘capitalism’. (American neo-liberal market fundamentalism, of course, does not necessarily equate to ‘capitalism’, but the poll is telling, nonetheless.)

Suddenly, the future seems no longer ‘theirs’: the non-West increasingly is insisting on the right to be non-western, in its way of being. Moreover, it is possible that what was once almost unassailable – the western vision – may be the on way to becoming a minority view, within the global context.

Not surprisingly, many westerners are afraid. They feel their handholds on reality, their landmarks in life, the certainties by which they have lived, are dissolving.  There is a natural human psychological resistance to assimilating such a disturbing notion. It is easier to stride on, unchanged – and for our psyches to blame some externality for its own internal anxiety and crisis. This was always likely to take the shape of demonization of Iran (and Russia), which have taken on the burden of being the symbol for this non-western, alternative vision – in their different ways.


Alastair Crooke is Director of Conflicts Forum. He was formerly advisor on Middle East issues to Javier Solana, the EU Foreign Policy Chief. He was a staff member of Senator George Mitchell’s Fact Finding Committee that inquired into the causes of the Intifada (2000-2001) and was an adviser to the International Quartet. He facilitated various ceasefires in the Occupied Territories on behalf of the EU. He has worked with Islamist movements, particularly with Hamas and Hizbullah, and other Islamist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East for over 30 years. He is author of Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution (2009) and is a regular media commentator.

  • Source : Khamenei
 

We are Proud of Being in Holy Shrine of Imam Ali – French Ambassador

Dr. Mark Baritee, the French ambassador, described the Holy Shrine of Imam Ali (PBUH) as a historic and civilizational landmark.

He noted that it is part of the Iraqi and international legacy for its religious and moral status.

He expressed his happiness and pride of visiting the shrine for the second time.

Mr. Baritee said in a statement to the Media Centre of the Holy Shrine ‘I saw the developments in the vicinity of the Holy Shrine and the expansion projects which will serve the visitors.

We hope to see more projects to render service to the visitors and the Holy Shrine.

why won’t U.S. apologize for Hiroshima?

37b973f3f9028bc0e28d212e7c6eefccWhen jahiliyyah (the era of ignorance) emerges and when satanic powers become dominant, then chaos occurs. The meaning of Taghut is, “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of taghut (false deities)” The Holy Quran, 4: 76, it is a criterion. Every step that an individual takes on the path of strengthening taghut, propels them into the camp of taghut. This is taghut’s purpose – corrupting individuals or causing them to behave in a corrupt manner. “When he turns his back, his aim everywhere is to spread mischief throughout the earth and destroy crops and cattle” [The Holy Quran, 2: 205].

God wants salvation for humanity, but taghut wants corruption for it. With one bomb they kill hundreds of thousands of people, in one or two cities, and when several years have passed they can’t even bring themselves to apologize. When people say to them, they should apologize for the event of Hiroshima, they answer, “No, we will not apologize.” They are not yet willing to apologize! They or their agents destroy the infrastructure of countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and other regional countries, nevertheless they pretend that nothing has happened and they continue down the same path.

This attitude demonstrates, “When he turns his back, his aim everywhere is to spread mischief throughout the earth and destroy crops and cattle.” This is the same orientation and front of jahiliyyah. In soul and spirit, today’s jahiliyyah is the same as the jahiliyyah of the Holy Prophet’s (pbuh) time. Of course, it benefits from new tools, new measures and a new shape. This situation definitely imposes a responsibility on all Muslims and on the entire Islamic Ummah. This responsibility is confronting taghut.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements made at an assembly, directed towards the Islamic Republic of Iran’s government officials and ambassadors of Islamic countries, May 5, 2016

When the Americans feel like expressing regret for their attack on Japan, for the two bombs they blasted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they say, “Although tens of thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people were killed, by the bombs that we dropped on these two cities, this was the price for ending World War II. If we (the Americans) had not dropped these nuclear bombs, the war would have continued. If we didn’t do it then two million people, instead of the two hundred thousand people who were killed as a result, would have been killed. Therefore, we rendered a service by dropping these bombs.”

Take note, that this is a common statement made by Americans (USA) in their official propaganda. 65 years have passed since that day but they repeat those very words. It is a deceptive and hypocritical statement, one of the elaborate lies, which is not told by anyone except the supercilious regimes. On the Christian calendar date of 1945, during summer, a crime was committed when two nuclear bombs were dropped and devastated two cities in Japan. This is while four months before that event, in the early spring of 1945, the primary warmonger Hitler, had committed suicide. Moreover, the second most important constituent to the war, Italian president Mussolini, was arrested. The war was approaching its end. Japan too, which was the third important element of the war, announced that it was ready to surrender. Therefore, the war was practically over, but these nuclear bombs were dropped regardless. Why? For experimentation purposes, these bombs had been built and they wanted to test them somewhere. Where were they going to test these weapons? The “best decision” for the US was to drop these bombs on innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They used war as a scapegoat, to do their experimentations, so results would clarify if these bombs work properly or not; such is their deceit.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements made at a meeting with fifty thousand Basiji commanders in attendance, November 20, 2013

  • Source : Khamenei

Free Islamic Clinic Thrives in South Carolina, USA

Providing a free medical help for vulnerable and uninsured Americans in South Carolina, an American Muslim organization is offering free medical service for people of all faiths, setting a role model for American Muslims.

“When people walk in and say, ‘This place is a blessing that touches my heart,’ it melts everything,” Dr. Reshma Khan, who works in the Shifa Clinic, said.

“There’s no better place I would be, just to see the smile on people’s faces and every day we touch so many lives.”

Dr Khan, a local Veterans Affairs doctor, managed to establish her free clinic in Mount Pleasant in January 2012.

The Muslim doctor got help from the Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA, which is paying the rent on the three-room clinic located in an office building on Lowcountry Boulevard.

The free clinic offers a full range of gynecology services to the uninsured and underinsured Americans, regardless of the faith.

Khan, 42, runs the clinic with about 20 volunteers and companies that donate medical services.
Her husband, Dr. Ahsan Khan, a nuclear medicine specialist, serves on the clinic’s board.

“Everybody that works here, they have a heart to serve others and they make a big difference by working together,” Rosalinda Loredo, a volunteer at the clinic who acts as a translator for their Hispanic patients, about one-third of their patient population, said.

When Shifa opened in 2012, it was only open four hours a week. Khan ran everything herself.
“We used to see four or five patients a week,” Khan said.

“I was the only one person doing everything. I was the provider. I was the person taking messages. I was the person doing photocopies.”

Now, the gynecologist said they see about 40 patients a week and it’s her full-time job.

Though she doesn’t get paid, she left her job at the VA to run Shifa full-time as a volunteer.

“She has a passion for what she does,” Loredo said. “She works 60 to 80 hours [a week] to continue to help those people in need.”

Fulfilling the needs of the poor people in her society, she enjoys giving as part of her Islamic beliefs.

“This is the face of Islam. Charity is very, very much in Islam and mercy and compassion and love and peace. That’s what I’m trying to do here,” she said.

This is not the first time Muslim doctors provide free medical help for poor Americans.

In January 2012, a group of Muslim doctors volunteered to open the Rahma Health Clinic to provide free medical services for poor residents in New York’s Syracuse city.

Earlier in 2011, a free clinic was established by the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America to provide dental, ophthalmologic, pediatric and pain-management services on Sundays at the Balal Mosque on St. Louis University’s campus.

Another clinic was opened by the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, in partnership with Volunteers in Medicine in October.

Who is Sheikh Zakzaky, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Shiite Muslim?

Nigeria’s foremost Shiite Muslim cleric is currently being held in custody after violence broke out between his followers and the Nigerian military.

Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), was detained after deadly clashes between Nigerian soldiers and his followers in the city of Zaria, Kaduna state, in northern Nigeria. At least 60 people reportedly died in the violence, which the Nigerian Army claimed was a response to an assassination attempt by the sect’s members on the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai.

The clashes and al-Zakzaky’s arrest have sparked protests across Nigeria by Shiite Muslims, a significant minority in the Sunni-majority country. They also appear to have stoked tensions between the Nigerian state and a movement (IMN) which claims to have been targeted before and has the backing of a powerful Shiite ally.

Who is Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky?

Hailing from the Nigerian Shiite holy town of Zaria, Zakzaky began propagating Shiite Islam around 1979, at the time of the Iranian revolution—which saw Iran’s monarchy overthrown and replaced with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. Zakzaky believed that the establishment of a republic along similar religious lines in Nigeria would be feasible. He has been detained several times due to accusations of civil disobedience under military regimes in Nigeria during the 1980s and 1990s and is still viewed with suspicion by Nigerian authorities.

A woman walks past a painting of Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran December 11. Sheikh Zakzaky drew inspiration from the late Iranian spiritual leader when he began preaching Shiite Islam in Nigeria.Raheb Homavandi/TIMA/Reuters

Zakzaky is the spiritual leader of the IMN, Nigeria’s most prominent Shiite Muslim movement. Of Nigeria’s 180 million population, 50 percent is Muslim, a small minority of which belong to Shiite Islam. According to Nnamdi Obasi, Senior Analyst on Nigeria at the International Crisis Group (ICG), the IMN’s goals are twofold: “to ensure more stringent application of Islamic legal and administrative systems…then ultimately to create an Islamic state in Nigeria.”

What is the status of Shiite Muslims in Nigeria?

Shiite Muslims are generally well-integrated in Nigeria and do not suffer direct discrimination or persecution, according to Bat-el Ohayon, founder of sub-Sahara African consultancy Afrique Consulting Group. Zakzaky’s followers, however, have a strained relationship with the Nigerian security apparatus, says Ohayon. “It appears that there is specific and isolated conflict with the community in Zaria, particularly with Zakzaky,” says Ohayon.

The clashes at a July 2014 Shiite religious procession in Zaria are evidence of this conflict. At the pro-Palestinian rally, known as a Quds Day procession, 34 protesters were reportedly killed by Nigerian soldiers, including three of Zakzaky’s sons. At the time, the Nigerian Army claimed that it was acting in self-defence. More recently, Shiite followers of Zakzaky were targeted in a suicide bombing that killed at least 21 people during a procession from Kano to Zaria. Despite reports that the militant group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack, Zakzaky claimed the attack was not the work of Boko Haram and suggested that the bombing was orchestrated by the army. The Shiite cleric has no reason to defend Boko Haram, which espouses a fundamentalist interpretation of Sunni Islam and views Shiite Muslims as infidels worthy of death.

Why has Sheikh Zakzaky been arrested?

Zakzaky’s arrest followed a series of events which differ according to the teller. According to the Nigerian military, a motorcade transporting the Army Chief of Staff was blocked by followers of Zakzaky, who began to attack the convoy before troops responded with force. According to the IMN, unarmed worshippers were attacked by the army while conducting a peaceful procession. Clashes took place at three different locations across Zaria, including Zakzaky’s house and the group’s main mosque, according to the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which also reported that Zakzaky’s wife was in hospital after earlier reports stated that she had been killed. Unconfirmed pictures of a bloody Zakzaky have circulated on social media.

What are the movement’s ties to Iran?

Iran, which is known for defending Shiite causes worldwide, has responded firmly to the conflict between the Shiite group and Nigerian soldiers. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani reportedly called his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari to urge that a fact-finding mission be set up to investigate the recent violence. Iran also reportedly summoned the head of the Nigerian diplomatic mission in Tehran to protest against the clashes and ask that Shiite Muslims be protected. Zakzaky has previously denied that the IMN receives funding from Iran, but it appears that the movement has a powerful ally in any future disputes.

Islam religion of mercy not terrorism: British scholar

Speaking to IRNA, Whitehead said that religion play a key role to resolve challenges of today’s society.

‘I think faith is an incredibly important way to bring a better understanding between different communities and different people’s and in particular a very important way to try and improve the friendly knowledge of understanding between the UK and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Faith plays and incredibly important part in the lives of millions of people in both countries.’

Commenting on Tehran-London relations, the scholar regretted that mutual ties between the two capitals were ‘very much based mistrust.’

‘Unfortunately our countries for the last 150 years have had a relationship that has been based very much on mistrust; If we want to improve that, if we want to improve the understanding between the UK and Islamic Republic of Iran we need to bring together people who communicate with large communities and large societies in each country so that by building those bridges between faith leaders, between communities we can bring about a better understanding.’

Whitehead stressed that many of the problems between Iran and Britain ‘are based on a lack of understanding or misunderstanding and I genuinely believe that faith is a very powerful way for us to share the things that we have in common; to share the challenges that we have in common, ad through that to build a better understanding and through that understanding build more trust.’

Commenting on the alleged relation between Islam and extremism, he said, ‘I think the problem again comes back to understanding and I think that if people think that way, then they do not understand Islam. Islam is a religion of Love, togetherness, mercy; it is not a religion of terrorism.
If we want people to really understand the beauty of Islam and what Islam really stands for we need to build a better understanding between the people of the UK and the people of Islamic Republic of Iran; the faith communities in the UK and the faith communities in the Islamic republic of Iran.

‘If we can build that understanding I think we will be able to come across the true message of what Islam is and we would be able to break down this completely false misconception of Islam being associated with terrorism.’

US mosques step up security amid growing safety concerns

f62cb0ca0cccb549786ba4b98fd91e59From the suburbs of Los Angeles to the outskirts of Washington D.C., Mosques around the United States are warily stepping up security in the face of growing fears about reprisals on American Muslims.

The increasing safety concerns described by American Islamic leaders and the steps they are taking in response, including hiring armed guards represent the flip side of the rising public anxiety about ISIS terror after attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.

The call by Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States only amplified concerns about an anti-Islamic backlash at Mosques and community centers, religious leaders and organizers say.

At least two mosques – one in Phoenix and the other in suburban Virginia are working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to check up on the security their facilities provide for worshippers in recent weeks. Others report taking a range of steps, including hiring armed guards, because of fears that an American mosque could be a target for an attack.

“We are always concerned about lone wolf attacks,” said Usama Shami, president of a Phoenix mosque that has been working with the DHS to review its security measures since the Paris attack last month.

Given the rising tensions, some Mosques say they have struggled to hire and keep security guards. In Dulles, Virginia, a suburb of Washington with a large Muslim community center, security guards abruptly quit after the San Bernardino attacks, said Rizwan Jaka, chairman of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society.

“Security guards resigned because they were fearful of getting hurt in the backlash,” Jaka said. “People were concerned.”

The mosque has now hired armed guards and the imam of the Mosque, Mohammed Magid, said security had been increased for programs in which children take part. “We are concerned about the feeling in the larger community about Muslims,” he said.

Jaka said that after the San Bernardino shooting federal law enforcement officials had also completed a security assessment for the Mosque.

At the East Plano Islamic Center near Dallas, Texas, Nadim Bashir, the imam, said the mosque had hired an armed security guard ever since the Paris attacks. “We’re just trying to ramp up our efforts in the community and get a better name,” said Bashir.

A mosque in Corona, California, which, like San Bernardino, is a working-class suburb on the dusty eastern edge of Los Angeles, has spent $10,000 over the past two weeks to increase security. It is now asking for donations from the congregation to defer that expense, Imam Obair Katchi said.

The Islamic Society of Corona-Norco has also put up a banner on its website denouncing the San Bernardino attack. The mosque has faced extra scrutiny after it emerged that Enrique Marquez, who supplied guns used in the San Bernardino massacre, had once attended.

“The Muslim community stands shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans in repudiating any twisted mindset that would claim to justify such sickening acts of violence. We encourage everyone to be extra vigilant,” the mosque’s website says.

Not all mosques see the need for new security. Mufti Ikram Ul Haq at the Rhode Island Masjid Al-Islam said the mosque there is relying on a police presence during prayer times. “We have surveillance. We lock our doors and we have an alarm system,” he said. Local police, Haq said, “have been increasing patrols around our places of worship, and that gives us enough sense of security.”

The FBI will not release data on hate crimes for 2015 until next year. Some critics, including CAIR, say the official statistics undercount reported incidents targeting Muslims. For 2014, FBI data showed that out of 1,140 victims of anti-religious hate crimes, approximately 16 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.