By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Ask any Muslim anywhere on the planet about Hazrat Zainab (SA), the grand-daughter of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), and the answer will be one and the same: She is one of “Our Blessed Ladies of Islam”.
Yesterday on Friday and its eve the day before on Thursday, like the rest of the Ummah worldwide, Bahrain’s native population of over seven hundred people, joined by a sizeable number of the eight hundred thousand-plus expatriates living in that Persian Gulf state, celebrated the birthday of this Immaculate Lady.
The gatherings, throughout the 33 islands that make up Bahrain, paid glowing tributes to the Heroine of Karbala, the Impeccable Daughter of the Most Noble Lady of all times, Hazrat Fatema az-Zahra (SA) – the Pride of the Virgin Mary (SA) – for her immortal role in nursing humanitarian values back to life after history’s most heartrending tragedy.
The faithful, however, felt they were not free in their own Muslim country to celebrate such an auspicious occasion, due to the frightening presence of the police and military forces around the venues of celebration, especially at the capital Manama’s Hussainiya Zainabiyya (named in honour of the blessed lady).
Why? Because the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime of pirate origin, though claiming to be Muslim, is openly opposed to Islamic sanctities and feels no inhibition in harassing and killing followers of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, and in desecrating religious sites by tearing and even burning copies of the Holy Qur’an.
Thus, true to its notorious anti-Islamic nature, the regime on the birthday of “Our Blessed Lady of Islam”, hosted a delegation from the Vatican to inaugurate a church built on a large piece of land in Manama and named “Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia.”
Since Sheikh Hamad, who styles himself as ‘king’, was busy dining and wining with Saudi Arabia’s visiting Heir Apparent, MBZ (Mohamed bin Salman), he sent his second son, Abdullah bin Hamad, to represent him at the inauguration and the latter devotedly folded his hands and bowed in reverence to the statue of a lady seated with an infant on her lap – placed on the church’s altar.
Was it an act of idol-worship? Wasn’t his humming of the prayer of the Vatican Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who while consecrating the catholic cathedral in Manama, called it a “a living sign of God’s care for his flock,” and chanted “O Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Arabia and our Patroness! To you, we offer up our prayers for the needs of the Church here and throughout the world.”
Manama’s court mullahs, who justify through spurious fatwas the regime’s ritual sacrilege of mosques, hussainiyas, and Islamic symbols, and condone the imprisonment, torture, killing, stripping of citizenship, and expulsion of Bahraini human rights activists and religious leaders, including the senior-most Islamic authority, Ayatollah Shaikh Isa Qassim, should provide answers to these questions.
Of course, we do venerate the real Virgin Mary (not any statue) as one of “Our Ladies of Islam” – and not of Bahrain or Arabia. We also revere her son, Prophet Jesus (AS) – one of the five Greatest Messengers of Islam – since God Almighty has exalted their stations in the Holy Qur’an.
We, however, with due respect to Bahrain’s only 80,000 estimated expatriate community of Christian workers (and no native) to have the right of freedom of worship, ask the Vatican to break its silence on the persecution of the Bahraini Muslim nation by the Aal-e Khalifa regime.
Will Pope Francis, who refrained from calling the Virgin Mary (SA) as “Our of Lady of Palestine” (her native land) so as not to annoy the Zionists who continue to slander the Blessed Mother of Prophet Jesus (AS), tell Hamad that he and his regime are among the principal violators of human rights?