Salaam dear young friends, and heartiest felicitations to you. In fact, the heartiest felicitations of the year for refreshing your youthful hearts and making them bastions of faith.
What is the occasion? Can you guess?
Of course, Friday will be a day of celebration. The 15th of Zil-Hijjah, the birthday of Imam Ali an-Naqi al-Hadi (AS), the 10th Infallible Heir of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), will be indeed an auspicious event, but that is not the occasion that we have in our mind for greeting you in the warmest possible manner.
So what is it?
Yes, you are absolutely right. We are on the threshold of the Grandest Eid. It is the day on which God Almighty perfected faith, completed His blessings, and decreed Islam as the religion of all mankind (Holy Qur’an 5:3).
It is the 18th of Zil-Hijja (which will be on Monday next week). It is the Day of Ghadeer. It is the greatest ever day in the annals of human history and civilization.
It was on this day, while returning from his Farewell Hajj Pilgrimage that the Almighty’s Last and Greatest Messenger, on receiving an express commandment from the heavens, halted at the place called Khom, beside a pond (Ghadeer), near Juhfa, and after delivering a memorable sermon to a huge gathering of 120,000 Muslims, proclaimed his dear cousin and son-in-law, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), as the divinely-decreed vicegerent, with those immortal words: “For whomever I am Master, this Ali is his/her Master.”
Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) then supplicated to Lord Most High: O Allah! Befriend whoever is a friend of his, and turn away whoever is his enemy; assist whoever helps him and humiliate whoever tries to humiliate him.
May God increase in the hearts of you youngsters – as well as in our hearts – the love, affection, and veneration of the Commander of the Faithful, the Leader of the Pious, the Symbol of Justice, the Epitome of Wisdom; the Paragon of Valour that the Prophet’s First Infallible Heir was! Amen.
It is adherence to the path of the Ahl al-Bayt that guarantees our success in life and salvation in afterlife, no matter to what low levels the dastardly enemies of humanity descend in a vain bid to tarnish the image of Islam – whether in Syria, whether in Iraq, whether in Yemen, and whether in and around Mecca.
Goodbye and God bless you.