Salaam dear young friends, and heartiest congratulations to you on the blessed birthdays in whose blessings we continue to bask.
This week, celebrations are peaked throughout Iran on the blessed birth anniversary of the Best of creation. Throughout the length and breadth of the Islamic Republic, Muslims, whatever their jurisprudential affiliations, are marking with festivities, in a spiritual atmosphere and with prayers, fasts, pilgrimages to shrines, seminars, conferences, quizzes, games for children, the Islamic Unity Week which is held every year on the occasion of the days on which Almighty’s Last and Greatest Messenger, Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), was born.
For your information, the Islamic Unity Week spans the two dates of the month of Rabi al-Awwal that are believed to be the day on which the Seal of Messengers was born. Sunni Muslims say it was the 12th, on the narrations of the Sahaba, while Shi’a Muslims, citing the reliability of family accounts, maintain that the actual date was 17th (which will be on Friday).
Anyway, it is a great and golden opportunity for the devotees of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) to join ranks with each other in peace and harmony in order to build Islamic solidarity, especially in these crucial days when the hate-filled Zionists are manipulating the West to create an atmosphere of Islamophobia, while their agents and their seditious groups, who at heart are the real enemies of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), have created terrorist networks to destroy Muslim countries from within.
Yes friends, the 17th of Rabi al-Awwal is a day of double blessings, since it was on the 136th anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday, the Reviver of his pristine Sunnah and Seerah, Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS), was born.
As the Prophet’s 6th Infallible Heir, Imam Sadeq (AS) strove to safeguard the Shari’ah of Islam in those tyrannical days of the Godless Omayyad and Abbasid regimes.
As a matter of fact, he also opened up vistas of natural sciences to the seekers of knowledge – an example being his student Jaber ibn Hayyan, the Father of Chemistry. Moreover, two of the founders of the latter day Sunni jurisprudential schools, had been his students, one time or another, especially Abu Hanifa (Noman bin Sabet), who was born in a family of Iranian converts to Islam from Zoroastrianism.
So friends, we should make sure to hold fast to the Hadith of the Prophet as well as the commandments of God in the holy Qur’an, regarding the prime position of the Immaculate Ahl al-Bayt, who are venerated by all Muslims, whether Sunni of Shi’a.
Goodbye and God bless you until we meet again next week.