A Message to the Emigrants

His Eminence, Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoobi, has received an Iraqi brother living in Michigan, USA, and through this person, he had addressed an audio and video statement to the emigrants in general. In this statement, His Eminence inserted some guidelines to be briefed hereinafter:

1. His Eminence has advised the emigrants to build distinctive doctrinal, moral, and ideological personalities for themselves and their family members in such an amount due to which they become able to protect their religion and moral values against deviation through meticulous reading of Islamic books, presence in religious classes, and listening to Islamic lectures.

2. Emigrants are advised to communicate with their brothers and local residents in the countries where they live through messages and phone calls and to support their economical, cultural, humanitarian, and religious plans. They are also required to look after their activities and private and general issues. There are many spiritual advantages ensued from just mentioning or remembering one’s brethren-in-faith, not to mention communicating with them through conversations and participating in their problems and plans. Such matters will definitely refresh and renovate the spirits of common belongingness to their homeland and identity.

3. Emigrants are also advised to gather in convergent social entities, by creating communities to be characterized by commitment to their religion and traditions inside these huge communities that are swarming with corruption and dishonesty. To create such spiritual atmospheres contributes to preserving the national and Islamic identity and preventing from melting away in the fake civilization therein. Moreover, such assemblies will definitely work for holding Islamic social ceremonies, such as wedding parties, funeral ceremonies, establishment of religious rituals, and other religious activities.

4. Emigrants are strongly recommended to work towards conveying the echo of true Islam through spreading the instructions and moral values of the Holy Prophet’s Household (i.e. Ahl al-Bayt). Once they do so, they will find immediate positive responses from the masses in these countries. Confirming this, God the Almighty has said (in the Holy Quran), “You will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say, ‘We are Christians.’ This is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly. (5/82)”

To recite such verses of the Holy Quran before these peoples will certainly have positive impacts on themselves, even if they cannot understand their actual meanings. In this respect, the late Sayyid Qutb has mentioned in his book of ‘Tahta Dhilal al-Quran (Under the Quran's Shades) that he, once, led a Friday congregational prayer in a ship heading for the United States. When he finished, a Yugoslav woman came to him to express that she had been deeply influenced by his words although she could not understand Arabic. She also said that there were certain pieces in his sermon that she liked more. Sayyid Qutb understood that the woman had meant the Quranic verses mentioned in the sermon.

On the occasion of the departure of the Holy Prophet that falls on these days, there are some examples that, in my conception, may have an effect on the personality of the emigrants. For instance, the Holy Prophet was leading an army when one of his companions threw a stone on a cat. Once he saw this scene, the Holy Prophet said to him, “Prepare yourself for interrogation on the Resurrection Day for this deed of you!”

On another occasion, the Holy Prophet noticed that there was a bird following his army and hovering in the air. When he asked about the reason, he was informed that one of his soldiers had taken the youngsters of that bird from their nest and this was their mother following the army because it could not stand seeing its youngsters taken away from it. Immediately, the Holy Prophet ordered the army to stop and ordered that soldier to take back these youngsters to their nest. He then said to his companions, “Verily, Allah—the Blessed and Exalted—are more merciful to His servants (i.e. creatures) than this bird to its youngsters.”

How are yet the tyrants of the materialistic civilization and the imperious rulers, who are ready to crash peoples in total for the sake of their personal whims and coveted objects, turned away from such morality?

Promulgation for the religion, His Eminence added, must be founded on certain techniques and must be proclaimed with a language that is effective and approved of by these peoples. In this regard, one of our virtuous brothers who lived in Ireland narrated to me that a Muslim preacher, intending to explain the reasons beyond the self-sacrifice and then martyrdom of Imam al-Husayn, said that Imam al-Husayn's revolution was because Yazid, the ruler, used to drink wine, commits adultery, and play on musical instruments! Of course, the attendants from the natives of that country did not find any problem about that, because some of these things, at least, are no more than personal pleasures that they usually seek after. 

As an attempt to put the matter right, the man who narrated to me this incident, and he was a physician, said that he added that Imam al-Husayn revolted against Yazid, because the latter was oppressive dictator who used to strew about the fortunes of his people on his private pleasures and because he prohibited his people from practicing their freedoms. Moreover, he used to kill the oppositionists and arrest others without judicial proceedings.

Only then did the attendants sympathize with Imam al-Husayn and support his revolution. Of course, the earlier preacher did not violated honesty in mentioning these reasons; rather, he mentioned some matters that are not rejected in the general culture of the addressees.

5. Emigrants are advised to adopt the issues of their nation and express them obviously before the peoples of the world so that they would assume an accurate conception about these issues and, as a result, their support and corroboration would be guaranteed. If this happens, we will gain an additional international pressure on the oppressive powers that will be in the advantage of our issues and rightful demands. Actually, mass media in these days are playing vital roles in the making of decisions and in the steering of the international resolutions negatively or positively.

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