Sayyed Nasrallah’s Full Speech During Memorial of Sheikh Abd Nasser Al-Jabri
In His Name
Speech delivered by Hizbullah Secretary General, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, during the ceremony held to commemorate the death of the late Allamah Sheikh Abd Nassr al-Jabri, on Tuesday December 27, 2016.
I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed devil. In the Name of Allah, The Most Compassionate, The Most Merciful. Peace be on the Seal of prophets, our Master and Prophet, Abi Al Qassem Mohammad, and on his chaste and pure Household, and on his chosen companions, and on all messengers and prophets.
Dear scholars, brothers, and sisters! Dear audience! Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings.
My brothers and I are not able to give His Eminence his right; what if we are to be brief? For sure we will be even more inept.
First, I would like to offer my sincere consolation to his noble and dear family and to all of his brethren, adorers, friends, and comrades, and to you in this blessed meeting God willing.
My acquaintance with Sheikh Abd Nasr al-Jabri goes back to 1985, and consequently part of the witness I will give is personal and not by proxy. Some of what I will say and what my brethren said a while ago come as an act of thanks and gratitude to his efforts and his sacrifices and bountifulness. May Allah have mercy on him. They also come in the framework of consolidating this kind of struggling scholars as an ideal model to be followed. We learn from them to move on their path and move on their steps until our death without never altering, as His Eminence never altered.
We all know His Eminence Sheikh Abd Nasr in his piety, knowledge, virtues, good morals, laudable attributes, calmness, composure, love to others, patience, honesty, industrious work, and continuous struggle. We all know him as the struggling immigrating scholar who never grew bored or tired or desperate. His vigour was unlimited whether in time or in place.
Indeed, if we are to approach this struggling scholar, we can approach him from several perspectives, especially since His Eminence had diverse concerns and activities: his personality, conduct, morals, piety, and virtues, as well as his call to Islam and political activity, his founding role and activity in the "Islamic Action Front Party" and "The Nation of Islam", his informative role in media institutions, his struggle and resistance, and his struggle to unite and bring closer (different) sects to each other.
However, because of the time limit, allow me to focus very briefly on some aspects of his personality and move from each topic to our current status quo God willing.
Now we tackle his struggle to unite and bring Muslims closer to each other, his belief in the fraternity of Muslims to each other (that we are brothers in Allah and in Islam, his belief in the duty of bringing closer together the followers of the various Islamic sects. This is on the level of faith, conviction, intellect, and action. That's because faith is not enough. Faith must be coupled with good deeds. Whoever believes in an idea must act according to this idea, and His Eminence Sheikh Abd Nasr and his brethren presented an outstanding example in the framework we are all proud of - meaning the Muslim Scholars Assembly in Lebanon. Here we are before an excellent, extraordinary, special example: a group of Sunni scholars work together along with a group of Shia scholars. They sit together, contact each other continually, cooperate in the various fields, meet periodically, discuss issues, agree, coordinate, form common and united delegations on the various occasions, and take united stances towards the various issues of the nation.
However, the most important element in this experience is honesty in relations, the feelings of fraternity, cordiality, adoration, and special feelings and emotions. What we saw a while ago are not courtesies. We were all agonized by the death of Sheikh Abd Nasr. We all mourned his death and felt a solemn loss. This is a special and extraordinary experience because it shows that it is possible that in some place in the Islamic world, after hundreds of years of antipathy and divergence here and there, except for extraordinary and special cases, that a framework is established that gathers a large number of Shia and Sunni scholars in Lebanon. They contact each other, cooperate, and show fraternity and cordiality towards each other. It's not political relations and courtesies. It is rather a deep relation.
Sheikh Abd Nasr was a founder of this example. He was present and active, and he insisted on it. Even when at stages and crises which the country passed through when ideas from here and there popped up to the effect that the project of this assembly or the stage of this assembly had exploited all its goals, Sheikh Abd Nasr used to strongly insist on continuing in this experience, this example, and this track.
In the same perspective, this framework opened the way for similar frameworks:
the Union of the Levant Scholars which became even broader. It came to include scholars from the various regions and Islamic sects, until the World Assembly for Proximity was formed. Sheikh Abd Nasr (May Allah have mercy on him) was an active, bold, and present pioneer in any framework or institution or uniting formula that gathers, unites, and fraternizes. We hope that these kind of experiences are followed in the other Arab and Islamic countries.
We are now at a time in which we are in dire need of Sheikh Abd Nasr al-Jabri and his likes, for his intellect, method, spirit, honesty, and fraternity, because our Islamic world today is facing an extremely dangerous phenomenon - it is the phenomenon of radicalism which is becoming loose from all its constraints, whether in some Sunni circles or in some Shiite circles.
When we observe the Takfiri phenomenon and the Takfiri movements, we find that even before 2000 and the 1990s, this existed but in some limited frameworks, countries, and squares. This Takfiri current did not express itself before as is the case now. Whether from the intellectual, media, political, or field positions, Takfiris are expressing their positions with no limits or control. They drove things too far, and this is very dangerous. In the Takfiri battle today, things are not limited to Takfir; they develop into killing, massacres, slaughtering, imprisonment, beheading, stabbing chests, crucifying, and the like. This is the most dangerous state the nation may experience now.
Unfortunately too, in some Shiite circles there are certain trends which His Eminence Imam Khamenai labels London Shiism or British Shiism, which also inclines towards Takfirism, charging with treason, and offending all sanctities and symbols. By the way, they do not offend the sanctities and symbols of our Sunni brothers only, but also the sanctities and symbols of Shiites, including senior and supreme scholars and authorities.
Today, you find that these two trends are provided with all capabilities. The trends of Takfirism, immoderation, radicalism, cursing, accusation, treason, slaughtering, and killing, are provided with media outlets. Resistance channels are being canceled from Arab Sat, Nile Sat, and the European satellites, whereas the satellites of sedition such as Wisal, Safa, and Fadak and the like are welcomed worldwide.
Brothers and sisters and dear scholars! What is taking place in fact is not by chance or spontaneous. In fact, states, intelligence bodies, and research centers work on this around the clock. They discovered that the Islamic awakening and the Islamic nation and the Muslim peoples awoke and arose and started taking clear positions towards the American arrogant hegemony over the Muslims countries and over our region. They now have a clear and decisive stance which was taken with high morals in light of the victories of the Resistance against "Israel". They knew that parts of this nation must hit the other part because there is no way for confronting this thunderous popular uprising in the land of the Arabs and the Arab countries in particular, and the Islamic countries in general, which we witnessed years ago, except through deviating these tracks towards sedition. Now who is more becoming to serve this Zionist hegemonic scheme in fragmentizing and hitting and sectioning and moving this battle from its true and erect path to the other squares more than Takfirism and immoderation?
Today we must more than any time in the past, assume responsibility as the late Sheikh Abd Nasser used to assume it. We must isolate them and lay siege of these (groups). We must stand in their face. We must silence these (groups) on the one hand, and on the other hand we must work for more proximity, cooperation, fraternity, unity, and integration, because the aim of these Takfiris and radicals and their American and Zionist masters is that we tear ourselves and divide ourselves and that everyone of us go in a separate direction.
Our insistence on meeting, concurring, working together and on uniting frameworks of scholars and politicians and the resistance is the best answer and the perfect challenge and even more, the best achievement through which we can understand the failure of the other scheme.
The second point is the resistance. The stance of His Eminence Sheikh Abd Nasr is decisive on the resistance. I will not reiterate. I assert and stress on all what the brethren said before me as I have been following the ceremony from the very first moment. From the very first days he did not take a stance towards the resistance; in fact, he was part of the resistance. He was one of its scholars, fighters, and intellectuals who also defended it in the political, media, popular, social, as well as the fighting domains. In all the tough stages during which the resistance needed support to defend its project, idea, logic, and legitimacy, Sheikh Abd Nasr was like the rest of his brethren in the Muslim Scholars Assembly, in the Islamic Action Front, and the various Islamic frameworks, a loud, strong, courageous voice, especially following the events of 2005 and 2006 in Lebanon and the events that followed, until the last moment of his life. The resistance in Lebanon and Palestine was one of his central principles in his faith, action, and sacrifices. This resistance today is also targeted with its states, peoples, communities, armies, and jihadi movements.
One of the most dangerous topics of the wars going in the region for years is the war on the resistance and the axis of the resistance. This is the truth which is being revealed day after day through the confessions of the American leaders, politicians, diplomats, generals, security officials, irrefutable documents, evidences, and recordings.
Today, some are working to destroy the Arab armies in the interest of "Israel", and to topple the rest of the Arab resisting regimes for the sake of "Israel", so that the "Israeli" Army returns to being the strongest army after it was defeated by the Resistance in Lebanon and Palestine and after it was humiliated by the Resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, and after this army had hollow morale and lost its confidence in itself, and its officials lost confidence in its soldiers and its soldiers lost confidence in its officials. It is required that the armies of the region be destroyed so that one strong army remains to restore its morals, its horizons, and its confidence - namely the "Israeli" Army.
Today, the resistance movements in Lebanon, Palestine, and the region are isolated and besieged, and their reputation is being tarnished. The reputation of all the advocates and supporters of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause is being tarnished. The true supporters of the resistance are being fought and killed around the world, whether in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Nigeria, and other countries in the world where people demonstrate in the hundreds of thousands on Al Quds International Day for Palestine and for Al Quds.
Defending the targeted resistance is also the responsibility of everyone as Sheikh Abd Nasser used to defend it. This targeting is ongoing on all fronts. Do not imagine that "Israel" is watching while people are preoccupied with each other and the squares are being exhausted. It is following every mind which may be a mind within the resistance or has the ability to develop any domain in the resistance as it did by assassinating Martyr Mohammad Zawari in Tunisia and as it did in the past when it assassinated Martyr Hassan Lakkis, and as it did with the Iranian nuclear scholars and the Iraqi nuclear scholars. "Israel" can't bear to find in our societies and among the peoples of our region resisting minds or wills or armies or movements or scholars or intellects that can meet and unite and coordinate in the face of the Zionist hegemonic project.
Today this is another responsibility. The resistance, the axis of the resistance, the resistance movements, and the resistance societies must be defended. The awareness of his Eminence and his brave and frank position in defending the resistance form a distinctive quality that characterizes Sheikh Abd Nasr in this world and in the Hereafter. We trust our peoples and our nation. Our trust is very great no matter how unlimited were the pains and the sufferings. Today in the commemoration held to honor this struggling, faithful, pious Sheikh, allow me to tell you that no matter how great the pains of the nation were, this nation will not abandon Palestine.
The considerations of the "Israelis" are wrong and fruitless in Palestine as long as their considerations depend on the Palestinian people abandoning this cause and the Islamic and Christian sanctities and accepting the crumbs the Zionist offer them.
However, the Palestinian people always take the "Israelis" by surprise. They surprised them in 1983 and 1984. They astonished them with the Al Aqsa Intifada as well as with the armed resistance. They indeed before that fought them for a long time since the Nakba and the Naksa. They also surprised them by the latest al Aqsa Intifada, and above all the Palestinian people surprise them with their very high support - in fact, the percentages are the highest - for the choice of the resistance.
Also in Lebanon, all the considerations of the "Israelis" were frustrated in 1982, and they acknowledge that they were wrong in their calculations. Today too they think that the region is facing this war and this sedition and these catastrophes and calamities and that this region and its peoples, leaders, and scholars would emerge exhausted and wounded. "Israel" and confronting the Zionist project is not a priority or a part of their interest. No, they are deluded. Here I am telling you: the axis of the resistance will emerge victorious from this global war on it. It will emerge firmer and stronger God willing.
The peoples and the resistance movements of this nation who will emerge from this painful experience are suffering so that Palestine becomes again the priority of this axis, these regimes, these armies, these peoples, these parties, these political forces, this intellect, this media and these emotions. Palestine, confronting this Zionist project, and liberating al Quds will become again the priority.
If they bet that this global war will bury under the soil of the land of this region every noble resistance fighter, they are deluded and misguided.
This is contrary to divine laws and historic laws. This is contrary to: "Allah has men whom when they will, He wills."
In this nation, all resistance fighters insist on steadfastness and perseverance - a term late Sheikh Abd Nasr used to love - and on continuing in the confrontation until the final victory. They will never give in this region. They will never give up Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or any country to US hegemony or to the Zionists.
For example today, when we find the "Israeli" enemy pressuring everywhere, we notice the perseverance of the prisoners in "Israeli" prisons who are conducting hunger strikes to the very end or who are being oppressively killed in prisons, as what happened yesterday with Sheikh Asaad Wali who was one of the national and resistance figures in the occupied Syrian Golan (Heights). Large masses showed up to his funeral to manifest their identity and to express their stance and their commitment and their opposition to this entity and to yielding to this entity.
Today, some regimes are succumbing. The government of Bahrain allowed the worst Zionist organization to come to Bahrain. They say it is not "Israeli". Their identity is American but they are a Zionist organization and in fact the worst Zionist organization. They arrived in Bahrain, and were welcomed in Bahrain. With ecstasy and zeal, "Israeli" media outlets talk about the event, focusing on two points. The first point is that these Zionists were in their traditional attire next to the Arabs in their traditional clothing too. They were dancing together. The second scene is that the organization sang in the streets of Bahrain the song "The temple will be built on the ruins of the mosque".
If the Bahraini government had moved on the track of normalization (with "Israel") for a period of time by now, the Bahraini people and scholars, whose backs are being whipped and who are hurled into prisons and whose men and women are being killed and tortured, and who are being forsaken by the Arab and Islamic world, did not forget Palestine, the cause of Palestine, and that the main struggle is with the "Israeli" enemy. Thus at a time when the entire world is silent towards the normalization of Bahrain (with "Israel") and only some Palestinian movements find themselves obliged to denounce the move, the Bahraini people and scholars hit the street to denounce and refuse the move. That means that no matter how grave the pains are, that cannot let us forget Palestine and the cause of Palestine.
In Yemen, people are suffering from siege, hunger, shelling, and killing (thousands of children are dying of starvation and sickness); but the Yemeni people shout out for Palestine and stage demonstrations for Palestine in Sana'a even under bombing. What does that mean? That means that good is still strong in this nation. Thus by the end of this point, I tell the Zionists: Do not bet on this. The future of this region is for the resistance, the axis of the resistance, and the project of the resistance.
These are not words written for speeches. These words are translated with blood, steadfastness, perseverance, and solemn sacrifices in more than one country and in more than one field.
The last topic is the insight and the perseverance of Sheikh Abd Nasr al-Jabri, meaning his understanding of the events, stances, projects, targets, and schemes.
For years, our region and our peoples have been in a sedition that turns adults into elderly, makes the young white-haired, and makes the believer strive until he meets his Lord. When right is mixed with injustice, slogans are being decorated and headlines glittered, banners differ, and fronts grow fierce, every one of us would be before the hardest responsibility in his life, for this life and the Hereafter.
Man must resort to his mind and his religion. He must not be drifted by his whims, fanaticism, and zealous slogans, speeches, advertisements, rumors, or popular rushes here or there. He must take his decision for his world and the Hereafter as Sheikh Abd Nasr did. He must be able to answer for the decision he took when we are resurrected before Allah Almighty.
In this ordeal that struck during the past years, Sheikh Abd Nasr was the owner of an insight, understanding, and a shrewd vision. He too was never confused when taking his decisions. From the first moment, he had great clarity and a very strong understanding of what is taking place.
He was not satisfied with the understanding, the insight, and faith. He was always a man of faith and action. He was also in the confrontation position in this war and this sedition and this challenge through the religious, academic, and political personality he represents, and through his speeches, stances, and his expression of his stance, and institutions. One of the most important points is that which the brethren mentioned before me. It is his travel around the world. That's because many were prevented from traveling. Many were prevented from talking or attending conferences. Sheikh Abd Nasr used to travel from country to country and from conference to conference to compensate for this lack, with his strong and thunder-like voice and his resilient and intact logic, because the cause is not that of zeal here or there.
Today and after his demise, this responsibility has become bigger, and we are all concerned with clarifying these stances for all the people around us, and we must insist on taking the path, and on confronting this sedition with the logic of gathering (Muslims together), uniting, fraternizing, and forgiving, as is the case now in more than one square and field. For example, in some countries like Syria or other countries, in a certain city or town, fighters or armed groups would hold arms for years and kill and wound soldiers. Then things would end up with a settlement here or forgiveness there, and finding a solution there. Well, yes we must seek such things in this region. We must act according to the logic of forgiveness and local settlements, and with the logic of overcoming pains and wounds. They want all our squares to be filled with blood and grudges, and that psychological, moral, military, and human losses increase in our nation.
We are at a time in which we must be decisive and final on the defense lines. Hands must remain extended and hearts open; the ruling spirit must be that of forgiveness and the ruling mind must be that of openness, dialogue and seeking to address every problem no matter how big it is and even if it expanded to bloody confrontation, (we must do this) with dialogue, political resolutions, and a good word, because this is the future which we must create for our children and grandchildren. As such we would frustrate all conspiracies.
Brothers and sisters! We all feel sorrow for the great loss of the demise of His Eminence, the dear struggling Sheikh Abd Nasr al-Jabri. Still, we surrender to the will of Allah and His fate. We ask Allah that He would replace him with his kind family, especially the noble Sheikhs among his children and with you brothers, sisters, and scholars who call for perseverance, struggle and unity at this stage. You - the brethren and friends of Sheikh Abd Nasr al-Jabri and his sons - are the guarantee, the pillars, and the future. May Allah have mercy on him as he used to gather us in his life. This scene today - your turbans that stand for scholars from various Islamic sects and political trends on the Islamic and national levels - when viewed by the Takfiris and the immoderate radicals or the Zionists or the Americans, they will understand very well that Sheikh Abd Nasr in his life used to confront them and in his death is gathering the good believers to tell the world: Your ordeal, you war, your confrontations, and your schemes will not separate us or tear us apart. On the contrary, our unity will grow stronger with all these dear ones who persevere until the last moment and until they die on this track or migrate to Allah Almighty.
O' our Sheikh Abd Nasr! We will continue on this track. This is our oath to you and to all the dear ones before you - Sheikh Fathi Yeken, His Eminence Sheikh Said Shaaban, His Eminence Sheikh Faisal Mawlawi, and to all those dear ones with whom we worked together in Lebanon to found this example, this proximity, and this fraternity.
Our oath to all of you and to all of the scholars who passed away and to all the martyrs is that we will continue on the path of unity, fraternity, and proximity, the path of jihad and resistance, until God willing the word of Allah would be the supreme. Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings.
Source: Hezbollah Media Relation, translated by website team
