Sayyed Nasrallah’s Full Speech During A Memorial Service for His Late Mother

Translated by Al-Ahed News, Hezbollah Media Relations

Speech of Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during a memorial service for his late mother at the Sayyed Al-Shuhada [AS] complex in the southern suburbs of Beirut on 28-05-2024.

I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon our Master and Prophet, the Seal of Prophets, Abi al-Qassem Muhammad Bin Abdullah, and his good and pure household and his good and chosen companions and all the prophets and messengers.

I welcome and thank you for your sympathy and consolation. I ask God Almighty to reward you with all goodness in this world and the hereafter.

God Almighty says in His glorious Book:

{Who say, when struck by a disaster, “Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we will ‘all’ return.” They are the ones who will receive Allah’s blessings and mercy. And it is they who are ‘rightly’ guided.} God has spoken the truth.

God willing, we are among those who submit to God’s will, decree, and destiny and are satisfied with His pleasure as every soul will taste death.

Dear brothers and sisters, today, I will not take up a lot of your time. As we conclude the memorial service, I will mention a couple of brief points. The first is apologies. The second is gratitude. Thirdly, I will say a few words about my late mother. Finally, we must pause at the tragedy in Rafah.

1-            First, I apologize for my special circumstances that everyone knows about and appreciates. Therefore, I thank all those who were there at the beginning to accept condolences at the Rawdat Al- Shahidain [cemetery] or at the funeral. I also thank everybody who later came to Rawdat Al- Shahidain or to the Sayyed Al-Shuhada [AS] Complex to receive and give their condolences.

You all know my situation and appreciate it. Otherwise, it would’ve been my duty to be the first to receive you and accept your condolences and share the grief with you.

The same also applies to receiving phone calls. Many dear ones and officials from Lebanon and abroad asked to talk to me on the phone to express their condolences. Of course, this was not possible. For many years, due to the special circumstance, I have been unable to speak on a cell phone or the civilian land line.

We have a small internal network. I use it to communicate with the brothers, my father, or my family. To all those who wanted or requested to speak with me by phone, I apologize for not calling because it’s not been available for well-known security reasons for many years. Even if I wanted to, the brothers would prevent me from doing so. I apologize for not personally attending and receiving phone calls. I take pride and cherish your presence and your brotherly sympathy for me and our family, and this means a lot to us.

Of course, expressing condolences took different forms. There is the direct presence at the funeral in Rawdat Shahidain, in Sayyed Al-Shuhada Complex, in the places where receiving condolences were held, in Tehran, in Qom and in the Holy City of Najaf. Some of our loved ones and dear ones did this.

There are also statements, telegrams, and phone calls with my brothers, our family, and officials. Some wrote on social media. In any case, the condolences took different forms and were from different countries and at different levels. Many thanks to all of them.

2-            On behalf of my father, as well as my brothers, sisters, relatives, and everyone who belongs to my mother’s lineage and on behalf the Nasrallah family as well as the Safieddine the Darwish families, I thank to everyone.

In this part, I thought of dividing the people into groups out of respect for figures and positions. However, the list was so long. Praise be to God, there are many people who love us. That is why, I apologize for not listing the names of every individual and from where they are. I will just mention the names of the countries.

To all those who consoled us with all the means mentioned from Lebanon to Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, the Islamic Republic, Pakistan, India in the east, Turkey, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Tunisia, Mauritania, many African countries, Jordan, Morocco, and Djibouti, as well as the Lebanese communities in diaspora countries, I thank them all for their sympathy, condolences, and their kind, brotherly, and loving feelings that they expressed through telegrams, statements, or calls.

 I ask God Almighty to reward them. We thank them, and we hope that they never see anything bad befall their loved ones and dear ones.

I would also like to express my gratitude to my brothers in the leadership of the Amal Movement and Hezbollah. First, because the two leaderships announced that they would accept condolences, and secondly for their presence from the first hours in Rawdat Shahidain until this moment, standing for long hours accepting condolences.

I thank them very much for standing by my father and my relatives. I also thank all the brothers who made an effort in managing, arranging, coordinating, and protecting these ceremonies, whether young people or the brothers in the Amal Movement or in Hezbollah.

It is also my duty to address those honorable families of the martyrs who sent their condolences while being at the funerals of their martyrs in the past two days. I condole them and congratulate them on the martyrdom of their loved ones, and I cherish the love of all the families of the martyrs who know that we reciprocate this love. Thanks to everyone.

3-            As for my mother, I will say a few words because we could never repay our mother or father. In his ‘The Treatise of Rights’, Imam Zayn Al-Abidin says:

Then the right of your mother is that you should know that she carried you where no one carries anyone, and she fed you with the fruit of her heart - that which no one feeds anyone, and she protected you with her hearing and sight, and her hands and legs, and her hair and skin and all her other organs. [...] She did not care if she went hungry as long as you ate, and if she was naked as long as you were clothed, and if she was thirsty as long as you drank, and if she was in the sun as long as you were in the shade, and if she was miserable as long as you were happy, and if she was deprived of sleeping as long as you were resting. And her abdomen was your abode, and her lap was your seat, and her breast was your supply of drink, and her soul was your fort. She protected you from the heat and the cold of this world. Then you should thank her for all that. You will not be able to show her gratitude unless through God's help and His granting you success.

Since her marriage, my late mother has been known as Um Hassan. Her name is Sayyida Nahdia Hashem Safieddine. She was born to Hashemite and Husseini parents, who honorable lineage trace back to the martyr Zaid bin Ali Zayn Al-Abidin bin Al-Hussein bin Ali bin Abi Talib.

She was a good, pure, and calm woman of faith. She rarely got angry. In other words, over the course of decades, I don’t know if she got angry once, twice, or three times. She rarely got angry. She spoke little and was silent a lot. She spoke when necessary and answered the question asked only. She did not interfere in the affairs of others. I am not exaggerating in all of this description.

Everyone who knew my mother knows these qualities. She did not interfere in the affairs of others. She did not offend anyone or harm anyone, not by word or by deed. She did not hold grudges and did not hate or even envied anyone. Her family was her absolute priority – taking care of her husband and children, raising them, protecting them, and serving them. She had nine children, four boys and five girls. They are grown up now. My mother was a contented woman who never argued about housing, clothing, or food. She spent most of her life with my father and the family in two rooms and often in one room. In recent years, they may have had three rooms. She was very helpful in carrying the burden.

In the beginning, my father had a shop where he worked, and she used to help him in the shop and bet there with him morning and evening. She was known for her patience – she was a patient woman.

She was kind to her parents. Her father, in his last years, was old and sick. She insisted on having him live in her house. For years, she would sit at his bed and serve him night and day. She served everyone and was hurt by anyone serving her. She was loving to everyone. A sentimental woman. Martyr Hadi was her first grandson. She loved him, and he loved her. She was greatly affected by his martyrdom. She always remembered him. She was thankful to God Almighty and praised Him her whole life. During her long illness, which lasted seven or eight years, she was always in pain. When she was asked, “How are you, Hajjah?” The only answer was praise be to God, thank God.

The virtue of my mother and father on me and my brothers and sisters is indescribable. We were born in one of the poor neighborhoods in eastern Beirut called the Sharshbouk neighborhood in the vicinity of the Karantina area. We lived in that neighborhood for approximately 15 years. There were no mosques, prayer halls, religious scholar, religious activities, in our neighborhood or the primary, middle, and high schools that we attended.

There was no religious education and religious activities, but with the blessings of these parents, God granted us the gift of guiding us to faith and religiosity; we learned about prayer, fasting, recitation of the Quran, and the fear of God since childhood, in this environment which was foreign or neutral to everything related to religion, religiosity, and religious activities.

The greatest blessing after existence – the mediator of existence are my father and mother – is the blessing of faith. Thanks to them, God Almighty has bestowed this upon us. There is also the blessing of belonging to this political line. In that neighborhood, we did not know anyone, and no one visited us. It was a poor neighborhood, far away, and isolated. The Sharshbouk neighborhood was the last thing on the minds of those who wanted to recruit people to their political party.

But thanks to our father and mother, they introduce my brothers and I to His Eminence the Hidden Imam Sayyed Musa Al-Sadr when were young, maybe nine or ten years old. We loved him. His picture was before our eyes, in the shop and at home. They always spoke about him.

From the educational and parental position and from the beginnings, we belonged to his school, to his line, and to his movement, and we still do, my brothers and me, whether in Hezbollah or in the Amal Movement.

I will say something briefly and will not take up too much of your time. Based on my mother and father’s memory of the Sharshbouk neighborhood, it was not a large neighborhood, but a diverse one. Lebanese and Palestinians lived in it, all of whom were of course poor. There were Arabs from Arab tribes known today as Arab Al-Maslakh or Karantina Arabs.

There were also Kurds, who were displaced from their countries and later obtained Lebanese citizenship, and Armenians. There were Shias and Sunnis in the neighborhood. There were poor people from different Lebanese regions, and it was all mixed.

The neighborhood was like the neighborhoods of today – divided according to sect. there would be a Shiite house beside a Sunni, Armenian, or Kurdish house. It was a mixed neighborhood, and the neighbors were from everywhere. This was how residents of the neighborhood lived in the sixties and early seventies, before the civil war. I remember this too well.

Of course, my parents remember this better than me. There was peace, security, neighborliness, love, affection, solidarity, and eagerness. If someone was sick or injured or something happened to someone, people never thought for moment that this person was a Muslim, a Christian, a Sunni, a Shiite, a Lebanese, a Palestinian, an Armenian, a Kurd or an Arab. What sect a person belonged to or where he came from was never an obstacle for these people to stop them from helping. But the civil war came and tore the country apart. ‏

However, I want to draw from the experience of this neighborhood a lesson for the future and even for the present. When disputes occur between political forces and movements and then they reconcile, we find that people – Muslims and Christians – rush to each other. All the people in this country really want to live with each other in peace and to get along. When they are given the slightest opportunity to do so, they rush to do it.

Our problem is in the political conflict, in the performance of some political leaders and leaderships that turn the political conflict into a sectarian conflict, which turns the political dispute into hatred that is spread among people. ‏

On my mother’s memorial and as the memory of the Sharshbouk neighborhood comes back to me, I hope that we will return to those days when all people lived in harmony and peace. I hope they address their political differences away from incitement, mobilization, and spreading feelings and emotions of hatred and resentment among people. This is possible. ‏

4-            I cannot speak or preach, even if it is a dear memory, without us pausing, even for a few minutes, before the massacre that took place in Rafah. This reveals the brutality of this enemy once again. It does not reveal, rather it confirms, makes clear more than ever before the brutality, treachery, and betrayal of this enemy. This is a treacherous enemy. You can have an enemy that has some values, magnanimity, and controls. But this enemy has values, controls, honor, morals, humanity and conscience. Some described the “Israelis” as Nazis, but they are more than Nazis. ‏

What is this scene? The “Israelis” told the residents of Rafah and the refugees there to go certain areas, including Al-Mawasi, as these were safe areas. The “Israelis” promised them safety and instructed them to go to those areas. So, they went to that land and set up tents for themselves. In the middle of the night while many people – children and women – were sleeping in the tents, the families were brutally bombed.

What kind of people are these, the “Israelis”? In the beginning, they called the Palestinians inappropriate names. They called them animals. You are the beasts. We are offending the beasts when we compare you to them because beasts have some customs and traditions. You have nothing! They [the “Israeli”] have renewed before our eyes the description: the killers of prophets.

The scene in Gaza is appalling and horrifying. People living in tents were bombarded – burned bodies, beheaded children, dismembered body parts. This is an appalling massacre. This blood [that was spilled] must awaken all the heedless, sleeping and silent people in this world. ‏

This incident shattered all the false and cosmetic images this entity used over time in an attempt to present itself as a natural, legal, polite, law-abiding humane entity. This is over. ‏To the normalizers: who will you normalize [relations] with? With these beasts? With these traitors whose criminality, monstrosity, and Nazism have no limits?”

Another thing: What is “Israel”? What kind of country challenges the world, does not respect the world, and clearly goes against the will of the world, despite what appears to be the will of the world and the international community?

In the past few weeks, we heard European countries and other countries in the world demanding that “Israel” not carry out a military operation in Rafah and warning “Israel” against harming civilians. US hypocrisy was on full display in recent weeks as the Americans pretended to oppose an operation in Rafah and wanted guarantees that civilians would be in safe areas.

The civilians went to places that were said to be safe. It’s been 48 hours, and the White House is still evaluating the information. It is studying the incident. It is concerned about what happened, knowing that the massacre and the horrific scenes were broadcast live on all television screens in the world and on social media.

In any case, “Israel” defied the will of the world and the international community. The International Court of Justice demanded an end to the aggression days ago and the response was the violent airstrikes, the massacres, including today’s massacre. What did they stop? Yesterday, Netanyahu said it was an accident. But he was not sorry and did not apologize. He will not apologize because it is not his nature. However, they continued today with massacres. This is a state that is defiant against the world and the international community.

We must condemn these horrific massacres. These massacres must be a strong reason that pushes the world to pressure “Israel” to end the war and aggression against the people of Gaza. This must be a lesson for us – the people of the region, especially the Lebanese people, those who are saying that “Israel” is our neighbor that wants to live in peace and that we are attacking it while it did not even hit us with a rose (I do not know what world these people are living in! What universe!), and for those who bet on the international community and international laws to protect Lebanon.

We only have to listen to the international community! When it asks us to withdraw, we withdraw. When it asks us to surrender our weapons, we surrender our weapons. The international community will handle the rest.

To all the heedless and ignorant – if they are oblivious and ignorant – to all those detached from reality, and to all those who deny daily facts, the children and women of Gaza and the body parts of children and women in Gaza and Rafah a few days ago are screaming in your ears, smearing your faces with blood, and addressing you with severed heads and dismembered and scattered body parts.

They are telling you that your strength, unity, weapons, resistance, men, fists, the blood of your martyrs, your sacrifices, and your courage are the ones that protect you. It is not your submission and surrender, nor is it through begging at the gates of the international community.

Look at the international community. It is helpless and weak. It only issues statements of condemnation and denunciation and expresses concern. Will their concern, denunciation, and statements of condemnation protect us, or do our arms and rifles protect us? ‏

It was in the days of liberation, the May liberation, that we regained our land on this path and with this approach, this behavior, these fists, this blood, and these sacrifices. Of course, this requires great and enormous sacrifices, as well as thousands of martyrs from all factions, movements, and parties of the resistance. ‏

In light of this incident, this massacre, and all the follies committed by the enemy, I tell you, this pure, oppressed blood will, God willing, hasten the defeat of this entity, the collapse of this entity, and the demise of this entity. We do not see for this brutal and criminal entity and Nazi killer a future in our region at all. ‏

I thank you for your condolences and presence. May God reward you. I hope you do not see anything bad. May God accept from you. May Allah’s peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you.