Archive for category: News

He added that next Friday, we will celebrate Eid al-Ghadir, the day which God Almighty introduced Imam Ali as the caliph and successor of the Prophet Muhammad and it was Imam Ali who demonstrated the correct way of practicing Islam after the Prophet’s passing.

“We hope in these days, greater efforts must be made to introduce Islamic and Shi’a knowledge, especially to the younger generation,” he said.

Hujjat al-Islam Sa’idi referred to Thursday’s traumatic stampede in Mina, saying: “The Saudi’s incompetent management of the situation was the cause of these incidents.”

The trustee of the Holy Shrine of Lady Fatimah al-Ma’sumah stressed that despite an 80-year-long history of holding the Hajj ceremony, the Saudis do not deserve to hold it.

He added that last year more than twenty million pilgrims participated in the Arba’in commemorations in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala and despite the insecurity and numerous threats from Takfiri terrorists, there were no problems.

“However, the Saudis cannot handle two million pilgrims,” he said.

His Eminence added that the Saudi’s role in this incident made this years’ Eid al-Adha bitter for the Muslims of the world, and emphasized that: “Being a custodian of a holy shrine is a huge responsibility and according to God Almighty, only the pious have the ability to fill this role but it is still to be seen whether the current custodians have followed the example of the Quranic verse in this regard or not.”

“The House of Saud do not think about God’s satisfaction and they consider attracting their American master’s attention as more important than anything,” he said.

Hujjat al-Islam Sa’idi referred to 1987 incident in Makkah, where hundreds of Hajj pilgrims were killed by the Saudis and noted that this years’ crane collapse at the Sacred Mosque and Thursday’s incident in Mina are the most telling evidence that the Saudis do not deserve to run the Two Holy Mosques.

His Eminence continued: “Reports say that the convoy of a Saudi prince [Muhammad ibn Salman Al Saud] travelling in the opposite direction of the pilgrims was the main reason for the high number of pilgrims being killed. The Saudi government is desperately trying to hide the cause of the incident, but they can never hide from their role in the crimes of the previous day.”

He said that this fact was mentioned by the late Imam Khomeini in 1987, wherein he said that the Islamic world should stand with one voice on this issue and a new plan should be presented to administer the Two Holy Mosques.

Hujjat al-Islam Sa’idi stated that Thursday’s catastrophe was an overwhelming tragedy for all of us and added that Iran’s Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, also offered a message of condolences over the tragedy to Imam al-Mahdi and to the survivors and declared three days of mourning.

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A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said earlier this week that the disqualifications risk “undermining the confidence of the Burmese people and the international community in these elections.”

One of the candidates who were reinstated, Khin Maung Cho, said that a statement issued by nine embassies warning against “religion being used as a tool of division and conflict during the campaign season” may have influenced the commission’s partial reversal.

The disqualifications, which were made on citizenship grounds, follow the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims after their temporary citizenship cards were revoked earlier this year.

Myanmar officially maintains that the Rohingya are interlopers from Bangladesh and refers to them as “Bengalis” despite evidence that many have roots in the country going back generations.

Foreign Minister Wanna Maung Lwin on Thursday defended the decision to strip Rohingya of their voting rights by arguing that green card holders in the U.S. are also not allowed to vote.

Myanmar’s two main parties have both failed to field any Muslim candidates, a move observers believe is an attempt to assuage Buddhist extremists. The 11 who were reinstated are independents or from smaller parties.

Since a reform process began in 2011, when the military regime installed a semi-civilian government, Myanmar has seen bouts of anti-Muslim violence accompanied by widespread hate speech led by prominent Buddhist monks.

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“We found a dreadful scene, around 15 people had been executed, four of whom were from Nigeria,” Hassan Ardo, an official from the Diffa governorate told the Tele Sahel television station.

The attackers had also torched 22 houses, a car and a mill, he said, and left four others wounded.

The station said the attack took place Thursday night and was carried out by around a dozen armed militants who had arrived on foot at the village on the banks of the Komadougou Yobe river on the border with Nigeria.

One of the victims was the village chief, the Afani private radio station reported.

In June, 38 civilians were killed — including 10 children — in a Boko Haram attack targeting two villages close to Diffa on the border with northeast Nigeria, where the terrorist group has waged a bloody uprising since 2009, leaving at least 15,000 dead and more than two million others homeless.

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