کتابخانه اسلامی و تصوف

In the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, courtliness was crucial to the political and cultural life of the Deccan. Divided between six states competing for territory, resources and skills, the medieval and early modern Deccan was a region of striking ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. People used multifaceted trans-regional networks - mercantile, kinship, friendship and intellectual - to move across the Persian-speaking world and to find employment at the Deccan courts. This movement, Emma J. Flatt argues, was facilitated by the existence of a shared courtly disposition. Engagement in courtly skills such as letter-writing, perfume-making, astrological divination, performing magic, sword-fighting and wrestling thus became a route to both worldly success and ethical refinement. Using a diverse range of treatises, chronicles, poetry and letters, Flatt unpicks the ways this challenged networks of acceptable behaviour and knowledge in the Indo-Islamicate courtly world - and challenges the idea of pe

Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam by Shahzad Bashir
English | 2011 | ISBN: 0231144903 | 296 pages | PDF | 4 MB

Between 1300 and 1500 C.E. a new form of Sufi Islam took hold among central Islamic peoples, joining individuals through widespread networks resembling today's prominent paths and orders. Understanding contemporary Sufism requires a sophisticated analysis of these formative years. Moving beyond a straight account of leaders and movements, Shahzad Bashir weaves a rich history around the depiction of bodily actions by Sufi masters and disciples, primarily in Sufi literature and Persian miniature paintings of the period.

Focusing on the Persianate societies of Iran and Central Asia, Bashir explores medieval Sufis' conception of the human body as the primary shuttle between interior (batin) and exterior (zahir) realities. Drawing on literary, historical, and anthropological approaches to corporeality, he studies representations of Sufi bodies in three personal and communal arenas: religious activity in the form of ritual, asceticism, rules of etiquette, and a universal hierarchy of saints; the deep imprint of Persian poetic paradigms on the articulation of love, desire, and gender; and the reputation of Sufi masters for working miracles, which empowered them in all domains of social activity.

Bashir's novel perspective illuminates complex relationships between body and soul, body and gender, body and society, and body and cosmos. It highlights love as an overarching, powerful emotion in the making of Sufi communities and situates the body as a critical concern in Sufi thought and practice. Bashir's work ultimately offers a new methodology for extracting historical information from religious narratives, especially those depicting extraordinary and miraculous events.

Religious Dynamics under the Impact of Imperialism and Colonialism

Editors: Björn Bentlage, Marion Eggert, Hans-Martin Krämer, and Stefan Reichmuth

This sourcebook offers rare insights into a formative period in the modern history of religions. Throughout the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, when commercial, political and cultural contacts intensified worldwide, politics and religions became ever more entangled. This volume offers a wide range of translated source texts from all over Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, thereby diminishing the difficulty of having to handle the plurality of involved languages and backgrounds. The ways in which the original authors, some prominent and others little known, thought about their own religion, its place in the world and its relation to other religions, allows for much needed insight into the shared and analogous challenges of an age dominated by imperialism and colonialism. 

Religious Dynamics under the Impact of Imperialism and Colonialism

Editors: Björn Bentlage, Marion Eggert, Hans-Martin Krämer, and Stefan Reichmuth

This sourcebook offers rare insights into a formative period in the modern history of religions. Throughout the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, when commercial, political and cultural contacts intensified worldwide, politics and religions became ever more entangled. This volume offers a wide range of translated source texts from all over Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, thereby diminishing the difficulty of having to handle the plurality of involved languages and backgrounds. The ways in which the original authors, some prominent and others little known, thought about their own religion, its place in the world and its relation to other religions, allows for much needed insight into the shared and analogous challenges of an age dominated by imperialism and colonialism. 

Introduction

Chapter 1 | Emotion and Self-Control: A Framework for Analysis of Shi‘ite Mourning Rituals in Iran by David Thurfjell

Chapter 2 | The Construction of Nationalistic and Shi‘ite Identities in Iranian Schoolbooks by Zahar Barth-Manzoori

Chapter 3 | Iranian Identity in the West: A Discursive Approach by Sayed Sadegh Haghighat

Chapter 4 | ‘European Islam’ in the Iranian Ettehadiyeh by Matthijs van den Bos

Chapter 5 | The al-Khoei Foundation and the Transnational Institutionalisation of Ayatollah al-Khu’i’s marja‘iyya by Elvire Corboz

Chapter 6 | The Sadrists Between Mahdism, Neo-Akhbarism and Usuli Orthodoxy: Examples from Southern Iraq by Reidar Vissar

Chapter 7 | Islamism among the Shi‘ites of Afghanistan: From Social Revolution to Identity-Building by Alessandro Monsutti

Chapter 8 | The Africanisation of ‘Ashura in Senegal by Mara Leichtman

Chapter 9 | Contested Post-Ottoman Alevi and Bektashi Identities in the Balkans and their Shi‘ite Component by Yuri Stoyanov

Chapter 10 | Are the Alevis Shi‘ite? by David Shankland

Contents
Acknowledgements
viii
Glossary
ix
Chronology of Modern Iran
xi
Map
xiii
1
Introduction
1
Reform and reaction
3
The Constitutional Revolution
5
Social structures
7
International integration
8
Weapons of the weak
9
Analysing Iranian political structures
10
The emergence of social forces
13
Nationalism
14
A revolutionary century
18

2
Reza Khan and the Establishment of the Pahlavi State
20
Iran in the aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution
21
The coup of February 1921
24
Britain and the coup of 1921
26
The consolidation of power and the imposition of a new order
27
Nationalism and the myth of the saviour
31
Domination of the Majlis and civilian reforms
33
The 'Republican' intermezzo
37

3
Reza Shah: Modernisation and Tradition, 1926-41
40
The invention of tradition
41
The continuation of reform: nationalism and modernisation
42
Institutionalising the dynasty: the politics of dynastic nationalism
59
The fall
72
An assessment
73

4
Political Pluralism and the Ascendancy of Nationalism, 1941-53
75
The levels of political awareness
77
The mass media
78
The radio
80
The limits of plurality
80
Fragmentation: challenges to the Pahlavi state: the Allied Occupation
82
The tribal revolts
87
The separatist movements in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan
88
Contested 'nationalisms'
98
The young Shah and the development of dynastic nationalism
99
Dr Mohammed Mosaddeq and the oil nationalisation crisis
106
Towards oil nationalisation
107
The Premiership of Dr Mohammed Mosaddeq, 1951-53
112

5
The Consolidation of Power, 1953-60
125
A changing society
126
The return of the Shah
128
The politics of consolidation
129
The 'Mosaddeq Myth'
131
Ebtehaj and economic development
132
Cultivating the military: Iran and the Cold War
135
The Shah ascendant
139
A fragile royal dominance
143

6
The 'White Revolution'
147
The roots of the 'White Revolution'
148
Social and economic development
150
Amini and the launch of a 'white revolution'
152
The Shah and the 'White Revolution'
157

7
Towards the Great Civilisation
166
The crest of the wave
167
The international statesman
176
Domestic tensions
178
The 'Emperor of Oil'
182
Democratic centralism: the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) Party
185
The myth of imperial authority: the apogee of sacral kingship
187
Towards the Great Civilisation
189

8
Revolution, War and 'Islamic Republic'
192
The political framework
192
Reality bites: the fall of the Shah
195
The triumph of the revolution: the premiership of Bazargan
211
War
229
The social and political consequences of the war
239
Rafsanjani and the ascendancy of the mercantile bourgeoisie
241
The Islamic Republic defined
243
Khatami
247

9
Conclusion: A Century of Reform and Revolution
250

Guide to Further Research
254
Archival Sources in Iran
255

Select Bibliography
257
Documentary sources (Persian)
257
Documentary sources (English)
257
Newspapers and journals (Persian)
258
Newspapers and journals (English)
258
Secondary sources (Persian)
259
Secondary sources (English)
260
Index
269

The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition
June 6-10, 2018, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, invites applications for the first "Shii Studies Research Program" Summer School, funded by the Carnegie Corporation, New York. The scholarly exploration of Zaydism started later than is the case for most other areas of Islamic Studies. Among Western scholars, it was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that substantial collections of Zaydi manuscripts were purchased by European libraries. The first pioneers of Zaydi studies were Rudolf Strothmann who worked primarily on the Glaser collection in Berlin and who published a first survey of Zaydi literature in 1910 and 1911, and Eugenio Griffini who worked on the Caprotti collection in Milan, partial descriptions of which he began to publish around the same time. Over the course of the twentieth century, other scholars also contributed to the slowly growing field, with important contributions coming from scholars from Yemen, Egypt, and Iran.
Despite the progress that has been made, the field is still in its infancy with many areas such as Zaydi hadith or fiqh still being completely neglected. The principal reason for this neglect has been the lack of availability of primary sources, as the Zaydi manuscript tradition is dispersed in numerous European and US libraries, this in addition to the many public and private libraries in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries (e.g. Turkey and Saudi Arabia). In recent years digital technology has helped to improve the availability of at least parts of the Zaydi manuscript tradition. The purpose of the Summer School will be to familiarize the participants with the main fields of Zaydi studies and, most importantly, the Zaydi manuscript tradition. Over the course of the week-long summer school, the participants will be introduced to the major historical developments of Zaydi law, hadith, and religious thought and the pertinent literary genres, in addition to the political history of Zaydism in Iran and in Yemen. Each topic will be approached through an analysis of a select number of source texts in manuscript, which will also familiarize the participants with the characteristics of the Iranian and the Yemeni Zaydi manuscript tradition.
The summer school is open to PhD students and PostDocs. Applications, which should include a CV, brief statement on current research project, and letter of motivation, should be submitted by March 31, 2018. Successful applicants will be notified by April 15, 2018. Their travel expenses (economy) as well as accommodation and board will be covered through the "Shii Studies Reseach Program" (www.ias.edu/ssrp).
Hassan Ansari (afarhang1349@ias.edu)
Sabine Schmidtke (scs@ias.edu)

Painting Coal,Gold
An Essay on the misuse of the Bektashi name in the West
Muhammad A Ahari
SUFI
@erfaneeslami1

Religious Dynamics under the Impact of Imperialism and Colonialism

Editors: Björn Bentlage, Marion Eggert, Hans-Martin Krämer, and Stefan Reichmuth

This sourcebook offers rare insights into a formative period in the modern history of religions. Throughout the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, when commercial, political and cultural contacts intensified worldwide, politics and religions became ever more entangled. This volume offers a wide range of translated source texts from all over Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, thereby diminishing the difficulty of having to handle the plurality of involved languages and backgrounds. The ways in which the original authors, some prominent and others little known, thought about their own religion, its place in the world and its relation to other religions, allows for much needed insight into the shared and analogous challenges of an age dominated by imperialism and colonialism. 

2nd International Conference on Shi'i Studies.

Dates: 7-8 May 2016
Location: The Islamic College, 133 High Road, London NW10 2SW
Registration: Visit www.islamic-college.ac.uk/shiistudies or email editor@islamic-college.ac.uk.
Registration fees (including lunch):
Saturday & Sunday - £40.00 (£25.00 for students)
Saturday or Sunday - £25.00 (£20.00 for students)

REGISTRATION LIMITED TO 100 PEOPLE PER DAY

Schedule (subject to change)
Please note that Session A and Session B are parallel sessions held in separate rooms.

Saturday (7 May 2016)

9:30-10:00 – Registration, coffee
10:00-10:30 – Opening talks
10:30-11:30 – Panel 1
Session A: Qur’an & Hadith
• Translating Al-Kafi: how to make a classical Shii text accessible to 21st century readers
Oliver Scharbrodt
• Devotional Literature and Practice in Twelver Shi‘ism: An Exploration of the Supplication of Kumayl ibn Ziyād as Attributed to ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib
Vinay Khetia

Session B: Worldwide Islamic heritage
• Lines Back to Ali, Roads Forward to Shiism: An Historical Anthropology of Cham Sayyids’ Trajectories from Cambodia to Iran
Emiko Stock
• “Our Vanished Lady”: Memory, Ritual, and Shi’a-Sunni Relations at Bibi Pak Daman
Noor Zehra Zaidi

11:45-12:45 – Panel 2
Session A: Modern thought
• A comparative study of feminist and traditional Shi‘i approaches to Qur’anic exegesis
Mohammed Ali Ismail
• The Disenchantment of Reason: An Anti-rational Trend in Modern Shi‘i Thought- Tafkikis
Ali Paya

Session B: Worldwide Islamic Heritage (continued)
• Shi‘ite Manuscripts Collection in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana / Milano: Remarks on Kitāb Ġurar al-fawāyd by aš-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā)
Ali Faraj
• Judaeo-Islamic Heritage
M. J. Shomali

12:45-2:00 – Lunch

2:00-3:30 – Panel 3
Session A: Philosophy and Shi’ism
• Shi’a Philosophers and the Question of Criterion of Truth
Mohammad Hoseinzadeh
• The meaning of knowledge in early philosophical Shiism. A comparative analysis of the Kitāb al-Yanābīʿ of Al-Sijistānī and its Neoplatonic sources.
Lucas Oro Hershtein
• Is Shi’i Philosophy a Useful Concept?
Oliver Leaman

Session B: Shi’ism in North America and Europe
• A Study Examining Iraqi Immigrants: Has The Shia-Sunni Conflict Been Transferred To Canada?
Jafar Ahmed
• African American Twelver Shia Community of/in New York
Abbas Aghdassi
• Muslim (Shi'a) Migration to Europe, and the Engagement of English and Islamic Laws
Tahir Wasti and M. Mesbahi

3:45-5:15 – Panel 4

Session A: Philosophy and Shi’ism (continued)
• The Perfect Man According to Sadra and Buddhism: A Comparative Study
Ali Jafari
• Revelation and Philosophy: From Distinction to Equality. Study of the Maktab-i Tafkīk and their opponents in the contemporary Shī’a Seminary
SeyedAmirHossein Asghari
• Reason, Metaphysics, and Ayatollah Javadi Amoli
Javad Esmaeili

Session B: Shi’ism in Nigeria
• Shia Processions and the Competition for Religious Public Space in Northern Nigeria 1994-2015
Sani Yakubu Adam
• Sunni Literary Reaction to the Growth of Shia Ideology in Northern Nigeria
Kabiru Haruna Isa

5:15-5:30 – Closing

Sunday (8 May 2016)

10:00-10:30 – Coffee, announcements

10:30-11:30 – Panel 5

Session A: Fiqh and minorities
• Fiqh for Minorities: Shi’i Law in the Diaspora
Liyakat Takim
• Making of a Textual Source for the Law: the Case of Ritual (Im)purity of the People of the Book in the Twelver Shi’ite Jurisprudence
Mahmoud Pargoo

Session B: Kalam
• The narrations of Clay (Tinat) and their analysis
Morteza Karimi
• A Critique of Prof. Amir-Moezzi’s Views on Messianic Teachings
Valipoor and Daryabari

11:45-1:15 – Panel 6

Session A: Multiple voices
• Tradition of Multivocality among Shia ʿUlamāʾ
Abbas Mehregan
• A New Approach to Twelver Shi‘ism
Aun Hasan Ali
• Shrinkage of the Scope of Ijtihād in Shī‘a Jurisprudence and its Reasons
Qasem Mohammadi

Session B: Shi’ism in Pre-Modern Iran and Surrounding Regions
• Where is the Imām? The Returning Messiah in the Tīmūrid Age
Tanvir Akhtar Ahmed
• The Polemical Work of Ali Quli Jadid al-Islam in the Context of European Missionaries to Safavid Iran
Alberto Tiburcio Urq

مقاله منتشره در سایت های خبری آفریقایی در خصوص شناخت اهل سنت و مذهب تشیع و ذکر تفاوت آنها با یکدیگر
این نوع مقالات فارغ از اینکه تا چقدر صحیح بوده و توانسته باشند، اصول مذهب تشیع را به نسل جدید آفریقا و متفکران آن ، باید مورد بررسی قرار گیرد.
دوستانی که مطالعه کردند ، نظرات خود را اعلام فرمایند.
مرکز مطالعات راهبردی آفریقا

With Arab world conflicts so often making headlines, the terms Shia and Sunni – the two main branches of Islam – are now familiar to many non-Muslims following world news, even if the characteristics that distinguish one from the other remain unclear. Here we look at the history of the two sects of Islam, their differences and the distribution of their followers across the world.

The Shia (sometimes written Shi’ite) movement within Islam has political origins; after the death of the Prophet Muhammed in AD 632, the founders of the Shia sect (who are collectively known as Shi’a) wanted power to pass to the Prophet’s son-in-law and cousin, Ali, and then to his male successors. Over the centuries that followed, religious differences developed between Shi’a and non-Shi’a Muslims alongside the initial political distinctions. The Shi’a – who account for around 10-13% of the world’s estimated 1,6 billion Muslim believers – acknowledge Ali as the divinely appointed Caliph (ruler of the nation of Islam) and his successors as Imams, who are blessed with divine knowledge.

Muhammad didn’t appoint his successor definitively and in the wake of his death the community of Arabic tribes he had converted to Islam a short time before, drifted to the edge of collapse.

Muhammad’s followers hastily appointed his successor as Caliph themselves, chosing his father- in-law, who also happened to be among his closest friends, Abu Bakr.

According to some Shia sources, many Muslims believed Muhammad had appointed Ali, the husband of his daughter, as his successor. The division started at around this moment of history- those who backed Ali against Abu Bakr became the Shi’a. The name itself comes from the Arabic word sía, which means ’party’ or ’successors’, referring to the first successors of Ali, namely the ’party of Ali’ or ’síat Ali’.

As it transpired Ali was selected to be the fourth Caliph, between AD 656 and AD 661. The division in Islam crystallised when Ali’s son, Hussein, was killed in AD 680 in Karbala, Iraq by the ruling Caliph’s troops. After Hussein’s killing, the Sunni Caliphs seized and consolidated their political power, leaving the Shi’a marginalised.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, in most countries in the Middle-East, at least 40% of Sunnis don’t consider Shi’a to be real Muslims; meanwhile, among Shi’a criticism of Sunnis is sometimes an accusation that Sunni dogmatism can be a fertile breeding ground for Islamic extremist.

Differences in religious practices

Aside the fact that Shi’a pray three times a day and Sunnis five times, there are also differences between Shi’a and Sunni perception of Islam. Both branches are based on the teachings of the holy Quran, with the second most important source being the Sunnah, the exemplary way of life for Muslims as defined by both the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed, known as Hadith. Shi’a Muslims also consider the of the imams as Hadith.

One of the most important differences between the ideology of the two sects is that the Shi’a consider Imams to be divine and in possession of spiritual authority, a mediator between Allah and the believers. For Shi’a, the Imam is not simply the deputy of the Prophet, but his representative on Earth. Thus the Shi’a do not only make their pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca, but also to the tombs of 11 of the 12 Imams, who are considered saints (the 12th Imam, Mehdi, is considered ‘hidden’ or disappeared.

Sunni Muslims do not attach such reverence to an Imam and in Sunni Islam the term Imam refers to a contemporary mosque or Muslim community leader.

The five pillars of Islam – the declaration of Faith, Prayer, Fasting, Charity and Pilgrimage – while shared between Shi’a and Sun

Haadi Macaarem:
This monograph constitutes the first social and doctrinal history of shaykhism in the Qajare era (1786-1925), which, along with osulism, akhbarism and finally Shiite Sufism, has been one of the main currents for two centuries. Duodecimal Shiism. The author, who has resided for a long time in Iran to carry out his research, has plunged into the original sources of shaykhism to study its religious, political and social role . The book proposes to synthesize the doctrines developed by the Shaykhie School, to make understand the history of its origins and the modes of its implantation on the Iranian territory, to evaluate the daily interaction of its members with the surrounding society and to analyze the positions of his masters on the main political and religious upheavals that Qajare society knew.

To work on the social and doctrinal history of a given group is also to apprehend a period through a necessarily singular testimony. Thus, this work is also a contribution to the history of Iran during the Qajare period.

Denis HERMANN is a researcher at CNRS. A historian and specialist on Iran, he is particularly interested in the intellectual and social history of Shiism in the Qajare era and the Iranian constitutional movement of 1906-1911. He is the author and publisher of the following works: Kirmānī Shaykhism and the ijtihād . A Study of Abū al-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī's Ijtihād wa taqlīd, Würzburg, Ergon Verlag, 2015; Shi'i Trends and Dynamics in the Modern Times (XVIIIth-XXth centuries). Shiite currents and dynamics in modern times (18th-20th centuries) , D. Hermann and S. Mervin (eds.), Beirut, OIB / IFRI, 2010; Muslim Cultures in the Indo-Iranian World during the Early-Modern and Modern Periods, D. Hermann and F. Speziale (ed.), Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag / IFRI, 2010.


Table of contents
Foreword
Abbreviation list
Warnings
Introduction

Part one. The birth of Shaykhism

First chapter. The life and work of Šayḫ Aḥmad al-Aḥsā'ī
Second chapter. Sayyid Kāẓim Raštī and the birth of shaykhism
Third chapter. The division of shaykhis at the death of Sayyid Kāẓim Raštī
Fourth chapter. Introduction to Shaykhism Doctrine Part

Two. The organization of shaykhic communities

First chapter. The establishment of shaykhism in Iran
Second chapter. The use of waqf under the direction of Muḥammad Karīm Ḫān Kirmānī
Third chapter. The use of waqf under the direction of Muḥammad Ḫān Kirmānī

Third part. Social relations between shaykh and non-shaykhy communities

First chapter. Dialectic and sociology of the conflict between shaykhis and non-shaykhis
Second chapter. Violence between bālāsarī and shaykhis in Hamadan in 1315/1898
Third chapter. The conflict between bālāsarī and shaykhis in Kerman in 1323/1905

Part
four . Shaykhis in the face of political and religious upheavals
First chapter. The historiography of the relations between babism and shaykhism
Second chapter. The anti-Babie shaykhie mobilization
Third chapter. The reaction of the shaykhis kirmānī to the "shock of the West"

Conclusion

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Imam Al-Husein peace be with him wanted to integrate reform into the nation, with all its individuals and diversity. He said: "Whoever accepts me by accepting the truth, surely God rewards him for supporting the truth. And whoever rejects me, I will be patient until God judges between me and these people justly. Surely, His Almighty is the Best Judge of the judges." It is reported that the first statement Imam Al-Husein peace be with him gave when he went out of Mecca was: "O' people, the Messenger of God said: Whoever sees an aggressive tyrant legalizes the forbidden acts of God, breaches divine laws, opposes the tradition of the Prophet, oppresses the worshippers of God, but does not concede his opposition to God in word or in deed, surely Allah will place him with this tyrant." It is our religious duty to topple an unjust regime, and God shall punish anyone who abstains from fulfilling this duty and reward he who does. Imam Al-Husein peace be with him adds: "Those have obeyed Satan…" So, Imam Al-Husein peace be with him wanted to change the reality, laying emphasis to two points:

First: the sovereignty of the law, after they stopped applying the punishment system put forward by Islam; a punishment system that must be applied under an Islamic state.

Second: Releasing the money of the nation from their hands, after they have monopolized it, because the money of the nation of that of Allah.

Therefore, we are not allowed to give Ashoura a sectarian aspect and regard it as a Shiite issue. Ashoura is an Islamic occasion and the slogans raised by Imam Al-Husein peace be with him are all Islamic and humanitarian ones. Imam Al-Husein peace be with him was also loved by the Muslims and he used to love them all. Everyone used to repeat: "

Al-Hasan peace be with him and Al-Husein peace be with him are the masters of the youth of Heaven."

Ashoura is an occasion that rests on the Islamic and humanitarian values that characterized the personality of Imam Al-Husein peace be with him. These values embodied the leader and the leader embodied the values. So, if you see Imam Al-Husein peace be with him, you see Islam in itself and if you study Islam, you will come across Al-Husein peace be with him, without feeling any kind of duality, because Al-Husein peace be with him integrated in Islam and Islam lived in his mind, heart and movement. Even in his Jihad, Imam Al-Husein peace be with him was a martyr for the sake of Islam.

Therefore, we should not separate between the person and the cause; because many people, particularly those who carry out certain backward customs, such as those who practice the bloodletting ritual, do not realize the meaning and significance of Ashoura and Karbala, nor do they understand the reality of the Islamic state, in terms of the threats of the tyrants and arrogant powers. This is how we should approach Ashoura; we should look at the problems and threats overshadowing the Islamic world, because the Islamic world should not remain at the sidelines of the arrogant world.

Though as Muslims we represent 1.5 billion of the world's population, we are still living at the sidelines of the world's decisions. We do not have the right to participate in any of these decisions. How powerful are other countries? This is because we lost the sense of direction, represented by the civilized and tolerant Islam, which is open to the issues of freedom, justice and human rights. Every year, we come up with a new backward ritual, which does not represent Islam or Al-Husein peace be with him.