In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
The season of Hajj is the time of a spiritual rebirth and the dawn of monotheism across horizons over the world. Its rituals flow like a limpid river, offering chances to pilgrims to wash away the filth of sins or negligence and to eventually restore the sheen of their God-like innate disposition.
The shedding of the attire of snobbery and privilege in the Hajj rendezvous and the subsequent wearing of the uniform garment of Ihram altogether symbolize a unanimous Islamic Ummah and decree a symbolic call of unity and empathy to Muslims worldwide.
The Hajj calls "Your God is One God, so to Him surrender. And give good tidings unto the humble" (The Hajj: 34) from one side and "the Holy Mosque that We have appointed equal unto men, alike him who cleaves to it and the tent-dweller" (The Hajj: 25) from the other side and in doing so, the Ka’aba embodies a call in unison for Islamic fraternity besides its call of monotheism.
The Muslims who have converged onto the holy place from the four corners of the world with an ardent desire for circumambulating around the Ka’aba or visiting the shrine of the Noblest Messenger, may the peace of Allah be upon him and his progeny, are expected to cherish the opportunity in consolidating their mutual brotherly bonds as it would heal many woes of the Islamic Ummah.
Nowadays, we clearly see that the hands of the ill-wishers of the world of Islam are busy more than the past driving wedges among Muslims, thus the Islamic Ummah is in need of integrity and unanimity more than ever before.
Today, the bloodstained claws of enemies are busy unleashing tragic scenes here and there across the Islamic lands; Palestine languishes under the wicked grip of Zionists and suffers a widening tribulation. The Al-Aqsa Mosque faces a grave threat; innocent people of Gaza, having already been subjected to an unprecedented genocide, still endure the hardest conditions ever; Afghanistan, under the boots of the occupiers, witnesses a new suffering on a daily basis; in Iraq instability has robbed people of their calm and their peace of mind; in Yemen fratricide has struck the Islamic Ummah with a fresh grief.
Muslims worldwide would rather stop and think how and where these blind seditions, wars, blasts, assassination bids and massacres which have gripped Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are designed. Why was it that before the American-led Western troops arrived in this region in a peremptory and possessory manner, the regional nations had never been subjected to such a long list of sufferings?
The occupiers, on the one hand, brand any popular resistance movements in Palestine, Lebanon or any other place as terroristic, and on the other hand, are organizing or masterminding a violent sectarian terrorism among the regional nations.
The Middle East and the North African region was once colonized and humiliated for more than a century by the Western governments of Britain and France and subsequently by America; their natural reserves were plundered, their free spirit was trodden upon and their nations were taken hostage by the greed of the aggressive aliens.
Yet, after an Islamic awakening coupled with a national resistance made it impossible for them to proceed and following a re- emergence of alacrity for martyrdom and ascension to God and on the path of God , as an exceptional booster in the scene of Islamic jihad, the aggressors, having been pushed to a defensive position, resorted to duplicitous methods after replacing their old approach with a new type of colonialism.
Nonetheless, the multi-faced demon of colonialism has now fielded all its capacities to bring Islam to the knees, from military might, iron fist and flagrant occupation to a fiendlike chain of propagandas and a myriad of lie-spreading and rumor-mongering media, from organization of networks of belligerent assassination and homicide to promotion of promiscuity and proliferation of narcotics targeting the morale and the morality of the youth, and, finally, from a thoroughgoing diplomatic assail on any hubs of resistance to provocation of sectarian snobbery, prejudice and enmity among brothers.
If affection, trust and empathy take the place of the enemy-desired mistrust and animosity among Muslim nations or Islamic sects, the conspiracy of the ill-wishers would be defeated in large parts and their sinister plots in seeking a growing dominance over the Islamic Ummah would be foiled.
The Hajj is one of those precious opportunities for this sublime goal.
Muslims would only be able to withstand the multi-faced demon and overcome it through cooperation with one another and reliance on their common foundations which are encapsulated in the Koran and the practice of the Messenger. The Islamic Iran, following lessons by our great Imam Khomeini, has epitomized the fruitful resistance. The enemies have faced defeat in the face of the Islamic Iran.
Thirty years of plotting, conspiring and ill feeling, from staging a coup to imposing of an eight-year war, from imposition of sanctions to freezing of assets, from unleashing of a psychological warfare and media confrontation to making efforts to hinder a scientific growth and acquisition of modern sciences including nuclear expertise by the Iranian nation, and finally a blatant provocation and intervention during the recent glorious and meaningful elections, all turned into scenes of setbacks and harried passiveness on the part of the enemy, re-evoking a verse of the Koran in the Iranian mind: "Surely the guile of Satan is ever feeble" (The Women: 76).
In other corners of the world too, where people countered the arrogant powers through a faith-inspired resistance, the faithful achieved victory while the tyrants eventually ended up in scandals and retreats. The shining victory of the Lebanese in the 33-day war and the prideful and victorious jihad of the Gazans during the past three years stand as live evidence in this regard.
I emphatically recommend you , prosperous pilgrims, in general, especially the scholars and orators of the Islamic countries who have attended the Hajj gathering, as well as the leaders of Friday prayers in the noble sanctuaries, realize your immediate duty, expose the conspiracy of the enemies of Islam in the eyes of your audience, call the people to affection and unity, strictly avoid anything which may provoke a sense of mistrust among the Muslims, and vent all your cries at the arrogant and the enemies of the Islamic Ummah and the masterminds of all seditions headed by the Zionists and Americans, and in doing so, help materialize the practice of renouncing of the infidels in word and in deed.
I humbly pray to God, the Most High, to confer His succor and blessing on me and to you all.
Wassalam-o Alaikum
Sayyed Ali Husseini Khamenei
November 21, 2009