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Sheikh Ahmad Deedat on the subject of Shia/Sunni

Sheikh Ahmad Deedat on the subject of Shia/Sunni
A lecture given in Iran on March 3, 1982 by Sheikh Ahmad Deedat on
the subject of Shia/Sunni.
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Shaykh Ahmad Deedat:
I seek refuge from the accursed Satan, In the name of God the
Beneficent the Merciful. The Holy Quran says:
"And if you turn away (from Islam and the obedience of Allah), He
will substitute you for some other people, and they will not be like
you." Quran 47:38
Mr. Chairman and brothers: While we are looking skeptically of the
miracle of a nation reborn. Allah's inexorable decree is finding its
fulfillment in the rise and fall of nations which is mentioned in
the verse I have just read to you from Surah Muhammad. In the last
section of the last verse Allah (swt) reminds us, and warns us that
if ye turn back from your duties and responsibilities if you do not
fulfill your obligations then he will replace you with another
nation. Our Urdu speaking brethren use these words so beautifully
when they describe some mishap that occurs in the community in
talking about that other nation that can replace them. It is
actually Quranic. And this really has been happening throughout
history again and again. Allah (swt) first chose the Jews, the Bani
Israel as he tells it in the holy Quran:
"O children of Israel! Call to mind My favor which I bestowed on you
and that I preferred you to all other nations."(Quran 2:47).
That favor was that they should become the torchbearers of the
knowledge of God to the world. This was the honor, this was the
privilege that was at first given to the Jews But because they did
not fulfill their end of the obligation, a Jew amongst the Jews
Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) as recorded in the Christian gospels told
them "That the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and given
to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."(The Bible, Matthew
21:43). And that nation, we will happily own up is the Islamic
ummah. It was taken away from the Jews and given to the Muslims.
The Muslims then, among them who were the Arabs at first, were given
by Allah (SWT)the privilege that they became the torchbearers of
light and learning to the world , but when they relaxed and failed
to bring forth the fruits, Allah (swt) replaced them with another
nation. In history, we remember the Turks and Mongols destroyed the
Muslim empire and when they accepted Islam they became the
torchbearers of light and learning to the world. As Iqbal
beautifully describes this situation: "O' you Muslims, you will not
perish if Iran or the Arabs perish, that the spirit of the wine is
not dependent on the nature of it's container." The container is our
nations, our boundaries and the spirit of Islam is not dependent on
our geographical boundaries or national limitations. So this is what
Allah (swt) does again and again, he chose the Jews then he chose
the Arabs then when they became lax he chose the Turks and when they
became lax another people and so on and this is a continuous
process. If you don't do the job, Allah (swt) will chose another
people who will.
In the world today there are a thousand million Muslim, that is ,one
billion we boast! And 90 percent of this one billion happens to be
the Sunni branch. We have stopped delivering the goods so Allah
(swt) chooses a nation that we have all been looking down upon. The
Iranians! The Shias! History has been very unkind to our brethren in
Iran that the shah happened to be the ruler, and his name happened
to be Muhammad. Imagine, that this mans name happened to be Muhammad
and he really wasn't a believer. It's hard for us to imagine today,
but once you go to that country and you go into the details and find
out what was going on. That this Iranian the shah it seems to be,
that he was a foreigner. If Hitler conquered this land and oppressed
them, then we could understand. If the Russians conquered the
people, we can understand. But here is a man who is an Iranian,
speaking Persian, whose name was Muhammad, and look at what he was
stooping to. For sixteen years he had forbidden Jummah prayers.
Sixteen years. We had been equating Iran with the shah and the shah
with Iran. To us they were synonymous terms. But when you go into
details we learn that the shah and the Iranian people were both
apart. They were in reality foreigners to one another.
Now about this visit of mine to Iran and my impression. Let me begin
with the place where I had the first fragrance of this Iranian
brotherhood of ours and it happened to be in Rome. First I smelled
it, and then some of my companions had smelled it in the Rome
airport. We were waiting to get on the plane, and we had some
problems with visas and one of our men was given the responsibility
of overcoming these problems. So he goes to the Iran air office and
he tells our problem to a young lady wearing full Islamic attire
with her body well covered. It was Beautiful, Just beautiful to look
at. And I mean that when you look at these people in this attire you
see that they are beautiful people. So there was a lady in Rome and
you brothers should have seen the way she handled these problems.
And someone came to me and told me, man if you want to see a real
Iranian Muslim girl you should come over and I went and some others
went and we saw. And that was the first whiff we had of the Iranian
ummah in Rome.
When we landed in Iran, we were taken to a five star hotel which was
there before the revolution known as the Hilton hotel but is now
known as Hotel Istiqlal. And we were taken around. To places of
interest and I will relate to you some of the things we saw and I
will try to describe the feelings one has. If I remember correctly,
the first thing we visited was the Behesht Zahra cemetery. Behesht
means paradise in Persian and Zahra is the title of Fatima Al-Zahra
(AS) who was the daughter of Prophet Muhammad (saw). And Zahra means
the radiant one. So it was called Radiant paradise. And before
arriving in Iran, I had read about the Behesht Zahra cemetery. And I
remember when Imam Khomeini had arrived in Tehran he made a trip to
the cemetery. And I'm thinking why does one go to the cemetery? To
make du'a? Yes. For the departed souls? Yes. And when you think of
cemeteries here in South Africa you think of Brookstreet and
Riverside. You can't imagine that this cemetery is square kilometers
by square kilometers. You Just cant imagine. It is a big open ground
where about a million or two million people can be accommodated. And
people gathered here because it is the easiest place where people
can release their emotional and spiritual baggage because there you
have the martyrs. Their were 70,000 or so people who were martyred
in this revolution and 100,000 maimed. Unarmed people with only the
slogan "Allahu Akbar" as their weapons had toppled the mightiest
military force in the Middle East.
So we went to this cemetery There were about a million people there.
There were men and women and children and we were greatly inspired
by the enthusiasm and the feeling of our brothers and sisters there.
It was mid winter there, and the men and women and children were
sitting on the cold ground for hours on end. In mid-winter on the
ground with no carpets or chairs! A nation that could endure that
discipline for hours on end , you can only imagine what destiny Allah
(swt) has planned for them. A day or 2 later on my program I read
Behesht Zahra cemetery, again. The first time we went for a lecture,
but we had seen the graves people reciting poems of sorrow and
reciting dua' and I thought this second visit would be redundant.
Why should one go a second time? I've seen what a cemetery is. But
all my companions were going and I thought if everyone else was
going, it wouldn't be good for me to stay in the hotel relaxing when
all my companions are going in these buses to a cemetery. But I went
and I became very happy. And the second time I went it was a
Thursday afternoon and Thursdays in Iran is like Saturdays for us.
And tens of thousands of people were in the cemetery. This was a
custom. It was like Eid. Tens of thousands are there, for what else,
but to charge their spiritual batteries. It was a constant reminder
to not forget. "My son gave his life for Islam" or "my father gave
is life for Islam " that they gave their life for Islam. With that
kind of system, Every Thursday is a spiritual injection and reminder
that they are willing to give their life for Islam.
There was a town hall that accommodated 16,000 people, compared to
the biggest town hall in South Africa which is the Good Hope Center
in Cape Town for 8,000. This was built by the shah to boast his
own "Aryan myth". He was boasting not only that he was the
shahanshah or king of kings, but also that he was the aryamehr,
light of the Aryans. What is this Aryan sickness? Remember Hitler
bragging about being Aryan because the Germans are Aryans. And the
Hindus boasting we are Aryans. If my people, the Gujarati people,
weren't Muslims we'd be boasting about being Aryans as well. The ex
shah claimed to be the light of Aryans and he built this monument as
a tribute. He built another monument spending millions to
commemorate his ancestor Cyrus the great, a pagan, a mushrik and
squandering the wealth of this nation for this project. In 1984 he
was supposed to have the world Olympics in Tehran to boost his ego
even further. In this town hall we saw athletics, gymnastics, and
acrobatics.
Unfortunately we Muslims here in South Africa are like jellyfish,
that is we have made ourselves into jellyfish. Our young men do not
participate in that kind of activity. Who here does athletics,
gymnastics, acrobatics we do not do that here. It's not for us. Who
does jogging, You know the young people here, when I meet them I
shake hands with them and they are like jellyfish. Almost every
young man you meet in Iran appears to be an athlete. They are doing
sports on a world standard and it makes one feel so happy because
there they are not projecting Iran. They are not talking about
Iran "we are Iranians, we are Aryans" instead they are talking about
Islam, about Islam, about Islam. There was not one semi-naked girl,
not a single girl who was half naked there. If the shah had his way,
if he was alive and organized it, there would have been semi-naked
girls for everyone to stare at and feast upon. In Iran everything is
Islamic to strengthen the morality of the people, boosting the men
and women by the thousands.
We were thrilled , we were thrilled to see our children, we felt as
if theses were our children, our own brothers and sisters, we were
really thrilled. We saw these as things that our children can do.
Then we went through a military parade with different groups of
Iranian men and there was no shortage of man power. You know, some
people want to go and help our Iranian brethren. Alhamdulilah there
is no shortage of man power they only want the tools, and the
weapons. If the Iranians had the military weapons that the Israelis
had, the whole of the middle-east would be free from every kind
foreign intervention in no time. This is a nation that can do it.
The spirit is there; the spirit of Jihad is there in each and every
man and woman in the nation. It seems that the whole nation is
involved in promoting Islam. We are talking about 20 million people
that they can put into the field. If they had the weapons and the
materials, every man woman and child would can go and do jihad.
Then we visited the Iraqi prisoners of war. As you know when this
war started Iraq attacked Iran. The whole country was in turmoil.
Iraq felt that the Jews did it to the Arabs in 6 days, then they
will do it to the Iranians in 3 days and the whole world thought
that in one weeks time, Iran would crumble to pieces. And do you
know how long it has been now? It's been a year and a half, and even
more. And in the beginning there were twenty to one odds against
them in men and materials and the Iranians turned the tables and
brought the odds to 3 to one still against them. And they were able
to push them back. They recaptured all their land and a hill that
was named Allahu Akbar. Before I went to Iran Dr. Kalim Siddiqui
from the UK jokingly remarked that "you guys have half a chance of
becoming martyrs (shahid)." It was a joke and it nearly became true.
While we were coming out of a city on the war front there was a
field of tanks. And our young men came out of the buses and started
to climb onto the tanks taking pictures to show people back home.
Then one of the tanks in the courtyard came out for a training
demonstration on how it works and suddenly we hear gunfire and in
the distance we saw smoke coming from a few places and some of our
young men got scared and started hiding behind bushes, and it turns
out that we were under attack from the Iraqis. And there were bombs
exploding all around us and Allah (swt) saved us. And remember
Khaled had said that was half a chance that we would become martyrs;
well it almost became a full chance.(laughter). We visited those
wounded in the war and no one was complaining about what had
happened to them. One man had his leg amputated, and there were no
tears, I never saw a single tear from anyone, and they were asking
if it was possible to go back to the front. Their regrets were not
about their injuries but why they can't go back to the front to
fight and become shahid, this is the ambition of each and every
Muslim there. \
When we visited the prisoners of war the Iranians had captured 7000
prisoners of war and they looked healthy, well clothed, well fed.
One of my friends was interested in finding out what the Iraqi
prisoners felt about their condition first hand. And anyone he asked
said that they were being looked after very well. Then I had an
idea. Some were here for over a year and others for a few months and
I was wondering how many people had committed suicide. And I asked
each group of the prisoners of war and asked each group how many
people committed suicide. They said not one. I then asked the next
group and so on. Not one single person committed suicide amongst the
7800 prisoners of war. And if we look at our so called civilized
western country of South Africa, 46 people committed suicide in our
prisons this year alone and they are well fed well clothed have
their own cells and 46 committed suicide so far. And if people are
not well treated some are going to want to find an easy way out but
there was not one single person who committed suicide amongst the
7800 prisoners of war.
We went to visit the Imam, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. There
were about forty of us who waited for the Imam and the Imam came in
and was about ten meters away from where I was, and I saw the Imam.
He delivered the Lecture to us for about half an hour, and it was
nothing but the Quran, the man is like a computerized Quran. And the
electric effect he had on everybody, his charisma, was amazing . You
just look at the man and tears come down your cheek. You just look
at him and you get tears. I never saw a more handsome old man in my
life, no picture, no video, no TV could do justice to this man, and
the handsomest old man I ever saw in my life was this man. There is
something unique to his name, too. First he is called Imam Khomeini.
The word Imam is to us a every cheap word. Wherever we go somewhere
we ask who is the Imam of the Masjid here. To the Shia there is only
one Imam in the world and he is the Twelfth Imam , they believe in
the concept of Imamate and that the Imam is the spiritual leader of
the ummah. And the first Imam according to the school of Imamate is
Hazrat Ali (RA). Then comes Imam Hassan who is the second Imam, Imam
Hussein the third Imam all the way until the twelve Imam, Imam
Mohammad who disappeared at the age of 5 and they are expecting his
return. They use the term "occultation" something like a spiritual
hibernation like the Ashab Al-cahf. And that he is expected to come
back and he is the only one in the world who can be called Imam.
Most of their scholars are called mullah, and Ayatollah means
Allamah And Ayatollah Khomeini is called Imam out of respect but
they are waiting for the real Imam to come.
Ruhollah is the name his father gave him and do you know what it
means? Ruhollah means the 'word of God' and this is the title of
Hazrat Isa(as) in the Quran. Then he is Ayatollah which is another
title of Hazrat Isa(as) in the Quran. Al-Musawi is from the family
Musa and from the city of Khomein which is where his last name
Khomeini comes from. ...(break in audio at 41: 05 seconds). But they
are waiting for the Mahdi, and not Khomeini. They want to clean the
stables and make preparations for the Mahdi to come. In the Sunni
world we are also waiting for the Mahdi to come but we want him to
clean the stables for us, make us masters of the world and to make
us sit on the thrones. The Twelfth Imam , they believe in the
concept of Imamate and that the
Imam is the spiritual leader of the ummah. And the first Imam
according to the school of Imamate is Hazrat Ali (RA). Then comes
Imam Hassan who is the second Imam, Imam Hussein the third Imam all
the way until the twelve Imam, Imam Mohammad who disappeared at the
age of 5 and they are expecting his return. They use the
term "occultation" something like a spiritual hibernation like the
Ashab Al-cahf. And that he is expected to come back and he is the
only one in the world who can be callee many people with us from all
over the world.
And I found types and types and types of sick people, a mental
sickness that is. I came across an alim from Pakistan Mauna Sahib
and he thought that there was something wrong with our Shia
brothers. You see in Iran when someone is lecturing and the name
Khomeini is mentioned people stop and everyone says durood on the
Prophet(S) three times. But when the name Mohammad is mentioned they
send durood once. And this alim from Pakistan says, " look at these
people just look at them. What kind of Muslims are these people.
When the name Mohammad is mentioned they send durood on the Prophet
(s) once but when the name Khomeini is mentioned they send Durood on
KHOMEINI three times." I said " What do they say , what do they say
in this so called 'durood on Khomeini'. " He said: Peace be upon
Mohammad and the family of Mohammad. I said, " Who is Mohammad?
Khomeini? Who named Khomeini as Mohammad? Their durood is on Prophet
Mohammad(s) and you say it is on Khomeini." You know it's a
sickness. There are many learned men but their minds are so
prejudiced. They are just looking for faults. [1]
Another example is that the Shia brothers when they make salat, they
have a piece of clay (turbah) that they do sajjdah on. And he
says, "see what they are doing here. This is shirk. They are
worshipping a piece of clay. " I said why don't you ask them why
they place their foreheads on a piece of clay and learn the logic
behind this. You see, the first time I experienced this was in
Washington D.C., the Iranian students there had invited me to give a
lecture there at the university where they were studying in America.
At that time, it was time for Isha and we made salat. And everyone
was given a piece of clay. I at the time thought it was so funny, so
I put it aside and I made my salat with the Iranian students. And
after salat I wanted to know about this and I asked them. Why do you
carry this clay tablet everywhere you go in your pocket? They said "
we are supposed to do sujood on Allah's earth with our foreheads
touching the earth. We say "subhanna rabia Allah" three times with
our foreheads touching the earth." So the Shia want to actually
touch the earth with their foreheads and not a manmade carpet. They
want to be true to the expression of praying with the forehead
actually touching Allah's earth. You see they don't worship the clay
tablet as many wrongly think. And this is always something that we
Sunnis are always making fun of and mock the Shia, but on my way out
from Tehran across the plane in the aisle were two Shias and when
prayer time came one of them took his clay tablet out of his pocket
and, Allahu Akbar, performed salat right there on the plane in his
seat, and when he finished he gave this to his neighbor and he
performed salat. And this may seem like a joke to us. Isn't it? And
there were dozens of Sunnis on the plane and out of those dozens of
Sunnis only one young man did the salat, and I tell you that young
man wasn't me. But we are laughing at the other Guy. He is sitting
there and doing something better than we are and we make fun of them
and sit in judgment. He may not as polished and refined as we are in
South Africa.
You know we Muslims in South Africa are very polished and refined in
our salat. The Arabs are no match for us, the Iranians are no match
for us, the Americans bilalans, the Negroes they are no match to us.
With the Arabs you are bowing down in ruku and the guy next to you
pushes you aside to make space.(laughter) Who knows brothers, maybe
it is valid, we don't know. You know, between the four Sunni mazhabs
the Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafei there are over two hundred
differences in salat alone. Did you know that? Two hundred. But we
take it for granted. The Shafei says amin loudly and we say it
silently, they say bismillah loudly we say it silently and there is
there is no problem. As a child my father would repeat the famous
formula that he in turn learned from his father. : "all the mazhabs
are equally valid and the truth for them is in the hadith and the
Quran." And so we accept it. When it comes to the Shafei, Hanbali,
Hanafi and Maliki we are tolerant but when it comes to the Shia you
see he is not in the formula that we are taught as a child, so what
ever little idiosyncrasies there exists between us and them we cant
tolerate and reject we say that he is out because we are programmed
to believe in only the four. But we accept the idiosyncrasies
between the four. I say why can't you accept the Shia brothers as a
fifth madhab. And the astonishing thing is that he is telling you
that he wants to be one with you. He is not talking about being
Shia. He is shouting "there is no Sunni nor Shia there is one thing,
Islam." But we say to them "no you are different you are Shia." This
attitude is a sickness of the devil. He wants to divide us. Can you
imagine we Sunnis are 90% of the Muslim world and the ten percent
who are Shias want to be partners and brothers with you in faith and
the 90% are terrified? I cant understand why should you the 90% be
so terrified. They should be the ones terrified. And if you just
knew the feelings that they have for you.
During Jummah prayers in Iran, there are a million people. And you
should see the way they look at you when you pass by, they recognize
that you are a foreigner and not one of them and tears start rolling
down their cheeks. This is the feeling that they have for you, but
you say no, you want to keep they out, afraid that they will absolve
you. You can only be absolved if there is something better than what
you have. I don't know, maybe some of you think I am a Shia, but I'm
still with you all here. What is all this Shia-Sunni tensions? It is
all politics. These antagonisms we have are all politics now. If a
Sunni brother somewhere does something wrong you say oh the
individual is not being very Islamic, he is a kaffir, But if a Shia
does something wrong you want to condemn the whole Shia community,
the whole nation of millions, and say they are all rubbish just
because one Shias actions are not very Islamic. At the same time
where we look the other way if one of your relatives does something
serious because he is your father or your uncle. One group of Sunnis
says to another "you are not a Muslim" another group of Sunnis
says "you are not a Muslim you are a kaffir" look that's among us,
and we fight among ourselves. And some of us do funny things.
I met one brother who told me when you go to Newcastle go visit Mr.
So and so and inshallah everything will be taken care of for you. So
I went to the man and exactly as I was told he took me home for
lunch and when I'm sitting at the table I see on the wall 'burat'
you know what burat is? A donkey like animal with the face of a
woman it's supposed to provide electrical force. I told him this is
not right. Allah(swt) created electrical force; You can not create
it with a statue of a donkey with a woman's face. Oh and he was so
upset. But he's a Sunni; he was a brother and is still my brother.
This Sunni-Shia tensions is the work of the devil to divide us. Let
me say something about Iran. What I found was that everything is
islamically oriented. The whole nation is geared towards Islam. And
they are talking about nothing but the Quran. I have never had a
single experience with an Iranian when the man contradicted me when
I'm talking about the Quran. Whereas our Arab brethren again and
again you quote them the Quran and they try to contradict you with
the Quran. They are Arabs, they are supposed to know the Quran
better than us, but the Iranians seem to be on the wavelength of the
Quran. Everything he is doing everything he is thinking about is the
Quran.
You remember Twelfth Imam , they believe in the concept of Imamate
and that the Imam is the spiritual leader of the ummah. And the
first Imam according to the school of Imamate is Hazrat Ali (RA).
Then comes Imam Hassan who is the second Imam, Imam Hussein the
third Imam all the way until the twelve Imam, Imam Mohammad who n
that warned Pakistan about the tidal wave tragedy and they didn't
heed the warning. They warned the Israelis in 1973 that the Arabs
were on the move, they didn't heed the warning. That nation couldn't
land in Iran. Imagine they went there with their helicopters and
crashed them selves and got themselves killed. Imagine. A nation
that lands on the moon and comes back can't land in Iran. And the
Iranian people were not in any position to do anything to them. The
Americans could have gone and done what they wanted to do.
I went and saw the American embassy and you think that it's just a
big building, but man its acres and acres right in the center of
Tehran. They could have easily gone in and gotten these people out,
even if they lost a few men. They could have achieved their goals.
It was very well planned. But you know what happened? Fiasco,
retreat failure, the Imam Khomeini is told what has happened. He
doesn't say Subhananla, he doesn't say Alhamdulilah, you know what
he said. He quotes the Quran : "Have you not considered how your
Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant?" 105:1 These are the
words that came out of him. I tell you he is a Quranic computer. You
know what they call those huge helicopters? Jumbo helicopters, and
those big planes are called jumbo planes. You know what jumbo means
in Swahili, Elephant. It's a Swahili word. That's where they got the
name. So these elephant sized helicopters go and the Imam
says: "Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with the
possessors of the elephant? Did He not cause their war to end in
confusion," Quran 105:1-2 But we are so skeptical; the Muslim world
has become so skeptical we don't believe in the Quran anymore. You
don't really believe in the Quran, for most people it is all for
entertainment, for the good spiritual feelings that you get when
reciting the Holy Quran. But the directives that Allah(swt) gives,
nobody seems to care. May Allah (swt) make these brothers of ours,
the torchbearers and light of learning today to the Muslim world.
And here is a nation geared to do the Job.
When you look at them the earnestness that is in them, a nation that
is not afraid, when you look at them with the enthusiasm they have.
They are not afraid to say "marg bar amrika" death to America. Then
say "marg bar shuravi " death to USSR. Imagine that! (laughter from
the audience). And death to Israel." Can you imagine a nation doing
that and not in the least afraid. This is not the Islamic spirit
that is in us here, but the Iranians are all heart and mind. They
don't say, "this is an Iranian revolution "or "we are Iranians".
They are talking about Islam, an Islamic Revolution. This is not an
Iranian revolution but that this is an Islamic revolution. It's a
revolution for Islam and little wonder why the nations of the world
cant stomach it because it is Islam that they can't stomach. So my
dear brothers and sisters I have taken so much of your valuable time
already. And with these words I take leave of you to sit down and to
take your Questions. [1]
" O ye who believe! If any from among you turn back from his Faith,
soon will Allah produce a people whom He will love as they will love
Him,- lowly with the believers, mighty against the rejecters,
fighting in the way of Allah, and never afraid of the reproaches of
such as FIND FAULT. That is the grace of Allah, which He will bestow
on whom He pleaseth. And Allah encompasseth all, and He knoweth all
things." Quran 5:54