In the Name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful.
May Allah bless Muhammad and his Family and damn their enemies.
His Eminence, Sheikh al-Habib, issued the following statement:
The Shi’a nation must atone for the great sin it had committed more than a century ago when it witnessed hordes of the Saudi Wahabis advance towards the Two Holy Sites with the doctrine of ‘grave demolishment’, but did nothing to repel them even as they proceeded to destroy the holy shrines, nor did its Marji’iyya (Grand Religious Authorities) issue a fatwa of ‘Kafa’i Jihad’ as it did in recent years in response to ISIS’s rapid advance towards the holy cities in Iraq.
After the tragedy occurred, the Marji’iyya chose the path of negotiations with Ibn Saud, so the grandson of the author of ‘Al-Fusool’ was sent to him, even though choosing the path of negotiation with someone who is known for betrayal and false promises is a mistake, especially if the negotiation is not from a position of strength, and is limited to the language of appeasement.
Furthermore, the Marji’iyya found that its choice of negotiation was met with Ibn Saud’s continued evasiveness. Firstly, he would feign disapproval of those crimes and blame them on the ‘ignorant Bedouins’ – as he called them – while denying that they were his orders. Secondly, he attempted to place the responsibility on the ‘Iranian ambassador in Hijaz’ by claiming that he was the one who instigated those attacks due to his ‘Baha’i’ faith. Thirdly, he claimed that they are followers, not innovators, and that he is ready to accept the judgement of the Muslim scholars of all sects, including the ‘Ja’fari’ school of thought. Thus, his pretexts varied and contradicted for no other reason than to stall the negotiations until they ended in nothing and the outburst subsided. He achieved his goal and it did indeed subside. And now Al-Baqi’ is a wasteland, and it has been for more than a century. This disgrace accompanies every Shi’a who has walked the earth since that fateful day, including those who have assumed the position of Marji’iyya. It has become abundantly clear that the path of negotiation, without the mobilisation of force, is a pointless endeavour, yet no fatwa was ever issued for mobilisation or jihad. What happened to the Baqi’ became a mere memory.
Our Marji’iyya is truly an unending wonder; it issues fatwas of Jihad in response to tobacco and the like but refrains from doing the same when the holiests of all things are being violated. What has befallen you? Do you wish to wait until another century of this calamity and tragedy has passed
Sheikh al-Habib
