Sermon of the Eid al-Fitr Prayer

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Thanks be to God, the Lord of the worlds. Thanks be to God who created the heavens and the earth and made darkness and light; then those who disbelieved in their Lord equate (others with Him).

We praise Him, seek His help, ask for His forgiveness, believe in Him, rely on Him, and send blessings and peace upon His beloved, His chosen one among His creation, the keeper of His secrets, and the deliverer of His messages, the herald of His mercy and the warner of His wrath, our master and prophet, Abu al-Qasim al-Mustafa Muhammad, and upon his pure and chosen progeny, especially the remaining one of God on earth.

And send blessings upon the leaders of the Muslims, the protectors of the oppressed, and the guides of the believers.

We congratulate all brothers and sisters who are praying, all the people of Iran, and all Muslims around the world and the great Islamic Ummah on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr. A Muslim emerges from the month of Ramadan with radiance. The month of Ramadan, with its fasting, remembrance, supplication, and divine praise, with the recitation of the Quran, and with many other good deeds that a faithful person benefits from, illuminates the heart and removes the rust from the heart and soul of a person. In fact, from the Night of Destiny, the faithful fasting person begins a new year. On the Night of Destiny, his destiny for the year is written for him by the divine scribes. A person enters a new year, a new phase, and in reality, a new life and a new birth. He embarks on a path, traversing it with the provision of piety; along this path, various milestones are set for him to renew memories and reminders, and the day of Eid al-Fitr is one of these milestones along the way. This day should be valued.

This prayer on the day of Eid al-Fitr is, in a sense, a thankfulness for the divine blessing in the month of Ramadan. It is a thankfulness for this new birth. In the Eid al-Fitr prayer, we repeatedly say to God: "Admit me into every good that You admitted Muhammad and the family of Muhammad into."; bring us into that pure paradise of faith, ethics, and deeds that You granted these chosen ones. "And remove me from every evil from which You removed Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, blessings be upon him and them"; remove us from the hell of bad deeds, bad ethics, and bad beliefs that You have kept these great ones and beloved ones of the creation safe from. We outline this great goal for ourselves on the day of Eid al-Fitr, we seek it from God, and we also have a duty, an obligation to strive and make efforts to remain on this straight path. This is piety.

One of the great achievements of the month of Ramadan is repentance and returning to the Almighty God. In the noble supplication of Abu Hamzeh al-Thumali, we read: "And unite me with the chosen one and elevate me to the degree of repentance to You"; bring us to the degree and rank of repentance so that we may return. Return from the wrong path, from bad deeds, from bad thoughts, from ugly ethics.

In the farewell supplication of the blessed month of Ramadan, Imam Sajjad says to the Lord of the worlds: "You are the One who opened a door for Your servants to Your forgiveness and named it repentance"; You opened this door for us to hasten towards Your forgiveness, to benefit from Your grace and mercy. This door is the door of repentance; a wide window towards the pure space of divine forgiveness. If the Almighty God did not open the path of repentance for His servants, our condition as sinful servants would be very dire. A person, under the influence of human instincts and desires, makes mistakes, slips, and sins. Each of these sins inflicts a wound on the body of our heart and soul. What would we do if there were no path of repentance?

In the supplication of Kumayl, Amir al-Mu'minin says: "I find no escape from what I have done and no refuge to turn to in my affairs except Your acceptance of my excuse"; if it were not for the matter of apologizing and the acceptance of excuses by the gracious and merciful Lord, how could we free ourselves from what we have brought upon ourselves from sin, from disobedience, from slipping, from following desires, from the burden of heavy sins? We would have no escape, no refuge. This refuge has been opened to us by the Almighty God, and that is repentance. Value repentance.

A youth, out of ignorance, flees from the home of his parents and then returns to the embrace of his parents, facing their love, their affection, and their tenderness. This is repentance. When we return to the house of divine mercy, the Almighty God accepts us with open arms. Let us value this return that naturally occurs for the faithful person in the month of Ramadan. I have seen the image of the presence of youth, teenagers, women, and men in the month of Ramadan in supplication sessions, in Quran sessions, in remembrance sessions; these tears that rolled down their faces in attention to the Lord are very precious, very valuable. This is repentance. Let us keep this repentance. Our desire-worshiping hearts, our heads in the clouds, make mistakes and slip. This opportunity has been provided to us by the month of Ramadan to cleanse ourselves. This cleansing is very valuable. These tears cleanse the heart, but they must be preserved, they must be kept. All these great pains, deadly and dangerous diseases, namely egotism, arrogance, envy, transgressions, betrayals, and carelessness - which are our great diseases - find an opportunity for healing in the month of Ramadan; they become treatable. The Almighty God pays attention and has certainly paid attention. This year's Ramadan was a very good Ramadan. The gatherings - gatherings of the Quran, gatherings of remembrance, gatherings of supplication, gatherings of admonition - the presence of various social classes, different faces and appearances in these gatherings. How much charity was performed in this month, how much assistance was provided to the weak throughout this blessed month. These are very valuable. Each one gives a fragrance to the human spirit, creates an opening for a person. Let us preserve these. I recommend that the youth value these soft hearts, these radiant hearts. It happens less in older ages; it happens more for the youth. Preserve these hearts. Value the prayer at the appointed time, presence in mosques, recitation of the Quran, intimacy with the Quran, intimacy with the supplications transmitted from the Ahl al-Bayt - which is a treasure of Islamic knowledge.

Let us also attend to our ethics; let us also attend to our ethics. The importance of ethics is greater than that of deeds. Let us make the atmosphere of society one of brotherhood, kindness, and good opinion. I do not agree at all with making the atmosphere of society one of suspicion and bad opinion. We must rid ourselves of these habits. Unfortunately, it has become common that newspapers and media and various communication devices - which are becoming more widespread and complex day by day - have adopted a method of accusing one another; this is not good; this is not good, it darkens our hearts, it makes our living environment gloomy. There is no contradiction that a sinner sees the consequences of his sin, but the atmosphere should not be one of promoting sin; accusing, accusing others of rumors, of imaginations. Here, I must also say: that in courts - which were broadcast on television - something is said by a defendant regarding another person, I must say that this has no legal validity. Yes, whatever the defendant says about himself in court is valid. To say that if he confesses in court about himself, it is not valid, this is an important and worthless statement; no, every confession, every admission, is legally, customarily, and in the eyes of rational people in a court in front of the camera, in front of millions of viewers that the defendant makes against himself, this confession is heard, accepted, and valid; but if he wants to confess against another, no, it is not heard. The atmosphere should not be filled with accusations and bad suspicions. The Holy Quran says: "Why, when you heard it, did not the believers, men and women, think well of themselves?"; when you hear that someone is accused, why do you not have good opinion of one another? The duty of the executive and judicial bodies is preserved. The executive bodies must pursue the criminal, the judicial bodies must condemn and punish the criminal; with the same method that is proven and exists in our Islamic laws and customary laws, and they should not relent in this regard; however, punishing a criminal whose crime has been proven through legal means is different from accusing someone based on suspicion, imagination, and slandering. This cannot be done. This atmosphere is not a correct one. Or others - foreigners, outsiders, biased televisions - speak against someone or some people, claiming that they have committed treason here or made mistakes there; we should not broadcast the same. This is oppression; this is unacceptable. When have foreign media cared for us? When have they wanted the truths about us to be clarified, that they come and state the truth? They say, they make claims. We should not say this is transparency. This is not transparency; this is clouding the atmosphere. Transparency means that the responsible person in the Islamic Republic presents his performance clearly to the people; this is the meaning of transparency, and they must do so; but that we come and take this and that without proving it, put them under the pressure of accusations and attribute things to them that may indeed be true, but as long as it has not been proven, we have no right to state it; this one accuses that one, that one accuses this one; we bring witnesses from foreign media - the biased British media - and then someone from the other side comes and accuses the entire system of things that are unworthy of the Islamic system, and the Islamic system's dignity is much higher than the things that some attribute to the Islamic system, this accusation against a person is a sin, but accusing an Islamic system, a collective, is a much greater sin. O Lord! With our piety, keep us away from these sins.

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

By time. Indeed, mankind is in loss. Except for those who believe and do righteous deeds and advise one another to truth and advise one another to patience.

Sermon Two

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Thanks be to God, the Lord of the worlds, and blessings and peace be upon our master and prophet, Abu al-Qasim al-Mustafa Muhammad

and upon his pure and chosen progeny, especially Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, and the pure and chaste Fatimah

and Hasan and Husayn, the masters of the youth of Paradise, and Ali ibn Husayn and Muhammad ibn Ali

and Ja'far ibn Muhammad and Musa ibn Ja'far and Ali ibn Musa and Muhammad ibn Ali and Ali ibn Muhammad

and Hasan ibn Ali and the guided, awaited successors, Your proofs over Your servants and Your trusted ones in Your lands.

And send blessings upon the leaders of the Muslims, the protectors of the oppressed, and the guides of the believers.

I advise you, O servants of God, to be conscious of God.

In the second sermon, the first matter that I consider my duty to express is to express gratitude and appreciation to the great nation of Iran for the magnificent display they presented on the Day of Quds before the eyes of the world. How much effort has been made over the years to weaken the Day of Quds, which symbolizes the alignment of truth against falsehood. The Day of Quds represents the alignment of justice against oppression. The Day of Quds is not just a day for Palestine; it is a day for the Islamic Ummah. It is a day of the loud cry of Muslims against the deadly cancer of Zionism, which has attacked the Islamic Ummah through the hands of the aggressive occupiers, the interveners, and the arrogant powers. The Day of Quds is not a small matter. The Day of Quds is a global day. It has a global message. It shows that the Islamic Ummah, first and foremost, does not succumb to oppression, even if this oppression is supported by the largest and most powerful governments in the world. How much effort has been made to weaken the Day of Quds, and this year they tried harder than ever; but the Day of Quds in Islamic Iran, in magnificent Tehran, showed the whole world which direction the clock of the revolution and the Iranian nation is pointing; it showed what the will of the Iranian nation is; it showed that their tricks, deceptions, spending money, and political malice have no effect on the spirit of the Iranian nation.

The leaders and politicians of the West have been deceived by their own media in recent months, deceived by their professional analysts in their newspapers and radio and television; they thought they could influence the Iranian nation. On the Day of Quds, you showed that they were chasing a mirage. The truth is this. The truth of the Iranian nation is what was shown on the last Friday of the blessed month of Ramadan - the Day of Quds - and it was shown that the extension of this greatness, this movement in the Islamic world is widespread and not limited to Iran; in various parts of the world, Muslims wherever they found the opportunity, mixed their cries against oppression with the Day of Quds. The Day of Quds is a very great day. You performed this task in the best possible way. Once again, the Iranian nation showed that in critical moments, it conveys its message to the world with the loudest cry.

The week of sacred defense begins. The sacred defense was the great religious and national jihad of the Iranian nation. The Iranian nation was able to strengthen the spirit of national self-confidence through eight years of powerful defense, to blossom its talents, to recognize its unknown capacities. Our youth in the imposed war, both in the armed forces - the army and the IRGC - and in the vast popular mobilization - the Basij of the oppressed - were able to show a face of Iran that had not been seen for decades - perhaps it can be said for two or three hundred years. If you see today that our nation and our youth are present in the fields of knowledge and technology with their immense capacities, a large part of this is due to the sacred defense. It was there that the Iranian nation became aware, realized what capacities they had, what power they possessed. Those who attacked the Islamic Republic promised themselves that in three days, a week, or a month, they would conquer Tehran(!) Today, nearly thirty years have passed since those days; the Iranian nation has become more powerful and stronger day by day; this tree has become more robust and rooted day by day, and those miserable ones who made those false hopes have each fallen into a corner and been discarded and destroyed. After this, it will continue to be the same.

What I want to say today to all our dear nation and to the esteemed officials - especially since, thanks be to God, both the executive and judicial branches have begun a new term and are fresh - is that they should prepare themselves for a decade of progress and justice. We need a leap in this path. We have a lot of lagging behind. With ordinary behavior, we cannot reach the desired point; we need a leap. This leap requires faith, sincerity, coordination, and cooperation of forces with one another. The three branches must cooperate, be united, help each other; the people must assist the officials, especially the executive branch that is in the middle of the field, cooperate, and accompany so that we can traverse the untrodden paths; accomplish the great tasks that await us.

I emphasize one particular point among the tasks that must be accomplished, and that point is science. For several years, a scientific movement has begun in the country. The elites must not allow this movement to slow down or, God forbid, come to a halt; move forward. The seminary and university have a heavy responsibility in this regard. Professors and students all have responsibilities. You must pursue the path of science. If a nation cannot advance in the field of science and scientific progress and scientific breakthroughs, it will be left behind.

If you see that some openly commit clear oppression in the world, it is backed by their knowledge. Knowledge is what has created wealth for them, political power for them, and influence in the world and in various regions for them. The key to progress is knowledge. Do not let the scientific movement come to a halt.

I would like to mention one more point. This year we declared it the year of reforming consumption patterns; everyone welcomed it; officials welcomed it, the people - each of whom reached out to us - welcomed it, specialists and elites and informed individuals in social and economic fields welcomed it, saying what a correct slogan it is, a good slogan; well, what happened? Unfortunately, for three or four months, the country wasted time following these false excitements in this regard. We are now at the end of the first half of the year. Of course, reforming consumption patterns is not limited to one year; it takes years. I said this during the holidays; it may take ten years for a person to accomplish this; but we must start. Officials must strive in this regard, work, cooperate, universities, informed individuals, seminaries, each has a role; God willing, they will fulfill this role, and with God's help, with the efforts of the esteemed government that must be at the forefront and lead, and with the help of the people, we will advance this work.

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Indeed, We have granted you al-Kawthar. So pray to your Lord and sacrifice (to Him). Indeed, your enemy is the one cut off.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings.