Message to Muslims Worldwide and Declaration of Public Mourning for the Desecration of the Holy Shrines in Iraq

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

O God, curse the first oppressor who wronged the right of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, and the last one who followed him in that (Mafatih al-Jinan, Ziyarat Ashura)

The continuous reports of the actions of the Iraqi army in Najaf and Karbala and their insult to the sacred precincts of the holy shrines and their disrespectful entry into the courtyards of the sanctuaries of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Hussein, and Hazrat Abbas (peace be upon them) and the desecration and destruction of their sacred thresholds—which are the qibla of the hearts of Shia, lovers, and the free people of the world—reveal more and more each day the dimensions of their immense crime.

May God's curse and wrath be upon the Ba'ath rulers of Iraq who, like their predecessors, have repeated the tragedy of Ashura and with their savage assault on Najaf and Karbala, have committed acts that defy description; and have inflicted upon the holy shrines and the oppressed Muslims of Iraq and the religious seminaries what the tyrannical and bloodthirsty Umayyads and Abbasids did not. They have inflicted such a wound and calamity upon the hearts of the friends of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them) that its weight cannot be compared to any disaster of this time; 'No grief is like the grief of the day of Taf' (Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 99, p. 55). With these crimes committed by the hands of the Ba'athist mercenaries of Iraq, with the full support of America and other devils, the Islamic nation is in mourning and grief.

I offer my condolences for this great calamity to the sacred presence of the Guardian of God, the Great Remnant of God (may our souls be sacrificed for him), and to express devotion to his holy presence and to declare curse and hatred towards the enemies of Islam, I declare Thursday, the eighth of Dhu al-Qi'dah, corresponding to the second of Khordad, as a day of public mourning and will sit in mourning.

I hope that the determination and zeal of our Muslim government and nation, who have intertwined the love of the Prophet's family (peace be upon them) with their hearts and souls, will not allow the perpetrators of these great crimes to cover it with a veil of deception and deceit, and that the eloquent tongues of speakers and poets and the skilled hands of artists and writers will accurately depict these bitter truths, which are part of the tragic events of this era and the story of oppressed nations, and forever record them in the annals of history.

I ask the Almighty God for the disgrace and destruction of the perpetrators of this crime. 'And those who have wronged are going to know to what [kind of] return they will be returned' (Ash-Shu'ara: 227).

Ali Hosseini Khamenei

5 Dhu al-Qi'dah 1411

30 Ordibehesht 1370