Martyr Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr: Iran Is Not the Enemy!
In one of the pleadings, Martyr Ayatollah Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr (ra) was interrogated regarding a speech he gave at the Al-Hussain Mosque in 2008 in the town of Awamiyah in the eastern region of the Arabian Peninsula, entitled “We are with Iran in heart and soul with all our capabilities.”
In his opinion, the goal of bringing up that lecture was “to incite sectarian strife, i.e. the Shi’a Safavid ‘Zoroastrian’ Iran and the Shi’a Nimr al-Nimr vs the Sunni Salafi Saudi Arabia. Accordingly, the Sunnis must close ranks behind the Salafi Saudi Arabia and its government against the Shi’a Iran and Nimr al-Nimr.”
Ayatollah Nimr (ra) asserts that this illusion and these fanaticisms are what “increase the division of the Islamic nation, its weakness, humiliation, and its remaining a captive of the West.”
The martyred Sheikh (ra) asks: “What is the crime in this? Especially since the temporal, objective, and spatial circumstances in which the context of the speech came required that.”
He explains that during that era there was “a US will to ignite the Gulf with the fire of a war of attrition, to deplete its potential and capabilities, to deepen the gap between Sunnis and Shi’as, and to incite sectarian strife.”
The goal of this was “to enter into a sectarian and regional war in which the only winner would be the West, and the loser would be the societies of the [Persian] Gulf in particular, and Muslims in general.”
The martyred Sheikh shows how many Sunni and Shi’a scholars, and the governments of the [Persian] Gulf, including late King Abdullah al Saud, stood with Iran, “because there was no one in the [Persian] Gulf who would go along with the US will, neither politicians nor scholars nor thinkers and intellectuals of the region.”
His Eminence once again asks: “What is the crime in defending an oppressed Muslim society that is being unjustly and aggressively attacked?”
Ayatollah Nimr stresses that belonging to Shiism is an additional incentive to defend any society “as long as it is oppressed and not oppressive, attacked and not aggressive toward others. Defending the oppressed is a virtue; if the oppressed is a Muslim, Islam is a greater incentive for Muslims to defend their oppression.”
He further asks: “Is Iran a friendly or an enemy country?”
The martyred Sheikh (ra) wonders, “If it is a friendly [country], what is wrong with defending a friend? If it is an enemy country, why does its warship are received in the port of Jeddah?”
The martyred Sheikh Al-Nimr draws a comparison: “If [Iran] is an enemy, is it more hostile than the Zionist entity, which usurps the land of Palestine, and spreads corruption in its sanctities? The Islamic countries as a whole do not have ties with it, unlike Iran, where there are political and commercial ties.”
His Eminence, Martyr Sheikh Al-Nimr adds: “If [Iran] is an enemy, is it more hostile than the US, which does not interfere in any spot on the globe and spreads corruption, discord and destruction?”
Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, all these countries are suffering from crises, bloody conflicts, wars, and bombings “because of the American intervention, and its drones flying in the skies of all these countries and others.”
Regarding the wound of usurped, occupied, and stolen Palestine, which has not healed, he asks: “Who protects the Zionist entity from condemnation by the [UN] Security Council, in addition to economic aid and military protection other than the US?”
If the US halts protecting this entity, “it will not be able to survive even a single month, or even a single week,” the martyred Sheikh Al-Nimr stresses.
His Eminence adds: “Is France a friendly country? This arrogant state, which is distinguished from all the countries of occupation and arrogance that only think about their own interests, is distinguished by its deep hatred against Islam and Muslims, and the Central African Republic is evidence of that.”
The martyr concludes regretfully: “Unfortunately, the tendency that nests in the depths of our hearts towards these seditions, strife, and illusions is what enables the US and Western countries to blackmail governments, which in turn deceive their oppressed peoples.”
