Ink of a Scholar in the Blood of a Martyr: Shaheed Sheikh Hassan Shehata

This is the second excerpt from our upcoming book, The Firmest Handle: Converts to Islam Who Became Martyrs (due to be released later this year, God willing), that we have released publicly. The first segment from the book is about the life of Shaheed Tony Abi Ghanem (ra), a Lebanese Christian who joined Hezbollah to fight against the “israeli” occupation of his homeland. Follow our website and social media channels to stay updated on the latest news about the upcoming book.

Martyr Hassan bin Muhammad bin Shehata bin Musa al-Anani (ra) is a religious scholar who was a devoted follower of the school of Ahlul Bayt (as). He was born on 10 November 1946, in the town of Harbit, Sharkia Governorate, Egypt, to a family that followed the Hanafi school of thought.

His journey to the genuine Islam was not easy, but rather extended over 50 lean years. In 1996, he saw the holy Prophet Muhammad (S) in a dream, and then declared following the doctrine of the Prophet’s family, peace be upon them.

Martyr Sheikh Shehata (ra) said: “I grew up since my childhood to love the family of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and be loyal to them. My father raised me and all the family members to love them, and he would often talk to me about the personality of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (peace be upon him). He would tell me that the Commander of the Faithful was the protector of Islam.”

Martyr Sheikh Shehata took the Friday pulpit for the first time in his life when he was under the age of fifteen. He graduated from the Qur’anic Institute at Al-Azhar with a master’s degree in Qur’anic sciences.

Following his conversion to Shiism, he was arrested for three months on charges of “declaring and promoting Shiism” on the basis of giving religious lectures, and without even being brought to trial. He was also prohibited from travelling outside Egypt and was arrested again in 2009 along with more than 300 people from the family of Al-Bayt. Then he was released shortly before his martyrdom along with three others on 23 June 2013 at the hands of a group of Takfiris in Giza.

His Eminence (ra) used to say to his teachers: “Say whatever you want, but the Prophet, the Commander of the Faithful, al-Zahra (sa), al-Hussein (as), and al-Hassan (as) are one tree, with one branch, and one fruit.”

Egyptian newspapers described him as “the sheikh who caused the most controversy, clamour, and noise in Egypt.” Besides, the martyr is known to have been the religious guide for the Egyptian army, as he was responsible for the moral guidance of the Corps of Engineers unit in 1973, and the owner of science circles on television, radio, and mosques.

Martyr Sheikh Shehata led the congregational prayers in one of the largest mosques in Cairo, located in front of the “Israeli” embassy, where thousands of people gathered to listen to his sermons in which he always declared his loyalty to Ahlul Bayt, in which he exposed the oppressors, hypocrites, and deviant sects, and attacked the Zionists in front of their notorious embassy, a clear threat to the eventual direction of normalization taken by the Egyptian government from Anwar Sadat and onwards.

Sheikh Shehata was not only an Azhar scholar, but also a teacher to many scholars who studied under him. Martyr Sheikh pointed out that the Wahhabis distorted the image of Islam and built their thought on falsehood, to the point that they do not recognize any of the imams except Ibn Taymiyyah, and they sanctify him more than Prophet Muhammad (S) despite all the doubts regarding Ibn Taymiyyah’s faith who claims that Allah has “a specific body, has physical body parts, and [physically] sits on the throne.”

Martyr Sheikh said: “I went through an arduous journey of searching. The truth was revealed to me at the end. I held on to the strong rope of Allah and His straight path with the guardianship of Ahlul Bayt (as). So I began to announce it everywhere. I intended to do my obligation in informing Muslims of the reality and the truth that had been hidden for many centuries.”

He adds: “The position of the Ahlul Bayt is very great, as they are the basic origin of the existence of this universe. They are the stars of guidance. So whoever follows them is guided to the straight path of Allah, and whoever deviates from their path is one of those with wrath upon them and those who go astray. The Ahlul Bayt (peace be upon them) are lanterns of guidance and ships of salvation. They are our imams, and they are entrusted with the matter that it is obligatory to obey them. They are the keepers of the Qur’an, and they are the stars of the path. They are the people of the ultimate knowledge that we are required to ask about everything in the religion. They are the people of the genuine religion, so it is obligatory for every rational monotheist to follow them in worship, treatment, and habit, since they are the people of sanctity and purity, the people of infallibility and integrity.”

Despite the systematic persecution and arbitrary restrictions he was subjected to, Martyr Sheikh took the initiative to hold mourning gatherings (Azadari) for Imam Hussein (as), which sparked the anger of the followers of the Umayyad ideology.

His Eminence commented: “The Umayyads in our country – Egypt – have established that the day of Ashura is a day of Eid, and they have lied on the tongue of the Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) with lies such as: the call for feeding on this day, wearing kohl, wearing new clothes, [ritual] washing, and fasting. They have claimed that this day is a day of happiness for all the prophets! I was looking at this nonsense that makes the bereaved laugh and hurts our hearts at the same time. The common people still take this day as a holiday in which they distribute the ‘Ashura dessert.’ This is all because the scholars have muted their tongues, concealed the truth, and have gone astray in Falsehood, people did not know what has happened to Imam al-Hussein on the day of Ashura. I screamed, and my voice hoarse, and I say: O people, how can you celebrate and rejoice on a day in which the son of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the apple of his eye has been killed?! Then, I began holding mourning gatherings for Imam al-Hussein, so we used to sit during the days of Muharram in his honour, and remember his fragrant biography and his heart-breaking solemnity. When I did that and wore black and we sat at his shrine [the Imam Hussein Mosque], they feared that Egypt would get confused, so they persecuted me.”

He wondered: “I am amazed at those who object marking the events of Ahlul Bayt (as). By Allah, it is a strange thing in this nation! Not only did they kill them, displace them, pursue them, poison them, and slaughter them, but they also try to make the creation forget their remembrance, and obstruct their followers’ congregations! What kind of nation is this?! The Christians cherish the relics of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), build churches, and commemorate his birth, and the whole world celebrates with them. The Jews stand at the Wailing Wall, weeping over the Temple; nevertheless, they object to us when we weep and mourn our Imam Hussein.”

Martyr Sheikh (ra) also had religious evenings on the Holy Qur’an Radio, and insightful programs such as the “Names of God” programme.

As soon as Egyptians began sharing his sermons, and the clouds of ignorance that threatened the strongholds of the deviant sects lifted from them, they began to wage war against him and his followers until he was killed on the night of the middle of Sha`ban by the Takfiris in front of the eyes of the Egyptian police forces who refused to intervene to save him and his companions. This crime, which the Egyptian government was partially complicit in, was on 23 June 2013 in Giza.

Hundreds of Salafist takfiris were reported to have intentionally descended upon the location of the Martyr Sheikh and his friends, armed with metal and wooden sticks, machetes, and other blunt objects. They mercilessly beat the innocent men to death, with the crowd hurling insults like “you sons of dogs” at the would-be martyrs.

The Egyptian government shows severity and harshness towards believing Muslims whose only “crime” is to love the family of the Prophet (S), as Allah has commanded the Muslim in the Holy Qur’an (where the Prophet says that he asks for no reward in compensation for his divine mission other than love of his near family), but they do not show one ounce of severity towards the “israeli” government as they massacre Muslims, who are mostly of the Sunni school of thought, year after year.

The son of former president Mohammad Morsi wrote on Twitter “In the era of the legitimate president – my father, we drove the Shias out of the streets of Cairo” following the death of his father in an Egyptian courtroom. While the Muslim Brotherhood had sincere origins, it was swiftly co-opted to become a fifth column tool of the Zionists and the Americans in the region, with some Muslim Brotherhood founders later condemning the organization they created due to its deviant direction.

The Egyptian and Syrian branches of the MB in particular have served as mercenaries for the political and military goals of the Zionists and Americans, specifically the Zionist Oded Yinon Plan to divide up “israel’s” neighbors according to ethnic and sectarian lines, so that they are weakened and easier to expel from the region, so that a “Greater israel” can be formed which extends from the Nile to the Euphrates. Sectarian agitators make for the perfect useful idiots for this sinister plan.

Saleh Ashour, a former Kuwaiti MP, pointed out the hypocrisy of Morsi and the Egyptian branch of MB, stating “During the era of President Morsi, relations with Syria were cut off and its embassy was closed while the flag of ‘Israel’ waved in Cairo. The martyr Hassan Shehata was killed and thrown into the street by public incitement. He did not open the border crossings with Palestine.”

مُّحَمَّدٌ رَّسُولُ اللَّهِ ۚ وَالَّذِينَ مَعَهُ أَشِدَّاءُ عَلَى الْكُفَّارِ رُحَمَاءُ بَيْنَهُمْ

“Muhammad, the Apostle of Allah, and those who are with him are hard against the faithless and merciful amongst themselves.”

Holy Qur’an 48:29