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Al-Hajj
Usama Al-Atar
القارئ الحاج أسامة العطار |
| Al-Hajj Usama Al-Atar will be lecturing in Mombassa, Kenya for the last week of Safar.
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| | Here's the speech of Al-Hajj Usama Al-Atar given at Cathedral Square in the City of Peterborough, UK, on January 8th, 2009 commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Husain and linking it to the World's suffering of today. Al-Hajj Usama would like to know your thoughts on the speech at usama(at)usamaalatar.net
We Refuse to Live in Humiliation
Usama Al-Atar
January 8th, 2009
Peterborough, UK
I would like to begin by thanking the local police force and the community of Peterborough for their help, support and cooperation. I pray that God blesses Peterborough with peace, love and security, Amen.
In a World, overcome by corruption and deceit. One, where people are judged based on their color and race. Wars fought for the pure sake of greed. The term ‘human value’ carries no meaning. Morals reciprocated, making the good evil and turning the wrong into right. Poverty and hunger shredding the lives of millions, while the rich cares only for life styles filled with vanity and extravagance. Cries of children silenced through the air, and tears of the oppressed washed with blood. Oppressors, once themselves inferior, eradicated the weak for no crime but the call for justice. Those initiating fear, ironically claim to fight evil in a global war on terror. Equality and social justice is but a mirage in the eyes of the thirsty poor. Liberty for humanity appears nothing more than a slogan chanted by those feeling superiority over others. Atrocities and massacres being carried out with the World standing silent, not reacting to the precious lives being lost. The night of gloom and horror appears everlasting, with no shadow of any dawn to rise.
About fourteen hundred years ago, in a World, very much similar to our World today, with humanity on the verge of losing all hope, rose a man to fight for the basic rights of every human: freedom, dignity and justice. He shouted with a call that has resonated throughout history, “We refuse to live in humiliation!” He rejected tyranny and said, “I find death for the sake of the truth is absolute happiness, and to live in support of tyranny is true death.” This man was Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Husain.
The oppressor and corrupt leader of that time, an ignorant man named Yazeed, was so arrogant and ill hearted that he listened to no one but himself as he spread terror in the hearts of many. Imam Husain rose against him, in a call for liberty, freedom and social justice. He was forced to go in isolation in the deserts of Karbala, where thousands of evildoers surrounded him and were commanded by the tyrant Yazeed to eradicate him, his family and all those who supported him, and was denied water and mercy. With only about a hundred supporters, Imam Husain stood firm in his fight against oppression and bravely faced the thousands of people coming to silence his call. He sacrificed all he had for the sake of humanity, even his six months old baby who Imam Husain plead for some water to quench his thirst was killed with an arrow that pierced his throat. His women and children were beaten and taken as prisoners in the worst conditions ever, all for the sake of restoring the truth. Imam Husain was brutally killed along with his family members, but the minute his blood was shed on the plains of Karabala it secured freedom and brought dignity to humanity.
Centuries later, we hear Imam Husain’s call loud and clear, “We refuse to live in humiliation.” For the millions dying from poverty in Africa while the rich spends billions of dollars lavishly on wars we say, “We refuse to live in humiliation.” For the tears of mothers, children and innocents being massacred in the Middle East while the World watches silently and not doing anything about it, we say, “We refuse to live in humiliation.” For all the nations suffering due to tyranny and oppression, we say, “We refuse to live in humiliation.”
Every cry for justice; every call for liberty; every movement for civil rights; every revolution for social equality, is but a resonance of Imam Husain's revolution!
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