Prominent Lebanese Shiite Clerics Proclaim Firm Support for Syrian People’s Revolution

Two of Lebanon’s most prominent shiite clerics, Seyyed Mohammed Hassan el Amin and Seyyed Hani Fahs, both from South Lebanon, made an “appeal” to their community to abandon its pro-Assad stand and to engage in favor of Syria’s revolution.

While avoiding direct controversy with Hezbollah, the “appel” is, still, a cry against the suicidal stand of the pro-iranian party which has portrayed lebanese shiites as pro-Assad fanatics.

While it is not easy to render “shiite style” to English, we have done our best to be faithful to the orignial Arab text:

Appel

We the undersigned, Seyyed Mohammed Hassan el Amin and Seyyed Hani Fahs, known near and far whether by our biographies and style of life or for our adoption of moderation, relativity and compromise.

Out of our religious, humanistic and national choices, and on the basis of our general islamic identity, including our shiite particular identity..

Out of our shiite tradition of revolt against oppressors, whoever they were, and of siding with the oppressed, whoever they were.

Out of respect for our personal contributions, recognized by all, to shiite, arab and islamic awakening.

Out of our tendency to raise our voices against injustices, whoever the perpetrators, and in order to clarify our stand in favor of resistance, whether against zionist occupations in Lebanon and Palestine or against “national occupations” using Palestine and arabism as a pretext to oppress arab peoples.

Making no distinction between one oppressor and another, or between one people or another.

We call upon our (shiite) community to be consistent with its identity and values and to stand by arab revolts, abandon worries about them, with the exception of brotherly concern, and, that, especially in the case of the (by the will of God) victorious syrian revolution.

We, also, call upon our community to discard calls for unjust compromises at the expense of Syria’s people and martyrs and to pray for an end to the current destruction of Syria and carnage of its people.

We, also, remind our (lebanese shiite) community that the best guarantee for peace in Lebanon is to have for neighbor a stable and free Syria under the rule of a democratic, pluralistic and modern state.

With no ambiguity, but with no agressivity either, we proclaim our firm stand in favor of the syrian revolution, in the same spirit as we had stood for the revolutions of Palesine, Iran, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. And in the same spirit as we had proclaimed our sympathy for the reformist and popular opposition movement in Iran, the reform movement in Bahrein, as well as in Mauritania and And Sudan…

We are proclaiming the truth and justice out of our pure islamic memory, out of our belief in God and out of respect for the memory of Karbala (the martyrdom of Hussein) as a symbol for believers and as a cry against injustice and oppression.

Translation by: Pierre Akel

Appeal in Arabic