In the name of Godthe Merciful,
Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the last of the Prophets, master of the Messengers, and family and companions, and all the prophets and messengers of God almighty.
The believer reaches the month of Shawwal with a sense of joy, achieving the goal of fasting. It was through sincerity of behavior, belief, obedience and piety that he realized that patience with hunger and thirst is only an excuse for disciplining and purifying the soul and enrichments in the righteous direction. It is patience in the place of praise and contentment, with the grace that God bestowed upon His worshipers in the blessed month. He, in turn, is in the position of being aware of the benevolence of the most precious gift given to man, that is, the spirit. The guidance in the spirit is a light that alerts the soul about what it desires in the absence of ignorance, evil, hypocrisy and all that is reprehensible and contrary to the limits of the religious law. The month was honored with the fasting paths, as they are excuses for the stability of the soul in the piety and the praises of thankfulness and the sense of meaning “ that the holy book is undoubtedly a guidance for those who are righteous (Al-Baqarah 2), “and they said, Praise be to God who brought us closer to this blessing, without Hi we wouldn’t have been blessed (Al-Aaraf 43)”.
And breaking the fast (Al-Fitr), is like preserving grace by performing an obligation to thankfulness with sincere work and is equivalent to compliance with what is rewarded by those who are preached in it. “They are preached by the grace and blessings of God and that God does not forget to reward of the believers (Al-Omar 171)”. These are all elements of existence in a sound Islamic society, and it is not conceivable for a nation to enter into the ambiguities of the contradiction between the rules of sincere faith and social practice over the actual facts and events. The great lesson of all of what the holy book teaches is honorable compliance with the transcendent goal of faith achieved in actions, truthfulness of proceedings, and the connection of movements and dwellings with what are considered the founding values of every goodness and linked in an institutionalized manner to the sacred foundations of society, seeking a decent life whose guarantees are, in addition to the above, a constitutional human commitment to the essence of laws, i.e. justice, equality, preserving rights, respecting duties and safeguarding the freedoms that distinguish firmly between what is the dignity of life and what is slipping into the chaos of vulgarity.
And we, in Lebanon, must promote the efforts and revive all motives to leave behind the hotbeds of wear and tear, to avoid the investment in the power of politics, to eradicate the basis of the private interests, to hold the wrongful wealthy accountable to their acts, and to use power instead to possess the tools of influence.
Based on this, no matter how the opinions vary regarding the efforts exerted to getting out of this multifaceted predicament, and no matter how many conflicting assessments exist, Lebanon, in the middle of this worrying level of danger by crisis, needs the rise of every official, from the big to the small, and raise the country from the current states of depression and opportunism and even deep inattention to positive alerts, into a state of immediate and fruitful initiatives and the real trend towards reviving the will of the national patriotic solidarity beyond what is practiced behind the barriers of factional fragmentation. A nation is witnessing oppression, as it is in Lebanon, and it has the will and power that can push forward, it does not, however when it is prevented by the egoism of men, then it is a nation reeling in the way of collapse.
We must highlight that the moving initiatives of the state, institutions and individuals in terms of physical and material support for all impacted by the crisis in their essentialneeds, necessities, jobs and material losses in the midst of suspicious manipulation of the national currency rate is a duty and a gratitude. We must also greet the National Army for its great role in all tasks assigned to it at all levels.
In light of the challenges that our country is witnessing at this critical stage of socio-economic challenges, we hope that officials would do the following:
- To stop using the state and its institutions for private and factional interests, or to settle personalaffairs, or other.
- To stop their preaching, accusations, assignmentof responsibilities, and to immediatelyspend their efforts through the government and the parliament together, into starting of a radical reform workshop that reaches all sectors that are suspected ofmonetary waste and corruption, and to provide an economic vision based on understanding through consultation with all productive sectors, economic bodies, labor unions, employee associations and trade unions, to generate what could be considered a deliberate, socially just and viable plan, targeting the approval of the International Monetary Fund to assist Lebanon.
- Implement effective measures to prevent price hikes, adjust prices, regulation of the exchange rate of the national currency, changing working methods in the electricity sector, and controlling smuggling, as well as customs and tax evasion.
- Giving the judiciary body complete independence, because it is the conscience of the nation and because there is no accountability and no real anti-corruption except through an impartial judiciary body, independent of any political interference; then reactivating public institutions on the basis of efficiency in employment and rationalization in spending.
- Implementing visionary educational, health and social policies, with continued care and support for needy families, whose numbers will increase successively due to the rise in unemployment and the absence of economic growth, and support to the agricultural and industrial sectors to provide some job opportunities to compensate for the loss in other sectors.
In our opinion, the above is the right path for Lebanon’s salvation, otherwise we do not see true salvation, and all the blame would be on the shoulders of the officialsin responsible positions. We all see that the initiative would be in any positive step that unites and does not separate, that would indicate what must be done without delay in pushing towards restoring confidence internally among all powers and sectors, and externally with the countries and institutions interested in assisting Lebanon.
On the other hand, it is imperative to express our firm satisfaction, and our support for all that strengthens the Lebanese approach of giving priority to dismantling the dangers of harmful discord amongst the "citizens", stressing the primacy of the concept of inclusive citizenship over random misuse of classes, nervousness, and different stripes of political affiliations and others.
Our historical heritage, including the political one, teaches us that what made it possible to achieve a nation in this homeland is the spirit of participation and convergence with the strength of a collective will to co-exist,of which contents overlapped to form what was called the National Lebanese Charter. If the charter had faltered in dark nights, then what has generated itwas a lasting force which if we abandon then we would be abandoning our country.
Difference of opinion would never be a factor of demolish and disrupt. As long as the mind is the sane of emotions, we say, understand the generosity of your emotions, whether you are individuals or presidents in your societies, differ in what you are doing for your country.
As we recall the meanings of Eid Al-Fitr, it comes in proximity with the Liberation and Resistance Day, which was and remains a symbol of the Lebanese ability to withstand and resist occupation and confront its aggression and accomplish national victory over it.
And while mankind faces the challenge of the pandemic that pushes towards necessary and inevitable measures against its risks, Palestine remains under the suppression of direct danger from the Israeli occupation, which uses every opportunity to repeat its transgressions against the land and its people, violating sanctities and human rights, which in turn is somethingthat calls for decisive and firm decisions from the Arab and Islamic nations, and the necessity of the unity of the Palestinian people for the sake of overcoming all disputes and resisting in various forms these persistent attacks so that Jerusalem remains the capital of the independent Arab state of Palestine.
We ask God Almighty to grant to our people his generosity, mercy, and grace, and to bless their fast with acceptance and forgiveness, and to help with the secrets of His kindness all those who are short of supplies in these difficult times, and to dedicate those who are entrusted and delegated to serve the people in their endeavors for all good, and to restore them to their nation and peace, “As the Lord is ourclose responder”.
May God’s peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you.