The Toronto al-Quds Day virtual rally was held on May 17, 2020. Here is the speech delivered by Sheikh and Imam Shafiq Hudda, the director of the Islamic Humanitarian Service (IHS) in Kitchener, Ontario:
May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon all of you [Arabic and English]. In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds, prayers and blessings upon the most noble of the prophets and messengers and upon his righteous and pure progeny [Arabic]. I want to sincerely appreciate the Al-Quds Day Committee in Toronto for all your hard efforts. It’s interesting when I hear people complain we have to be under lockdown or we are in self isolation or we have to stay home or cannot go outside for other than essential responsibilities and duties. When I hear this kind of complaining I get startled, I get amazed, I get baffled as well, that what we are encountering just for a few weeks people in Palestine have been going through for almost 72 years. People in Kashmir this is a part of their life. This interesting thing is that we will come back to our home. We will come back to our families after we have bought the groceries. We have bought the milk. We complain about lineups, we complain about milk shortages and egg shortages and toilet paper shortages and yet we think about those who may not get eggs or milk, not for a few hours or a few days. They don’t know when and if they will have milk or eggs. This is something that is a reality, a reality for the Palestinians, for the Kashmiris, for some people in Venezuela, for Cubans who are under America sanctions and embargoes. We see so many people around the world suffering, the Rohingyas, the Tibetans as has been mentioned so eloquently and beautifully by the speakers before me. May God bless them all. May God reward them all and to the organizers who have created this ability for us to appreciate and understand those who are less fortunate than ourselves. We see that the Zionist State as it has been mentioned by Mr. Dimitri [Lascaris], my dear brother, that things are changing and the world opinion and the popular opinion is starting to get awakened by what has been happening and what is been transpiring in the Palestinian lands. And one of the things that has been interesting when I’ve been reading the news and I’ve been following up is that the Zionists, the occupying force of Palestine, the Zionist regime, the Zionist entity, the illegitimate usurpers of the Palestinian land has been sending out, has been going on a PR campaign, public relations campaign, to encourage other world leaders like the Australians, like the Canadians, they don’t need to do any with the Americans, the Americans are already in their pockets anyway. They are trying to say, prevent them [the Palestinians] from going to the ICC, the International Criminal Court. My question to Zionists is, if you have not done something wrong why are you afraid to go before the judges? Why are you afraid to go before the International Criminal Court if you’re not a criminal? The fact that you’re sending out delegations and public relations people is that you realize inside your hearts, inside your mind, that you are doing something wrong. You are violating rights. You are committing crimes that you do not want the International Criminal Court investigate. That’s why you’re afraid. Those who are not afraid don’t need to worry. And interestingly enough also those who are the supporters of the Zionist regime, those who are the diehard backers of [Benjamin] Netanyahu [Israel’s prime minister] and his racist criminals, prejudicial criminals, they were the same ones would have supported white supremacists in South Africa during the time of apartheid. These are the same elements, these are the same racists who support South Africa at time of apartheid who are supporting the Zionist and Israelis and Netanyahu and those before him and those who will come after him are the same supporters. And incidentally it is also the same ideology, this racist criminal ideology, that is running the state of India currently, and the same racist policies that they’re implementing, the Israelis, the Zionists have been implementing, the South Africans had. But what changed the whole scenario?What changed the whole game strategy? Boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS]. BDS is the most feared movement right now in the contemporary world by the Zionists and that’s why they’re making this anti democratic stand. States across the US are starting the ban this until you want to discuss this and bring it into law. Canada’s been discussing this as well. Should we equate the BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement with antisemitism? Please remember my sisters and my brothers those who are participating in the rally our virtual rally, at least we didn’t shut the doors. We made sure that our voices are heard loud and clear. We are being recorded, we are been noted, we know that and yet we find that this democratic right that we have, is being violated on us now. Anybody who speaks out is called an antisemite. Don’t forget one thing. We love our Jewish brothers and sisters who are with us today and we are with us when we were able to go on a walk in downtown Toronto, and we were able to walk in downtown Vancouver and in other places across Canada whether it’s in Ottawa and Montreal. Remember our Jewish brothers sisters are there, our Hindu brothers and sisters are there, our Sikh brothers and sisters are there, our Christian brothers and sisters are there, even our atheist brothers and sisters are there. It doesn’t matter what religion what ethnic background you belong to. Just having a human heart and human conscious and feeling the pain will be sufficient to bring you out to the rallies whether it’s an electronic rally as we are experiencing in this endemic currently or whether it’s a physical rally that inshallah [Allah Willing] we hope to be able to reach, continue and resume. And as I had mentioned in my previous discussion a number of years ago, we pray for a day to come when we don’t have to have these rallies, when Palestine will be free, when there will be Jews and Christians and Muslims living harmoniously as they were once upon a time. The New York times in an article in 1992 mentioned that when the Jews were expelled from Spain and a 100,000 plus were expelled. It was the Muslims who sent boats to go and to receive them and bring them to the Muslim areas. They were living harmoniously as brothers in monotheism. All of the three divine monotheistic religions, the Abrahamic religion, have lived peacefully. Why did you create the State of Israel? Why did you create a state, a Zionist state at occupied Palestine? And not only occupied Palestine [unintelligible] in the late forties, but continues to annex large swaths of land, annexes land from the Syrians and from the Jordanians and from the Egyptian and from the Palestinians and more and more. This is a cancer that has been growing, a cancer that has been spreading and it will continue to spread unless it is stopped by the resistance once and for all in its tracks. And this is something that, you know, when the various western nations blindly support the State of Israel, a beautiful book that I encourage, my sisters and brothers, to read, it is called They Dare to Speak Out, by former Senator Paul Findley, and in that book they dare to speak out and then in a subsequent book he wrote Deliberate Deceptions. He talked about those within the United States, within North America, we have countered the Israeli lobby, the Zionist lobby and how they suffered, what they went through, what reputation smears they had gone through, what attacks, harassment, verbal and other abuses they went through, and yet he spoke up, and this is the same spirit we see in the Palestinians, the same spirit we see in the Kashmiris, the same spirit we see in the Rohingyas, the same spirit we see in the Cuban, the same spirit we see in the Venezuelans, that imperialism will be confronted, imperialism will be fought, imperialism is not something that we will allow to rule our lives to rule our destiny. No, we will stand up for the sake of Allah, The most Glorified, the most High, we will stand up for justice and we will fight these entities, we will fight these oppressors, will fight these criminals wherever they may be and in whatever shape they come and whatever form they come. That’s what they’re afraid of the International Criminal Court, because one of the things we have learned, and in Arabic there is a saying لكل فرعون موسى for every Pharaoh there is a Moses and don’t think that Netanyahu, he will not face your Moses, and he will not face your reckoning, and not fear [Narendra] Modi [India’s prime minister], and you will face your Moses as well. You will face them and you will see them the day we see an uprising taking place at least in an awareness is taking place in the United Kingdom as it has been mentioned before me. The Honorable Jeremy Corbyn [ Leader of the Labour Party] along with numerous others have set the letter, a petition to the current prime minister Boris Johnson. We have seen in Australia the honorable Adam Bandt [leader of the Australian Greens and federal MP for Melbourne] talking about Palestinian rights and making sure that his government does not blindly go and face whatever the Israeli slogan has been. We see throughout Europe there has been an awakening not only amongst people but amongst the politicians and the parliamentarians. Throughout the Middle East despite House of Saud, the rulers of the Hijaz [Saudi Arabia], of the Arabian peninsula, despite them warming up the relations and benefiting you know with their money and with all this benefiting with their power base is maintained by those who themselves [unintelligible] that if it wasn’t for us, if it wasn’t for the United States, he mentioned it, the President himself [Donald Trump] the rule of the Saudi Arabian authorities would not last even two weeks. We’re waiting for that new data coming inshallah [Allah Willing], with the permission of Allah. When all these oppresses will have less than two weeks to go and there will be justice, there will be peace and there will be equality. And we pray for that day to come inshallah [Allah Willing] that these oppressors who are all ideologically the same, the same racists, the same tyrants, the dictators and the rulers of the [unintelligible]. We will see their downfall very soon inshallah [Allah Willing]. We are patient. We are patient because we know that these things will not happen overnight. We know that you’re firmly embedded, but don’t think that those embeddings are in stone. All oppressors, all tyrants, all rulers with unjust policies, that day will come when you will see your Pharaoh. The day will come when you will see as the Meccans had seen their Mohammad coming, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. And that day is not far away inshallah [Allah Willing] and with the permission of Allah. وَسَيَعْلَمُ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا أَيَّ مُنْقَلَبٍ يَنْقَلِبُونَ [Quran 26:227] A time will come, a day will come very soon when the oppressors will realize what they had done and they will face the reckoning for that. And we pray for Allah to send Imam Mahdi [redeemer of Islam], make us amongst the companions of the awaited messiah, the awaited Mahdi and inshallah [Allah Willing] along with Jesus Christ to establish justice, equality and truth throughout the world. At the same time we have a responsibility to lay the foundation for justice, for the Imam Mahdi to come inshallah [Allah Willing]. Thank you my dear organizers, thank you dear brother Farman Ali, brother Siraj and all those who worked behind the scenes and we have been working so hard over the years, and may Allah, The most Glorified, the most High, bless you all, may Allah give you the strength, the courage to continue standing up for the oppressed for those for whom there is no voice inshallah God Willing, we will be their voice. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon all of you. Thank you.
Shafiq Hudda prayed for “the eradication of the unjust powers such as the American empire, such as the Israeli Zionists”
Here is an excerpt from Sheikh Shafiq Hudda’s speech at Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto June 9, 2018:
“I am praying for a day to come in our lifetime, where we won’t need the Al-Quds rally because Palestine will be free. Oppression will be eradicated, injustice will end, that’s the day we pray for. So we don’t have to meet every Saturday in the holy month of Ramadan. This is our prayer to the almighty creator, whether you call him God or Allah. You call him Jehovah or whatever name you want to call him. We pray to the creator and to the almighty, a day will come when we see justice throughout the world. The eradication of the unjust powers such as the American empire, such as the Israeli Zionists. And the same way that we saw the British Empire wither away, the sun never set on it… the sun sets on it. We will see a day coming inshallah, God willing in our lifetime, where this empire, the Zionist empire, the American empire will be down in the dustbins of history inshallah God willing.”
“The Mahdi will offer the religion of Islam to the Jews and the Christians; if they accept it they will be spared, otherwise they will be killed”
Ayatullah Ibrahim Amini, an eminent scholar and jurisprudent is a professor at the Religious Learning Center at Qum, wrote in his book “Al-Imam al-Mahdi, The Just Leader of Humanity”:
The Mahdi will offer the religion of Islam to the Jews and the Christians; if they accept it they will be spared, otherwise they will be killed. Thus, for example, the following tradition in which Ibn Bukayr asks Imam Rida the interpretation of the verse: “To Him submits everything that is in the heavens and the earth, in obedience and in aversion.” The Imam relates:
The particular verse is revealed in reference to the Qa’im. When he appears he will offer the religion of Islam to the Jews, Christians, Sabians, and the disbelievers in the east and the west. Any one who willingly accepts Islam will be asked to pray, give alms, and perform all the obligatory acts; and any one who refuses to do so will be killed. This will continue until there remains none but a believer in and worshipper of One God everywhere on the earth.
Ibn Bukayr said to the Imam that in that case there would be far too many people who would be killed. The Imam said: “Whenever God desires something to increase or decrease He can do so.”
Related article Kitchener Imam says “we pray” for Zionists to be “in the dustbin of history”
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