Arabic → English transcript

And for all of that,

I wanted to contribute with this book

as a comfort to the hearts of the oppressed

believers and those standing firm in the lands of al-

Sham and around Bayt al- Maqdis. I mean, I wrote the book with this intention, that

the youth standing firm in Syria,

who at that time were under the criminal Assad regime and those who followed him,

meaning those who helped and supported him,

whether from the Russians or the Iranians and the followers

of the Iranians from the militias

that are considered the Iranian arms, all of them were fighting

Ahl al- Sunnah in Syria,

all of them in front of the cameras, I mean this.

A new generation has come up,

you see, saying,“ You say there were massacres, where are the massacres,

I don’t know what,” like that, “ All of you talk like this.”

Woe to them from God, woe to them from God if they

belittled the

blood of the Muslims and did not repent. And you sit there,

every time a new kid shows up you keep answering him, may God help you only.

And some of them, on top of making things worse, went and said to you,

“ It is not even like you say,

it is a civil war.” And then he says to you,“

Actually…” Who are Ahl al- Sunnah and who are“ the Sunnis,” and we actually want to

reexamine

the issue of the Sunnah and the issue of Muʿawiya. And the issue of the Shia.

And what are the Shia? People who are light in their minds,

and light in their knowledge, dealing with these issues

as if we today

are in the year 70 after the Hijra, or 13 or 37,

as if fourteen centuries have not passed and the facts become clear,

and books been written and works authored, and that is it, really.

Instead of looking ahead and preparing

for what is greater, whether in terms of,

praise be to God, the Assad regime is gone, now what remains for us is

the criminal Zionist occupation.

And it is not necessary, you know, just because you know, the Zionist

enemy— the people with the greatest right to stand up to it are Ahl al- Sunnah,

and it is not necessary, you know, just because

many of the political

regimes that belong to the Sunnis have eliminated

many of the Sunnis who are able to fight the Zionist enemy— and by the way,

part of those who eliminated

Sunni fighters in general in the region is the Iranian regime and its arms,

but that was with the blessing of the American occupation,

along with the occupation of Iraq, there was…

Any involvement, whatever its nature,

whatever the nature of the coordinating body,

is not our concern, the final picture is that there was an American occupation,

and there was also

Iranian involvement,

whether directly or through its proxies, in fighting the Sunni people.

So when we come now and say, where are the Sunnis now,

if we are talking about certain political regimes,

we know that these political regimes

generally act according to national interests, that is, narrow state interests,

and that they were part of eliminating

many Sunni forces,

and likewise the Iranian regime was

its core role to

eliminate the Sunni forces in the region.

So we are not going to cover our eyes and act as if we do not see or do not know

what happened. You do not have to, in order to fight the criminal Zionist enemy,

go and disown the Sunnis, and go and adopt Shia beliefs, doctrine, and so on,

and act as if the… I mean, do not blind your sight

and place barriers before your eyes as if you do not see anything of what happened.

In the next twenty or twenty- five years, and if you just came out and

you do not know what is going on, then fear God regarding the blood of the Muslims

that has been shed,

and fear God regarding your creed as well,

review it. And with time you will see,

God willing, you will see the people of the Sunnah with time, by God’s permission.

But at that point I fear that when you see it in the future,

you will have lost your creed and much of your faith and your firm principles.

So weigh things a bit,

be a bit more serious and stay away from

this religious frivolity and this creedal frivolity

and this trend- chasing and this… stuff. Let us be a bit calmer, calm down a bit.