Hawzah News Agency- In a meeting with the members of Arbaeen Cultural Committee in Qom on Saturday, October 22, Ayatollah Arafi expressed his condolence on the occasion of Imam Hussain’s (a.s) martyrdom anniversary and thanked the Arbaeen committee for their efforts during the month of Muharram; he then referred to the concept of pilgrimage or Ziyarah according to the Shia doctrine and added, “We believe that the ritual of pilgrimage has a common divine origin among all religions and is well-elaborated In religious settings ,”
Head of the Islamic seminaries went on, “Another important point about pilgrimage is that it’s not exclusive to Shi’ism and is common among other sects and religions as well,”
“Making a pilgrimage is not limited to religious aspects nor is exclusive to the person who does it, but it has a social aspect as well and it can influence the whole society,” Ayatollah Arafi added.
The senior Shia scholar further said, “The common reason behind making pilgrimage can unite the Islamic Community; since nowadays the Islamic community is dealing with destructive plots caused by adversaries who try to undermine Islam’s progress,”
“Focusing on the joint dialogue of pilgrimage in different religions plays a key role in making other sects familiar with Arbaeen and the philosophy behind Shia pilgrimage to Karbala,”
The Seminary lecturer then highlighted that all the lessons of the Ashura movement must be manifested in the Arbaeen pilgrimage and added, “Ashura serves as a comprehensive religious doctrine and has in it a complete set of all divine teachings which must be appropriately introduced and manifested during the Arbaeen rituals,”
Ayatollah Arafi also stressed on the crucial roles of Iraq’s Marjaeyat, government as well as people and asserted, “Iraq is amongst the first objectives of colonial powers and it is our responsibility to do something in this regard, we must try to help Iraqis establish a proud country consisting of Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, etc.
“The honor and glory of the Iraqi nation is one of our major policies and we try to carry out our activities with respect to opinions of Iraqi sources of emulation,” Ayatollah Arafi concluded.
End.