Hawzah News Agency- The statement, carried by Hawzah News Agency's international desk, arrives from a voice forged in suffering and steeled by resistance. Sheikh Zakzaky, whose movement has survived a genocidal assault by the Nigerian military—the 2015 Zaria massacre that slaughtered hundreds of his followers, including three of his sons, and left him blinded in one eye—now stands in spiritual solidarity with the Najaf seminary as it buries one of its greatest sons.
"To God We Belong, and to Him We Return"
The message, brief in words but immense in weight, reads:
"In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
Verily we belong to God, and verily to Him we return.
We extend our condolences on the passing of the exalted source of emulation, Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Ishaq al-Fayyaz, to the esteemed Marja' of the Shia world, particularly those in Najaf Ashraf, and to all Muslims across the globe. We beseech God Almighty, the All-Forgiving, to grant him a dwelling in His sublime paradise and to bestow elevated stations upon this Divine scholar."
A Shared Journey of Sacrifice and Scholarship
The condolence from Zakzaky carries a resonance far beyond the formalities of diplomatic mourning. It connects two worlds that the forces of empire and oppression have sought to extinguish. In Najaf, Ayatollah Fayyaz rose from the persecuted Hazara community of Afghanistan to the pinnacle of Shia religious authority—a living refutation of ethnic and sectarian marginalization. In Nigeria, Zakzaky built a movement of millions from the poorest and most repressed segments of society, transforming them into a disciplined force of faith that has shaken the foundations of the Nigerian state.
Both men have known the cost of standing with the oppressed. Ayatollah Fayyaz, a jurist whose fatwas consistently championed the downtrodden and denounced the arrogance of power. Sheikh Zakzaky, a prisoner of conscience whose captors could break his body but never his spirit. When the Nigerian cleric bows his head in mourning for the Najaf Marja', it is a gesture of recognition between two warriors of the same cause.
The Global Ummah in Mourning
Sheikh Zakzaky's message explicitly extends the circle of grief to "all Muslims across the globe"—an acknowledgement that the death of a grand ayatollah is not a parochial affair confined to the Shia community but a loss that diminishes the entire Islamic world. In an era of fragmentation, when sectarian merchants work overtime to divide Sunni from Shia, Arab from African, the leader of Nigeria's Islamic Movement reminds the faithful that the passing of a scholar of Fayyaz's stature is a wound to the collective body of Islam.
His prayer—that God grant the departed Marja' "a dwelling in His sublime paradise" and "elevated stations"—echoes the Quranic promise reserved for those who spend their lives in the pursuit and propagation of sacred knowledge. It is a fitting epitaph for a man whose ink flowed for decades in the service of the Ahl al-Bayt and whose rulings provided guidance to millions of followers from Kabul to Karbala.
A Leader Forged in Fire Honors a Scholar Crowned in Light
The message from Sheikh Zakzaky, though concise, speaks volumes. It signals that the Islamic Movement of Nigeria—despite years of brutal repression, despite the killing of its members, despite the continued detention and harassment of its leadership—remains firmly embedded in the global network of Shia consciousness. Its gaze is fixed on Najaf. Its heart beats in rhythm with the seminaries. Its loyalty to the institution of Marja’iyyah is unshaken.
As the black flags rise over the shrine of Imam Ali and the funeral processions gather in Najaf, the voice from Nigeria joins the chorus of mourning from Qom, from Baghdad, from Kabul, from Beirut, from every corner of the earth where the followers of the Prophet's Household weep for the departure of a giant. The Ummah has lost a jurist. The oppressed have lost an advocate. And Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, survivor of Zaria, has lost a brother in the path of truth.
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