Discussing a tradition regarding moral values and ethics at the beginning of his advanced fiqh course in the A‘zam mosque in Qum, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi stated: “according to a tradition by the Prophet (s), perfidy, theft, consumption of alcoholic beverages, and fornication are four cardinal sins which, if any of them is perpetrated by the members of a household, that household will be destroyed and will never be blessed”.
He then continued: “unfortunately, all these four terrible and cardinal sins are being perpetrated widely all over the world. Perfidy and treason have permeated various societies and they try to make money through fraudulent methods such as money laundering, businesses based on pyramid schemes and the like”.
Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi also added: “other types of corruption such as moral and sexual deviances have also widely plagued the world. Such deviances have reached a point where they are being spread freely on the internet and social networks and they are so abhorrent that one cannot even talk about them”.
His eminence further asserted: “most of the wealth of the world is spent today to create more destructive weapons. In a world where there is so much wealth and so many natural resources, it is rather unfortunate to see so many poor people who die in millions out of hunger. How many people in the world cannot benefit from proper education because of poverty and how many die because they cannot pay for the treatment of their medical conditions?”
Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi then criticized the Saudi regime and stated: “The evil Saudi regime is using its oil revenues for the destruction of Muslim countries. If only this money had been used for the development and prosperity of the Muslim world, God only knows how advanced and prosperous the Muslim world would have been.”
He also noted: “there are a lot of Saudi national living in Saudi Arabia under terrible conditions due to poverty. However, instead of focusing on the welfare of their own people, the Saudi rulers are spending all the money they make through selling oil for the destruction of various Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Today, wherever there is destruction and killing of the innocent, one can find the traces of the presence of Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabis”.
His eminence called Wahhabism a fabricated and deviant school. He also criticized the deviant teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abdulwahhāb as the origin and the cause of many of the problems which have plagued the world.
Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi then censured the US policy of double standards and said: “just a while ago the US led coalition bombed the Syrian Army and killed over 70 soldiers, under the pretext of fighting the Daesh!”
In the last part of his speech, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi stated: “Today, we live in a world which is filled with lies and betrayal. The question is what is our responsibility under these conditions? The answer is that first we have the duty to engage in enj o i ning good and forbidding evil. We must not evade our responsibility in reforming the world under the pretext that there is no hope for reformation in such adverse conditions. We are all duty-bound to work towards the elimination of corruption as far as possible”.
His eminence also stated: “the second responsibility that we have in the world of today is to pray for the coming of Imam Mahdi (a). I hope that we can all fulfill our responsibilities properly and be among the true adherents and followers of Imam Mahdi (a) who are sincerely awaiting his advent”.
