Jnoub Libnan

salam, i think this topic is unnecessary, and should probably be deleted, theres nothing to gain from it. but i must correct some of the things that were said. i follow sayyid fadlallah, and i dont agree with your comments about sayyid sistani staying in a class room and praying all day. and i know for a fact sayyid fadlallah wouldnt like that either. just because it seems that way, it does not mean its true. sayyid fadlallah encourages unity with sunnis, but he also encourages unity with shias, since we are not unified the best we can be. and of course the sister you were talking to was wrong, sayyid fadlallah is one of the more known and followed maraja3 out many that we have. ive seen followers from lebanon, iraq, the arab gulf, pakistan, and iran.

Also I want to thank deebo for the nice post.

(salam) They may not be among the top mujtahids in your opinion, but that does not mean everybody agrees with you, but for sure they are marjas, Ayatollah Yaqoobi is a marja, if you can read any arabic, read here where it says 'al marja3 al deeni sama7ad al sheikh mohammad yaqoobi' http://www.yaqoobi.com/ Ayatollah Jannaati's website says Ayatollah al Uzma, meaning Grand Ayatollah = marja. http://www.jannaati.com/eng/index.php Ayatollah Montazeris site says the same http://www.amontazeri.com/farsi/f2.asp Just because you dont know them (you said 'whoever he is'), it does not mean they don't exist, or they are not knowledgable. There are marjas that I did not hear of before, but people say they are more knowledgable than the most popular ones. There are different opinions and theres nothing wrong with that. Sorry brother, but I've heard the opposite. I was told that Ayatollah Fadlallah invited Sheikh Tabrizi to discuss it, and he did not accept for whatever reason - I dont know, maybe it was health issues. But anyways, I dont think either of us know the details to what happened there, so its best we dont talk about it so we dont make any unfair judgements. But Sayyid Fadlallah says this issue is like thin air to him, he has other priorities, Islam has other issues to worry about. It's an old topic, so lets move on. Today 91 people were killed in Baghdad, we need to stop putting holes in this ship that Rasool Allah (s) described the Ummah as and start worrying about those takfiris and other enemies of Islam. If you don't want to believe he is a marja then don't follow him, but understand and respect the fact that other opinions do exist. He is a marja for many people whether you accept it or not. I've never heard that Lankarani said anything, but you throw the names of Tabrizi and Khorossani at us as if it is wajib on us to listen to them. Maybe you have a high respect for their opinions, but not everybody will give the same level of weight to what they say as you do. I have no problem discussing these things, but with some people there just comes a point where you have to agree to disagree and move on for the sake of Islam. Allah humma y3ajjil dhohoor Imam al zaman

I understand the strong disagreement with the fatwa, but even Sayyid Fadlallah doesn't recommend it, if you read all of his explanation you'd see what he says. He even mentions some of the things that you are saying (losing interest) to show its negative effects. But you should also know that if there is frigity, its probably because the spouse is no longer feeling attracted. I personally don't know why the ruling was made, but i'm sure he has his reasons and if you were really interested in knowing and not just criticizing you would try to find out. In the end, nobody asked you to agree with it.

(salam) I did present proofs, whether you accept them or not is not up to me. First of all who told you there are only 2 with him? And how do you know the opinion of every single mujtahid? Many of the mujtahids opinions people give against him are infact not against him, like I said earlier they are indirect questions that do not even mention his name, or they are misleading questions. Second of all this method of choosing the aalam with 2 opinions for the aalim and 2 against him is not even used by people who claim to follow it. Not to mention that this is an opinion of how to choose, and is not mentioned in the hadiths. We see many people following different marjas, I am more than sure that 2 people believe that Sistani is not aalam, and that it is another like Tabrizi (or was in this case), Khamenai, or anyone else. Likewise I am sure that there were mujtahids who would disagree that Khamenai or whoever else the aalam, and that it was infact Sayid Sistani who was/is the aalam. And I can go on and on, each person will make the same case for his own marja, otherwise they wouldnt be following them. There are contradictions everywhere, and I have never seen a list of who is aalam from each mujtahid. On top of that each mujtahid does not have sufficient information about every other mujtahid to be able to judge who is aalam in a fair way, their opions are just opinions from what they have seen. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that going to mujtahids for advice is wrong, but it is not the only way. Anyways, this is another topic that its probably best not to get into. (salam) Hassoon, Sayyid Fadlallah always uses the Qur'an in rejecting something. If a hadith is weak, it does not mean you reject it unless it disagrees with the quran, or contradicts other strong hadiths. Just because the Sayyid has different opinions on some things, it does not mean he doesnt follow the correct way of determining things. Has it ever occured to you that maybe he just looks at some things differently? Many other mujtahids themselves disagree on issues even though they study it the same way, but sometimes the way one understands something may be different. Shaheed Muttahari has mentioned that the family of Imam Hussain a.s. did not go back to Karbala on their way back to Madina for arba3een: First Sermon, http://al-islam.org/al-tawhid/ashura/ Another difference in opinion is playing chess. Why do Ayatollah Khomeini r.a. and Ayatollah Khamenai allow the playing of chess, while many other mujtahids do not allow it. I don't think those who rule that chess is haram do it on the basis of obligatory precaution either, please correct me if i am wrong, but I have read a ruling by Sayyid Sistani saying that playing chess against the computer is not allowed because of obligatory precaution, so i'm pretty sure he says the rest is outright haram in his opinion. There are many other differences as well. It's a difference of opinion like I said. If we all had the same opinions then there would be no need for ijtihad. Sayyid Fadlallah usually uses science to further explain his opinions, but he does not use science over the Qur'an and hadiths, infact the proven sciences would not contradict hadiths anyways. For example we often use scientific examples to show people how amazing the Qur'an is. But in no way does Sayyid Fadlallah put anything over the Quran or strong hadiths. The examples you gave only prove the point of what i just said. With female masturbation, if you look on his website, he gives the hadith that many scholars say forbids it, and then he gives his perspective on the hadith, he only uses a scientific explanation to further strengthen his point. I've never heard of the christian dictionary definition you speak of, I always thought sperm is sperm lol, but I'm sure if you send a respectful question to their office about that, they would answer you as to whether its true or not. The same goes for moon sighting. If you listen to Sayyid Fadlallahs lectures, or read his website on this issue, you will see him mention the hadith that you speak of. He does not deny it in anyway. He uses Sayyid Khoeis r.a. method in sighting the moon (sharing the same night), but as you know accepts the form of calculations alongside of this. Now go ask Sayyid Sistani what he thinks about using calculations. He will say that if one is on yaqeen (certainty) that these calculations are right, then he can use them. So Sayyid Fadlallah uses the calculations that tell us where the moon is certainly visible, and if it is visible in a certain area, then the areas which share the same night will have eid the next day. Furthermore, if we know the moon is there, but we dont bother to make sure just because we didn't see it when we stepped outside, then we end up fasting on eid, that is not right. Anyways, if you are not convinced by this then that is your opinion. I think you've made a mistake on seeing 20 hadiths, or you misunderstood him. Sometimes there are many hadiths on the same subject, but maybe 1 only has a certain description or certain detail. I really don't think he would miss something that big. Misunderstandings happen often, even with other marjas, but since there is not as much negative focus on the other marjas, they wont be exploited when something they say is misunderstood. If you want to keep insisting that he uses qiyaas then go ahead, but Allah is our witness. Once again i'll mention how little we should care about all of this. If you do not believe Sayyid Fadlallah is one of the most knowledgable then do not follow him, its as simple as that. But there are people who believe otherwise, so respect their views and his for the sake of Islam. There is no problem with having healthy discussions about his opinions, but we should be careful what we say since many untrue things have been spread. The method which people use to attack his beliefs is the same method that wahabis use to attack shias. They take a belief of ours and spin it into their own definition, no matter how much we explain to them that what they say is not what we believe, they just keep on insisting that it is our belief. So please keep this in mind when hearing certain things. Of course some people will insist on continuing to say the things they say, just like the wahabis do. I don't know why we can't just leave things to Allah, all we're doing is complicating the Islamic situation and fogging up our view in seeing the issues that we should be focused on. Again, I ask for this topic to be closed because nothing new is being brought to the discussion. I will keep answering misconceptions as long as it is open, but I think its better this topic be closed and we can let the people do their own research through PM'ing or asking the sayyids office.

(salam) Sister spizo, Im not going to answer your post because I already have a number of times, so I'm not going to sit and go in circles, life goes on. (salam) brother Hassan, Sayyid Fadlallah mentions the weakness of certain hadiths in his opinion, and then he also gives a logical reason to why the hadith may be weak. He does not simply disagree with something and give his opinion, he uses the science of hadith, although he may have different opinions on certain narrators, and this could be the cause for some differences, however there are many hadiths which he mentions as weak and everybody else agrees they are also weak, yet the other scholars have their own respected reasons for continuing to believe in certain things. As for qiyaas, please look at post 93 where I posted an email I recieved from the Sayyids office. If you can't read the arabic, it says that the Sayyid does not use any qiyaas in his fatwas, and qiyaas is not allowed in our madhhab. (salam) brother Abbas, No disrespect intended, but what you are saying is simply your own opinion on him. Sayyid Fadlallah gives proof for everything he says. I dont see what his attempts at unity have to do with this. He makes the same attempts at unity with ahlul sunna that Imam Khomeini r.a. made. And these things have no effect on his rulings. I may have posted this on this thread, but I once sent him a question about praying behind Sunnis. I had already known that according to him, if I pray behind a sunni, I must pray it as my own prayer by saying all the words myself, and having the intention of an individual prayer, but I wondered about maghrib and Isha prayers. Since we have to say those prayers in a audible voice, I asked if it was ok to say them in a inaudible voice while praying behind a sunni. He said that I must say it in an audible voice. This is one example that he does not put unity with sunnis over the rules of the religion and its beliefs. I have also heard in many speeches and read many times where he speaks strongly against Umars actions, if he had wanted to please sunnis, he would have stayed away from this topic which he did not have to talk about. And most importantly, he often speaks about those who denied Imam Ali's a.s. right. One time I was looking through the website which is known for criticizing Sayyid Fadlallah, and I came across the accusation that I had heard many times on this forum, but I had thought that people made it up, because it seemed too unlikely to be a real problem among scholars. I have often seen people accuse the Sayyid of saying that Imamah is not a major part of the religion, one of those people has posted in this thread about it on other forums as well as on this forum. But i was very surprised to see that a scholar would actually make a similar accusation when he used a quote from Sayyid Fadlallahs book to complete the thoughts of the sentence himself and say that Sayyid Fadlallah believes that the Wilayah came after the religion was completed. So I quoted the part of the book this scholar used and sent a question to the Sayyids office about it. And it clearly states the Sayyids believes that the Wilayah was the completion of the religion. However this is not my point, my point is that baseless accusations have been made and this is how the situation got bigger than it really was. Brother Abbas you have mentioned that it is nonsense to believe there is an agenda against him, but when I see such baseless accusations being made by websites promoted by scholars, and not to mention accusations made by scholars themselves, I really begin to wonder why such comments are made. When I say this, I do not point fingers at anybody personally, but it just really makes me wonder why such ridiculous things are said. If you strongly disagree with Sayyid Fadlallahs opinions, that is fine, you have the right to disagree, but please do realize that there are SHIAS who follow him as a marja. So even if he is not your marja, or you do not believe he is qualified to be a marja for you, then at least keep in mind that he is a marja for other people. I have given my proofs that there are mujtahids who agree that he is a mujtahid, if you agree with another opinion about him, then go right ahead, but let us keep in mind that different opinions do exist, and let us keep the Islamic situation in our minds first and foremost. This topic really seems to be lost- as most of them end up-, I suggest that if it looks like it is of more harm than good, it should be closed, we've pretty much gone over everything anyways, and its best that we worry about the bigger things which face Islam everyday.

(salam) You said: If you are going to sit and tell me that you did not pass a judgement on most people who follow him, then I don't know what to say. The above quote was clearly a judgement. I did not pass a judgement on you, I only told you what you did, and then I gave you Imam Sadiqs a.s. advice against what you did. You said an untrue thing by accusing most of his followers of something untrue in the quote above. And even worse, after I told you that you can not see into these peoples hearts, your only response was: Can you tell me whether you are right or not? I know you can't, because I know you do not have a survey of thousands of people. So since you can't prove whether you are right, why did you make the accusation? Knowledge is the qualification. I have already given proof for his marja3iyah from others testifying to his knowledge and level of ijtihad. Sayyid Sistani was in Najaf, a city where there is usually one top scholar, like Sayyid Khoei r.a. was, this is why he was endorsed in this way. This does not mean that he would not have become a marja if he was not endorsed to be the next leader, it simply means that he was endorsed to be the top person to keep the marja3iyah alive. Reread the quote and you will see it. The part you quoted from bayynat only tells us at what point that Sayyid Fadlallah decided to become a marja. I really don't know why you're reading so much into it. If you want more info ask him. This discussion is starting to get repetitive and unproductive. Even though you dont want an apology I am sorry if you feel insulted by me, insulting you is furthest from my intentions, but you should realize that what you said was a clear judgement, if you did not mean it in that way that it appeared then you should at least reword what you said. But I think that if I told you "most people who follow Sayyid Sistani only do so blindly because most others do, and they dont even care if he's the most knowledgable or not" - you would call that a judgement that is untrue, and it definetly is untrue.

(salam) There are not even 34 confirmed, like I said a lot of those emails are misleading questions, or questions that have nothing to do with Sayyid Fadlallah at all. If you do not believe he is a marja, then that is fine, do not follow him. But there are mujtahids who approve of his ijtihad, and people have their own minds to think. Even if 34 were against him, I dont think us shias like it when Sunnis use their numbers as proof against Shia Islam, or when Christians do the same with Islam. Shia Islam does not run on ijma3 (majority) , this is a Sunni way of doing things, and it is one of the big differences between the way the Shias and Sunnis determine things, and it is also why we have the system of ijtihad.

(salam) "Giving judgement is not permissible for someone who has not been endowed by Allah with the qualities of inner purity, sincerity in both his hidden and visible actions, and a proof from his Lord in every state. This is because whoever has judged has decreed, and decree is only valid by the permission of Allah and by His proof. Whoever is liberal in his judgement, without having made a proper examination, is ignorant and will be taken to task for his ignorance and will be burdened with his judgement as the tradition indicates. Knowledge is a light, which Allah casts into the heart of whomsoever He wills." --Imam Jafar as Sadiq (as) Lantern of the Path Section 6: Giving Judgement I don't understand why you keep assuming when I have reminded you about the consequences of saying untrue things. I'll say this again, you can't see into other peoples hearts, so stop making judgements. Many people follow Sayyid Fadlallah because of his knowledge. Of course there are people who follow him for the wrong reasons, but the same thing happens with the followers of every other marja, this does not make the majority of their followers insincere people. Many people only follow Ayatollah Sistani because everybody else does, does this mean that everybody who follows him is insincere? No of course not. Many people follow Ayatollah Khamenai for political reasons or because of all the excitement around the political things, but once again this does not make all his followers insincere people who do not believe that he is knowledgable. Many people in Iraq as well as the gulf countries follow Sayyid Fadlallah. Do you really want to take the responsibility of having judged every one of their decisions without knowing if what you say is true or not? Allah is our witness. I have already posted fatwas from Mujtahids who approve of the Sayyids ijtihad, and those are not the only ones. If you want to follow the opinion of some other people, go right ahead, but I have given my proof. There is nothing wrong with what you quoted from bayynat, stop trying to demonize everything. The people at bayynat are only trying to explain to you what the situation was and why he decided to take this role. Let me show you a similar quote from Sistani.org: Lastly, you mentioned that you did not make any personal attacks, but what you assumed about myself and many many many other muslims was indeed a personal attack. You have unjustly judged us, but as the Sayyid himself says, the personal attack is not important, it is this attack on Islam which harms us all the most. People forget that these assumptions and false judgements are also attacks on members of the Muslim Ummah who Allah asked us to respect and to be kind towards, and to speak kindly to, and to smile at. So in essence when you unjustly attack a Muslim, you have transgressed what Allah has asked you to do. I don't think an apology is wanted, but I do suggest you turn in repentance to your Lord. (salam), I don't mean to say this in a negative way, but what was the purpose of posting this here? Since you posted it here, I have no choice but to answer it. I am not accusing anybody, but this is a ruling many people use in order to exploit the differences. People simply look at one part of the fatwa and ignore the rest, and go on to assume that the Sayyid allows the viewing of pornographic films in general. I have a lecture where the Sayyid expresses deep disappointment when somebody asks him a question in which they complain about young men who watch pornographic films in the internet cafes of lebanon. Anyways... The ruling for FRIGID husbands: He also mentions that he does not recommend this, and clearly mentions that it is a LAST RESORT after every other means of treating the problem is not available, so this is probably a very rare case, and if the person abuses the rule then it is his own fault for not being aware of the correct ruling like he should. Some mujtahids have allowed transexual surgury, it doesnt mean they promote it, its for special cases. If you keep reading the link that you posted you will find other questions on pornography: If you don't mind, this is a public website, and I think its best that certain topics are best discussed in other ways. Im pretty sure you don't follow the Sayyid, so I don't think you need to worry about this ruling anyways. If you still want more information, then I suggest you contact him or his representatives. Wasalamu Alaykom.