Hassan Nasrallah’s remarks were included in a video address to tens of thousands of people who flocked to a southern Beirut suburb to celebrate Ashura, a Shiite holiday commemorating the seventh-century martyrdom of Hussein, the prophet’s grandson. Muhammad, who gave rise to his faith.
Nasrallah often takes advantage of religious celebrations to send political messages to his followers, and on Saturday criticized recent incidents in which copies of the Koran were burned or desecrated in Sweden and Denmark.
According to the insurgent leader, Muslims should be attentive to the outcome of the emergency meeting that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation will hold on Monday in Baghdad to discuss their response to the burning of the Koran.
The organization and its member states have to “send a strong, decisive and unequivocal message to these governments that any repetition of the attacks will be met with a boycott,” Nasrallah said. If they don’t, he added, Muslim youth should “punish the desecrators,” but he offered no details about the boycott or the punishment.
The crowd, carrying banners with religious legends or flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Palestine, chanted, “Oh Qur’an, we are your servants; oh, Hussein, we are your servants”.
Shiites, who make up 10% of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims, consider Hussein the legitimate successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein’s death in combat against Sunnis in Karbala, south of Baghdad, caused a deep schism in Islam and continues to play a crucial role in forging Shiite identity.
Millions of Shiites in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries marked Ashura on Friday, while ceremonies in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria culminated on Saturday.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
