Allama Sayyed Ali Fadlallah visited the Messenger of Love School in Jbeil, where he was received by the high school's principal Mohammad Salim and a number of members of the teaching and administrative body and the high school's students. To begin with, he cut the ribbon opening the intermediate stage section at the high school, in the presence of the president of Jbeil municipality Ziad Hawat, the imam of Jbeil Sheikh Ghassan Al-Laqis, Judge Sheikh Youssef Amro, and the official of the Jbeil and Kesrouan sector in “Hezbollah” Sheikh Ali Barro. Those present then made an inspection tour of the classes, during which they listened to a detailed explanation of the teaching methods and the methodology followed in it.
Afterwards Fadlallah delivered a speech before the teachers and administrators in which he expressed his happiness at meeting them and his pride “in the effort and devotion they exert in their work, in pursuit of making this institution a success and of developing it and advancing it towards the better”.
He said: “We want this meeting to be from the heart to the heart, far from all courtesies and barriers. What this institution has attained was thanks to your efforts, your cooperation, your message-driven spirit and your sincerity.”
He added: “This vitality and this activity are not surprising from you, working as you do in a school that bears the name of the Messenger of God and that reminds us of all this shining history, of our civilization and our identity, and of all these values the Messenger of God brought for the whole of humanity, foremost among them love, which we want to be reflected upon the other.”
He said: “We in this school, and in all the institutions, set out from a thought whose identity is openness and communication with the other. We do not frame our identity within a denomination, a sect or a political position; we have our convictions, but our fundamental aim in these institutions is to build the personality of the human being who lives belonging to this country and believes in citizenship and partnership. The importance of this meeting is that it is held in this long-established city, the city of Jbeil, for what it represents of diversity, history, civilization and values.”
He noted that “our problem in Lebanon and the East springs from our constant focus on the points of difference and our work at deepening them, without attention to the points of meeting and to what is shared. From here, the school's responsibility is great in bringing up generations that believe in the homeland and in coexistence, that work for a promising future and that carry all the values of the religions.”
He continued: “We want Jbeil's experience in coexistence, cooperation, meeting and communication to be generalized, so as to form a model in the face of whoever seeks to sow the seeds of fear and rancour, of killing in the name of religion, and of setting up barriers and barricades under various headings. We always look forward to a homeland that radiates knowledge, creativity, thought and culture over the region, amid this chaos and these wars and travelling strifes - a homeland that has its influential role, instead of remaining captive to the tugs of war and the conflicts that convulse our region, for the sake of pushing through projects to repartition it on sectarian, denominational and ethnic bases that serve the Zionist project.”
Fadlallah concluded: “The character of our schools is Islamic, not in the heading nor in the form, but in the human depth and the open content, so that we may present the civilizational image of this religion, which respects the other and believes in open thought and in diversity. Therefore the spiritual dimension in building the human being's personality must be affirmed, and his relationship with God strengthened, so as to fortify ourselves against deviation and against being drawn along behind appetites and instincts.”
