Al-Rahma Secondary School in Nabatieh honored its girls who had reached the age of religious maturity at a large ceremony held in the school's function hall, under the patronage of the scholar Sayyed Ali Fadlallah and attended by the director of Al-Rahma Secondary School Hajjeh Sulaf Hashem, the director of the Al-Ridha (PBUH) Charity Hajjeh Rabiaa Al-Faqih, His Eminence Sheikh Fouad Khreiss, the directors of schools, institutes and associations, educational, cultural and social figures, and the families of the girls coming of age.
The ceremony opened with clear verses from the Holy Quran, then the national anthem, followed by the showing of a film documenting the preparations for the celebration. The girls then entered amid an atmosphere of joy and delight, presented artistic segments inspired by the occasion, and sang the anthem “A Crown upon My Head”…
After the girls' word and the school director's word, the scholar Sayyed Ali Fadlallah delivered a speech in which he said: We meet every year to present a constellation of our girls who have decided to walk the road of values and justice and of building life on the foundations of faith, ethics, mission and spirit that we have begun to lose in our society amid the dominance of the logic of corruption and the mentality of interests and factional zeal…
His Eminence added: Our girls, carrying all this clarity, purity and cleanliness, come forward with every pride and strength to affirm their readiness to bear the responsibility, the trust and the religious obligation, in commitment to the command of God, glorified and exalted. Their hijab is an outward sign and an expression of this obedience… while in this homeland we see those who failed the test of trust and were not worthy of the confidence placed in them, and who brought us to the bottom of the abyss and to collapse…
His Eminence affirmed that our girls decided by their own choice to wear the hijab; it was not imposed on them. Rather they saw that it releases them into the space of true freedom, unbound by the fetters of appetites, factional zeal and selfishness that have come to dominate our arena - for this hijab calls them not to withdraw within a narrow, private frame but to communicate and to build bridges with the other, far from any sectarian, denominational or political considerations.
His Eminence continued: Our girls are confident that God did not command the hijab of them in order to restrain them, but so that it would be a mark of their humanity, and so that they would appear in society through that humanity and not through their femininity, which remains within the frame God has set for it.
His Eminence spoke about the values of justice and equality, especially as we celebrate the birth of Imam Al-Mahdi (PBUH) - an occasion to renew our pledge to him through our care to follow the line of justice, at a time when we have come to live in a world where justice is absent or partial. He affirmed that we cannot build a homeland except through justice and equality, the application of the law to everyone, the strengthening of a culture of citizenship, and confronting corruption and the corrupt whatever their affiliations…
His Eminence offered thanks and appreciation to the parents for the care, upbringing and guidance they have given, who planted in our girls the love of God and a sense of responsibility toward Him and obedience to Him, and who did not leave them to be toyed with by the media and social platforms and by everyone who wishes to corrupt their thought, their hearts and their lives…
His Eminence held that many challenges will block their road, seeking to bring them down into the mire of appetites and material things. It is therefore the responsibility of all of us to work to fortify them, to strengthen their culture and their experience, and to build their confidence so that they can face all the shocks that seek to strike at the concepts of values and ethical meanings within them in order to dominate society and divert it from its great causes. For our part we must plant in them the belief that their true beauty is not the beauty of the body, as the media, the companies, the devices and the monopolies seek to establish; rather true beauty, true worth and true freedom are shown in a girl's ethics, in her mind and her awareness, in her possession of her own decision, in her conduct, in her freedom from appetites and consumerism, and in her presence and her social, political and cultural role…
His Eminence concluded: We must not forget the great role of the educational institutions, which took upon themselves the role of upbringing, formation and guidance, and which build minds - and Al-Rahma Secondary School above all… So thanks from the bottom of the heart to the director, to the teachers and to the educators for what they expended and what they gave, which is what we witness in this harvest they sowed, and which has borne awareness, maturity and the bearing of responsibility
