Al-Basha'er Secondary School in Baalbek honored its girls who had reached the age of religious maturity at a large ceremony held in the school's hall, sponsored by the scholar Sayyed Ali Fadlallah and attended by the supervisor of Al-Mabarrat schools in the Central Bekaa Mr. Ibrahim Saeed, the school's director Hajjeh Iatidal Al-Jamal, His Eminence Sheikh Fouad Khreiss, and the families of the girls coming of age…
The ceremony opened with verses from the Holy Quran, then the national anthem, after which the girls coming of age entered to the sound of music and presented a bouquet of anthems. The scholar Fadlallah then delivered a speech in which he began by expressing his happiness at being at this gathering to honor our girls coming of age, who have decided by their own choice and their own will to bear the responsibility with every merit, so as to offer the exemplary image of obedience to God and of walking the approach of the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) and the People of the House (PBUH), in a life built on the values of clarity, purity, love and openness.
His Eminence added: “We are not among those who reduce this religion to the hijab alone - which is an obligation from God - or to a focus on ritual without substance. Rather we see that religion represents an openness to the other and moves our humanity toward all those in need and in poverty, and drives us to carry their concerns and seek to help them apart from their affiliations. It is the religion that opens our minds onto life and urges us not to rent them out, that calls us to possess freedom of decision, of stance and of word, so that we neither support nor oppose except within clear rules built on legitimate foundations; that we make truth the measure of our deeds and our steps; and that we seek to build bridges with the other and to focus on what we share and on the points of meeting on both the Islamic and the national arena.”
His Eminence said: “Sadly there are those who try to pin Lebanon's problems on religion and who call for removing it from the reality of our lives. To them we say: the problem is not in religion but in moving away from its values and its teachings. Those who take up positions and speak in the name of Christianity and Islam do not act from the reality of the teachings of Islam and Christianity; rather they are moved by their factional and private interests and their narrow calculations.”
He affirmed the importance of the religious duty of seeking knowledge in Islam, calling for us always to remain in a state of learning that refines our minds with knowledge and experience and supplies us with everything new in this field.
His Eminence stressed the importance of these educational, care and social institutions, which came into being in order to raise a generation carrying human, ethical and faith values and to present religion in its true image. When our girls put on their hijab, their aim was not separation and isolation from the other or distance from knowledge and work. He expressed surprise at how some consider the hijab an obstacle to a girl's work and development, when in fact it makes her careful to master her work and be trustworthy in it. He expressed regret at some institutions in this homeland that refuse to employ women who wear the hijab on flimsy pretexts - something we have also seen in the West, which claims to care about freedom and the other's opinion yet bars women in hijab from entering universities.
His Eminence valued the role these institutions play, and this school in particular, in building the student's character in terms of knowledge and languages, in building their mind and developing their skills and abilities so that they may be effective in society, and in strengthening their character of faith so that they may contribute to building a homeland free of corruption, waste and favouritism. He stressed the complementarity between school and parents in bearing the responsibility for this generation, with which we feel a better tomorrow and a more beautiful future. In closing, His Eminence offered congratulations to the Lebanese and to the resisters on the occasion of Liberation Day, for which sacrifices were made and blood and martyrs given in order to liberate this homeland and to strengthen among its people the will to steadfastness, firmness and pride in rejecting occupation, domination, injustice and tyranny, and in strengthening the positions of freedom, justice and unity.
