Is Imam Hussain remembered at your Hussainiyat?

Are your Hussainiyat carefully designed to be pleasing to the eye? Are they set up to look good on camera? Did you ask one person specifically to make plans with the media?

Is Imam Hussain remembered at your Hussainiyat?

Is your Hussainiyat highlighted by emotional latmiyat bringing to mind the brutality that took place at Karbala? Are wails and moans fine-tuned to perfectly punctuate the poetry? Does your baby Asghar bring all the weeping ladies to the musalla?

Is Imam Hussain remembered at your Hussainiyat?

Who has heard Imam Hussain's Mina sermon at a Hussainiyat? Who knows what kinds of oppression Yazid inflicted on Muslims? Not just sexual mores broken, but lives broken, souls crushed. Who has heard Zainab's words to Yazid recited? Who has listened to Imam Sajjad's speech recited? Who among you knows how Imam Hussayn planned to counter Yazid's tyranny, how he would do things differently?

Is Imam Hussain remembered at your Hussainiyat?

Najaf Is Fourth, not First

We Shia Muslims are, primarily, Muslims. All else comes after that.

As such, our holiest shrines are in Mecca and Madina, the mosques of Prophet Muhammad. Not Najaf. Not Karbala. Not any other city in any part of the world where Shia Muslims predominate.

Please get it right. The misinformation spewed out by the media is only aiding the increase of the divisions among Muslims and everyone in the world (as if western media wanted anything other than to divide and factionalise the Muslim world already). If a reporter is told something about Shia Islam, please - before broadcasting that rumour to the world - check it with a *scholar* of *Shia* Islam. Naturally, a Shia scholar will know the most about Shia Islam, just as a government expert will know the most about the government. You do it for them. Do it for us.