The Day of Ashura comes every year to remind humanity that injustice, no matter how powerful and tyrannical, is destined to perish, and that truth, no matter how long its trials, will ultimately prevail, God willing.
On this day, God Almighty saved His Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) and the believers with him, and drowned Pharaoh and his army. This story remains an eternal lesson, not specific to any particular time or nation, but rather a divine law throughout history. God Almighty says, “So today We will preserve your body so that you may be a sign for those who succeed you.”
Therefore, our Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) fasted on the Day of Ashura as an expression of gratitude to God Almighty, saying, “We are more deserving of Moses than they are.”
He then encouraged fasting on this day, explaining its great virtue and that it is a means of expiating the sins of the past year.
As our Syrian people commemorate Ashura, they are not merely recalling a historical event, but rather drawing inspiration from its lessons of patience, steadfastness, trust in God’s promise, and faith that tyranny does not last, and that the blood unjustly shed will not be forgotten by God.
For many years, Syrians lived under a despotic regime that practiced murder, arbitrary arrest, forced displacement, and enforced disappearances, until Syria became a symbol of human suffering under an authority that knew neither the sanctity of life nor human dignity. With the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, one of the most painful chapters in Syria’s history has closed, and a new responsibility has begun: building the state, establishing justice, upholding rights, and preventing the recurrence of tyranny in any form.
The comparison between Moses’s deliverance from Pharaoh and the Syrians’ deliverance from a despotic regime is not a comparison between individuals or eras, but rather a reaffirmation of a divine principle that recurs throughout history: that injustice is destined to perish, and that if people persevere and hold fast to the truth, God will open the doors of relief for them, however long the road may be.
Ashura also teaches us that salvation is not the end of the road, but its beginning. After Moses, peace be upon him, was saved, he began building the nation, carrying the message, and establishing the Sharia and justice.
Likewise, Syria’s liberation from tyranny is not an end in itself, but rather the beginning of a new phase that requires diligent work, societal reconciliation based on justice, building institutions, establishing the rule of law, respecting human dignity, and preserving the unity of the country.
Ashura also teaches us that true gratitude to God Almighty is not expressed through words alone, but through righteous deeds, reform, establishing justice, and abstaining from oppression, revenge, and chaos.
A people should not replace one tyrant with another, one injustice with another, or one form of corruption with another, because the message of all the prophets was based on liberating humanity from servitude to anything other than God and establishing the balance of justice among people.
One of the greatest lessons of Ashura is that God grants victory to the oppressed, even if after some time, and that history does not immortalize tyrants, but rather those who uphold principles. How many a Pharaoh thought his reign would be eternal, only to become a lesson for nations? And how many a downtrodden people were thought to be finished, only to find themselves shaping the future?
On this blessed day, the Syrian Future Movement – Religious Office calls upon our people to seize the opportunity of fasting on Ashura, to increase their supplications and seek forgiveness, and to renew their covenant with God Almighty that the future Syria will be a state of justice, law, and citizenship, one that preserves religion and humanity, safeguards rights and freedoms, and prevents the return of tyranny under any banner or name.
We ask God Almighty to accept the fasting of those who fast, to have mercy on the martyrs of Syria, to release the detainees and the disappeared, to comfort the grieving, to protect our homeland from strife, and to make the future of Syria founded on justice, freedom, and dignity. He is the Guardian of all things and is capable of all things.
And We desired to show favor to those who were oppressed in the land and make them leaders and make them inheritors.
