The following are excerpts from a Friday sermon delivered on January 31, 2003 at the Mosque of "Um Al-Ma'arik" ["Mother of All Battles"] in Baghdad that was broadcast on Iraqi TV.[1] The preacher, Sheikh Dr. Abd Al-Latif Humaym, based his sermon on the Islamic tradition regarding the hero Ja'far Ibn Abi Taleb, one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, who lost his arms in the battle of Mu'ta while fighting the Byzantines; Allah compensated him in heaven by granting him wings to replace his lost limbs. Since then he was called "The Flying Ja'far":
"Oh Muslims, on my way to the mosque I had contemplated the story of the martyrdom of Ja'far Ibn Abi Taleb in the battle of Mu'ta…"
"He commanded three thousand of the Prophet Muhammad's companions against more than two hundred thousand Byzantine horsemen who represented one of the biggest empires of that era. He saw that Muhammad's banner was going to fall from the hands of Zayd Ibn Al-Haritha..."
"He broke through towards the banner like an arrow. He grabbed it and began fighting as if he was a whole army, and since his mare made it difficult for him to maneuver, he dismounted from her and began fighting on foot."
"The Byzantines surrounded him and hit him with their swords on his right hand. He then grabbed the banner in his left hand. They hit his left hand and cut it off. So he then grabbed the banner with both his stumps. At that moment his responsibility was not to let Muhammad's banner touch the ground nor to allow the hooves of the enemy's horses [to] trample this great banner."
"His body fell down and the banner of the Prophet still held between his two stumps was planted in the sand."
[Abdallah Ibn Umar, one of the Prophet's companions in the battle, said:] "'I came to Ja'far at the end of the day and he was lying on his back. I offered him water but he said: 'I am fasting'… He died before sunset, [while] fasting; he died as a martyr… We found in his body more than ninety stab wounds and arrow wounds and none of the wounds were in his back.'"
"This battle is the model battle in which glory, death, bravery, martyrdom, and sacrifice were revealed, when truth fights falsehood, when monotheism fights idolatry, when belief fights disbelief and tyranny."
"This is how the companions of the Prophet Muhammad acted when they were fighting arrogant forces, when they were fighting people who worship other people, rather than Allah."
"Even if the end of "The Flying Ja'far" was sad and painful by mundane criteria - according to Allah's criteria he has risen to the peak of belief… Brothers, all people die of different causes, but not all people achieve such a victory."
"I recalled this story, which is just one of thousands of its kind in Islamic history, [when I was thinking about] the difficult circumstances we are facing now against disbelief and idolatry forces of all types… The Zionist American idol ["Taghut"] is a barbarian armed from head to toe that resembles… the vampire Dracula."
"Yes, Bush is the Dracula of this generation; [he is the] blood sucker of peoples."
"Oh Ja'far, come out of your grave and cry out Allah Akbar…"
"Oh Ja'far, rise for Iraq... Oh Saddam, hit with your sharp sword and burn the armies of the infidels… Oh Allah, support the Mujahideen in Iraq and in Palestine… Oh Allah, support Saddam and the Iraqis… Oh Allah, make those who wish us, our religion, our nation, or our leader ill slaughter themselves by their own hands. Oh Allah, deal with the Jews, the Zionists, and the Americans, since they are incapable of countering you..."
[1]Iraqi TV, January 31, 2003.
