During a series of ceremonies commemorating the month of Muharram in the Shiite Hadi Institute Youth Community Center in Dearborn, Michigan on July 7 and 8, 2024, Imam Usama Abdulghani stated that Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has said that we are living in the time of Karbala and that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the "Hussein of our time." He said that the children raised in the community will be the "soldiers of the Mahdi" and it is the responsibility of the parents to have them understand what Nasrallah is saying in this regard. The commemoration ceremonies were streamed live on Light of Guidance on YouTube.
It is worth noting that the M.C. of these ceremonies was Michigan teacher and activist Tarek Bazzi, who was the speaker at the April Quds Day rally in which a protester led the crowd in the chant of 'death to America.' The series of ceremonies involved a fundraising campaign for the Hadi Institute's Islamic school. In May 2024, the Hadi Institute held a memorial for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi who was killed in a helicopter crash.
Usama Abdulghani: "When we are raising these children, who will be the soldiers of the Mahdi we know what we are looking for.
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"Inshallah, we are hoping to give our children a fighting chance to be in the army of the Mahdi.
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"So we want our children to be able to understand when they hear Hassan Nasrallah says that we are in Karbala, we are remembering Karbala, and we are in Karbala. We want our kids, the children, to get it, to understand.
"My question to you is this: When somebody at the level of piety and knowledge, like Hassan Nasrallah, when he says a statement like that is he not aware of the hadiths that talk about the status of Hussein?
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"Why does he say that Imam Khamenei is the 'Hussein of the time?' Why does the [Iranian Supreme] Leader say – may Allah protect him and keep him for us until he takes us to the Mahdi. Why does the Leader say that the war in Gaza isn't a war between Gaza, Hamas, and Israel, this is Truth vs. Falsehood, all of faith vs. all of arrogance. Why would they say these things? Why do they connect the dots?
"More importantly, for you and I who are parents, we have a responsibility. These children whom Allah has blessed us with, they are in our responsibility. We have to have those conversations with them so they understand, they connect the dots, and this continues.
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"Right now, you and I are seeing human creativity on full display. There are a group of people in this world who for 270 days are facing the worst kind of atrocities imaginable. Now the Yazids and Shemrs of today would like you and I to believe history began on October 7th. No, history didn't begin on October 7th.
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"These are people who regularly describe their military incursions as 'mowing the lawn.' So when you see them skinning the Palestinians, or harvesting their organs, or butchering those... Imagine a group of people surrounded for this long by these kind [of people] the worst of Allah's creation."