AhlulBayt (AS) International News Agency — ABNA: For four months, every single day, I waited for that red banner. This time I wanted it to be real. I wanted it to announce that our Leader was going to be carried on our hands and shoulders.
And at last, the promised day arrived. A flood of people. People who had come to accompany their Leader.
Accompany.
Whenever we placed this word next to the word "funeral," I would remember the hadith that lifted this strongly recommended act from women. To me, attending a funeral procession was so grueling that a woman's delicate soul could not bear it.
But when it came to our martyred Leader, no one had the heart to put those two words together. Everyone said "the Leader's procession."
So I began to think about this word.
What exactly is a procession?
When I saw the millions-strong crowd up close, and then followed it through the media, my mind grew restless.
When I looked carefully, I realized the root of this word is the same as the root of the word "Shia." Shi'a... sha'a... that middle letter causes it no end of trouble.
But both words mean following, accompanying, walking alongside.
I recall a narration about Salman. When the third person walked behind him to the mosque. When he arrived, he saw that the Commander of the Faithful was also there. He said, "I only saw one set of footprints along the way." Salman said, "I was stepping in the footprints of the Commander of the Faithful."
I recall the procession in Tehran.
People who were waiting for their Leader on one side of Tehran, while their Leader arrived on the other side.
Many somehow managed to get themselves there. They refused to accept that they had fulfilled their duty from where they were. Because they had truly come to accompany him.
I saw a clip of a bewildered elderly woman who wanted to reach Azadi Street no matter what. She kept saying, "I want to see my Imam."
I think about what it means to be Shia.
If we know so well how to hold a procession like this, then we should know how to be Shia even better.
Along the procession route, did the thought ever cross our minds to abandon the coffin and take another route to reach the destination sooner?
Along the procession route, was there anything that mattered to us other than staying beside the coffin?!
Being Shia is exactly this.
This very shape of the procession — but beside the living, present Imam.
Of course, our being Shia has its degrees.
Sometimes a person's being Shia is on the level of someone who sits at home and sends a Fatiha toward the coffin on the television screen.
Sometimes a person's being Shia is on the level of someone who said, "I was behind the vehicle carrying the body from morning until the afternoon when the procession ended."
Then he makes his way to Qom. To Karbala. To Mashhad.
In our procession, we held our Imam in our hands. It was right there that I said: "There is no day like your day, O Father of Abdullah."
The one who was the infallible Imam of the community was martyred at the hands of the tyrant, yet he was not even given a procession. No Shias came to show their being Shia in the procession of their Imam.
But today, although once again the Imam of the community was martyred at the hands of the tyrant, a millions-strong crowd of Shias circled this body and laid it to rest.
If God shows kindness to these people once again, and they too wish it, they will continue along this path until the tyrant no longer dares to kill an Imam. And that day, God willing, will be the day of the appearance of the Hujjah.
The continuation of this path will come about through avenging the blood of our martyred Leader. This pure blood that was spilled awakened many hearts across the world. If it drives them toward revenge and blood-avenging, society will be cleansed of the existence of the arrogant powers.
And even if that does not happen, at the very least, the arrogant one will no longer find the courage within himself to drag a deputy of God to the place of slaughter.
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