I write to congratulate the people of Pakistan on their courageous choice of Imran Khan as their new leader. It appears that it is just a matter of time before he is appointed as Prime Minister. I congratulate them on their choice because I am confident that, unlike previous leaders of Pakistan, Imran Khan cannot be bought with either Saudi …

Assalaamu ‘alaikum!

I have just received the news of the death of my dear elder brother, the beloved Ayatullah Haeri Shirazi, who has died in the Iranian city of Qom at the age of 81.

I met him, for the first and only time, when I visited him at his humble residence in Qom earlier this year. I had travelled from my Caribbean island of Trinidad to Teheran to attend a conference on Palestine, and when the conference was over I stayed on in Iran for another week in order to deliver a few lectures and to meet some of my dear friends who are resident in Teheran. But I was also keen to use the opportunity to meet with Ayatullah Haeri since I had heard in a previous visit, and to my great happiness, that he had denounced the paper-money monetary system as exploitative, and hence Haram. The only other Ayatullah I was honored to meet in Iran, who held similar views, was Ayatullah Binazaade Shirazi, who I met in the city of Shiraz during an earlier visit to Iran. Indeed Ayatullah Binazaade did not mince words. He denounced paper-money as the ‘root of all evil’ in Iran!

I climbed, with some pain in my knees, to the top floor of Ayatuallah Haeri Shirazi’s humble home in Qom, where we were invited to sit on the floor on ever-beautiful Iranian carpets. I was received in the room by several of the senior students of the Ayatullah who were keen to witness the meeting and exchange of views between two scholars of Islam who had similar views on the monetary system.

This is an excellent essay written by talented former Pakistani diplomat, Munir Akram. I once met Munir, many years ago, at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad. INH US President Donald Trump spoke harshly about Pakistan; but he has not yet imposed sanctions, as has been the case with Iran, nor threatened to “totally destroy” it, like North Korea. Pakistani diplomats …

I have just spent 10 exciting days with my Russian friend, ‘The Saker’, in the enchantingly beautiful Caribbean island of Tobago. I was born in the island of Trinidad where I now live, and Tobago is located just next to Trinidad in the South Caribbean Sea close to Venezuela:

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/central_america_map2.htm

This was the first time that I ever met with ‘Saker’, and I am happy to report that I succeeded in persuading him to come out in the open with his true identity, while putting his trust in the One God. As a consequence, his identity is now public. He is Andrei Raevsky, but he will continue to use his nom de plume of Saker. If you visit his website: http://thesaker.is/sakers-open-letter-to-the-saker-community/ you will even see his photograph. Those who are not familiar with him will get to know him if they visit his website.