Begin with Praise: Inspirations from Du'a al-Iftitah- Sayyid Muneer Khabbaz

"O' God, I begin exaltation with Your praise!" Those words appear at the beginning of Du'a al-Iftitah - a supplication taught to us by our beloved Imam al-Mahdi, may God hasten his return. He taught us to recite this blessed supplication every night in the Holy Month of Ramadan.Du'a al-Iftitah addresses a plethora of theological, spiritual, and ethical topics. Contemplation on its verses allows the believers to make the best of the Holy Month of fasting - building on their relationship with God Almighty.In this book, we will delve with Sayyid Muneer al-Khabbaz into the depths of this sublime supplication to understand its pure spiritual, social, ethical, and educational teachings. We hope that this book will aid the reader in finding a source of spiritual connection in Du'a al-Iftitah, especially in light of the spiritually deprived climate of our contemporary world.

Sayyid Muneer Al-Khabbaz
Sayyid Muneer Al-Khabbaz was born in Qatif, Saudi Arabia in 1384 AH (1964 CE). At the age of 14, Sayyid Muneer traveled to the Holy City of Najaf to begin his training within the Islamic seminary. Not long after, he migrated towards the city of Qum, Iran, when the Baathist Regime in Iraq began tightening its crackdown on the Islamic seminary.

In the year 1402 AH (1981 CE), Sayyid Muneer returned to Qatif for personal reasons and continued his studies there. One year later, he traveled to Damascus, Syria to study in the Islamic seminary there under the tutelage of His Eminence Sayyid Jamal Al-Khoei. Finally, in 1405 AH (1984 CE), he returned to the Holy City of Najaf to continue his studies. There, he studied under some of the most respected scholars of the Islamic seminary, including Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Abulqasim Al-Khoei and Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Murtada Al-Boroujerdi. With the recommendation of another one of his tutors, Sayyid Habib Hussainyan, Sayyid Muneer also began to study under the tutelage of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Al-Sistani, benefitting much from his lessons in the principles of jurisprudence, as well as his extensive examination of modern sciences and their correlation with Islamic sciences.

Sayyid Muneer then moved back to Qum where he studied under Grand Ayatollah Wahid Khorasani for several years. He also studied extensively under the tutelage of Grand Ayatollah Mirza Jawad Tabrizi, who became a guide and mentor for the remainder of his life. Before his passing, Grand Ayatollah Tabrizi gave Sayyid Muneer an endorsement as a jurist capable of deducing Islamic laws from its sources.