With Catholicism suffering from the death of the Pope and undergoing the whole succession ritual now, let's talk about a different religious group that will undergo the exact same process probably very soon. Shia Islam works remarkably similar to Catholicism, where the position of Grand Marja occupies a similar standing to the Pope within the faith. To summarise the position of the Grand Marja to anyone that haven't heard about it, Shia Islam has a lot of small Popes that reach that status after at least 30-40 years of studying theology, the Grand Marja is the biggest Pope out of the them all. A Shia Muslim can follow the rulings of any of the small Popes, but there's an implicit understanding that everyone respects the big Pope and his word is in the end the most important. The Grand Marja right now is a very old and sick Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who coincidentally is the first ever Shia Grand Marja to meet the Catholic Pope, after a historic meeting in Najaf, Iraq a few years ago.

The discussion within Catholic circles right now is about the conservatism of the next Pope, where Catholics discuss if the next Pope should be woke or not. The discussion around the next Grand Marja is a bit more multifaceted than that even within normie circles that aren't really into theology. I like Catholicism even as a Muslim dude, but the truth is that Catholicism in Europe is basically dead as a relevant political force, while Shia Islam is alive and still very energetic as a political and societal force. The first point of discussion is "how political should the next Grand Marja be?". Sistani is remarkable as the first modern Grand Marja with an active website and everything, but at the same time he's also remarkably media shy and there's still not even a recording of him actually talking. He's also very apolitical, he stood silent during the American invasion of Iraq, he offers no political commentary when it comes to the internal politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and his only outwardly political position was taken during the ISIS campaign across Iraq in 2014, when he declared lawful jihad against ISIS and asked young Shias to join the fight against ISIS, which later led to the creation of the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.

Now we come to the more woke second discussion point, "should the next Grand Marja be Arab or Persian?". This is basically the eternal Shia idpol dilemma. Sistani is Iranian from the city of Sistan, but has basically lived his entire life in Iraq. The last important Marja before him, Ayatollah Abulqasim Al Khoei was also Iranian, and we have to go back to the 60s to Muhsin Al Hakim, to find a Grand Marja that is considered Arab. Al Hakim is coincidentally the most political Grand Marja in modern history, with his rulings against Arabism and Communism still being debated today and his sons Abdulaziz Al Hakim and Muhammed Baqir Al Hakim were instrumental in the founding of the current Iraqi state after the American invasion. Maybe the Marja shouldn't be Arab if the result is such comprador sons, but that's just my commentary.

We move on to the next discussion point, "should the next Grand Marja be sympathetic to the Sadrists or not?". A short summary of the Sadrist movement coming now. Big family in Iraq and Lebanon, Musa Al Sadr in Lebanon is the spiritual father of all Shia Lebanese, Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr in Iraq basically creates Shia Islamism in Iraq, he also founds the Dawa Party (biggest Shia Islamic political movement in Iraq during the 80s and later), Muhammed Baqir gets executed by Saddam in the early 80s, Dawa Party moves to Iran, regular Shia proletariat in Iraq starts following his cousin Muhammed Sadiq, Muhammed Sadiq gains popularity as a pretty good preacher who says the anti-Saddam stuff without really saying it, he gets assassinated in the late 90s, the preaching stops after his death but his following moves to his surviving son Muqtada Al Sadr, these Muqtada followers later form the backbone of Iraqi resistance to the Americans, at the same time Sadrists slowly start resembling a cult around the image of the Muhammed Sadiq and Muqtada, big clash between the Iraqi government and Sadrists first in 2008, then it turns bloody again in 2022, but doesn't escalate. There were already some rumblings that Sistani's influential son was trying to move certain pieces in order to create an anti-Sadrist camp in 2022, with him reportedly saying that the Sadrists would be considered soon outside the realm of Shiaism. So question remains, does the next Grand Marja exclude Sadrists from the bigger Shia umbrella, or maybe tries to steer them away from the cult and back into normal religion?

I have two or three more points to bring up but my attention span is failing me, so I'll bring them soon in a different comment inshallah 🙏. No proofreading of course, please notify me if something is completely incomprehensible. If you've made this far, congrats!

Assalamu Aleykum to the good people of Hexbearistan. Finally back from my Iraq trip with my wife and the kid. Absolute top tier travel destination, would recommend for sure if you're thinking about doing a lil Middle East trip one day. Here are some little notes on the trip:

• Flew from my city to Istanbul, spent a few miserable hours in Istanbul's expensive ass airport, then flew to Baghdad. My kid was surprisingly chill during almost the whole trip, no extended periods of crying or anything. The plane from Istanbul to Baghdad was filled with non-Arab foreigners, which was quite surprising honestly. Lots of Chinese people for some reason, which usually leads to new schools and ports spawning in any country that the Chinese visit.

• Baghdad Airport is functional but quite rundown. I went in with my Lebanese passport which technically needs a paid visa on arrival, but the guy on the counter waived the fee for me and just said welcome. My wife's uncle was waiting for us outside and we were on the highways of Baghdad after a few kisses and hugs. The first few kilometers must be a shock for every new visitor to Baghdad, as it is filled with posters of Qassem Soleimani, Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah. Iraq is still a very anti-imperialist country, you will finds flags of Yemen, Palestine and Lebanon in every corner. I thought it was super cool that one could find posters of the Houthis on billboards and shops selling Hezbollah memorabilia.

• Baghdad as a city has recovered well from the American invasion and occupation. New roads and bridges spawning everywhere, barely any armed military presence, new and shiny malls and restaurants everywhere, massive international schools and it's just alive in a way that only Beirut can reach. The biggest problem is the traffic congestion, which the new Baghdad Metro project hopefully solves in a few years. The trash situation is also annoying, Baghdad is a quite dirty city, the people are as responsible as the government there honestly.

• The food was fucking amazing, but I've gained a few extra kilos from all the fatty foods. Some of the new restaurants are insanely good, and white people will never understand the appeal of a nice proper cafe with hot tea, diabetes-inducing sweets and hookah. Internet was decent, but this website barely loaded without a VPN for some reason. I paid around $10 for a week of unlimited 4G data.

• Made a quick one-day trip to Erbil, capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan. Took a smooth four hour drive there and crossing the inofficial "border" was pretty straightforward. Very beautiful city with great markets and more good food. Lots of new exciting construction projects in Erbil and it's cleaner than Baghdad, but same traffic issues. It's a good intro city for someone that wants an authentic Middle Eastern city, but not too "complicated", nor too artificial like the Gulf cities.

• Finished the trip with a Shia Islam religious pilgrimage megatour with my wife's family. We started in Baghdad and visited the Shrine of Imam Musa bin Jafar Al Kazim, then we drove around two hours to Karbala and visited the Shrine of Imam Hussain and Imam Abbas, then another hour to Najaf and visited the shrine of the greatest Muslim to ever live, Imam Ali bin Abu Talib. Was a great trip even if I'm not really the strongest believer out there. The shrines were magnificent, definitely something I'd recommend to everyone here.

• Overall summary is that Iraq is worth visiting, especially if you want to give your tourist dollars to a country that 100% doesn't use them to murder Palestinians or buy American senators. It will be a culture shock for sure, but Baghdad is a nice and historic city, with the added bonus of having top tier food. I'll upload some pics if I figure out how to do it in a non-doxxing manner.

This will be the ground invasion of Lebanon megathread. May God protect everyone. My aunt and her little kids are on their way to the Syrian border now, the plan is that they make their way to Damascus by tomorrow and then stay with my cousin outside of Damascus. Plan B is that they make it to Damascus then register their names with one of the Iraqi refugee settling programs then go to Iraq which will be safer and the kids can actually go to school there without any bureaucratic nightmares. They're resettling Lebanese families in the pilgrim hotels outside of Karbala and Najaf, so that sounds like a more manageable life than my cousin's farm in the Damascus countryside.

Waiting for a response for any message in the family group chat right now is fucking torture, I literally can't deal with it anymore. I've sent my wife and the kid to her mom's for a few days, they can't see me and my dad like this. The two hours it took for my uncle to see the message and respond today were absolute hell, fuck this life. My aunt has little kids no older than 14, what if something happens. I've called my cousin from my mom's side who has a little farm outside of Damascus in Syria, he can take in my dad's family from Beirut, but how the fuck will they even leave with this situation, and my cousin is already dirt poor, how will he feed them. Too many thoughts spinning, nowhere to scream them out, nowhere to go and nothing to do, I almost wish I was there.

It has officially started, no words can describe the feeling in my heart right now. I have lots to say to Iran and the Axis, but this is not the time nor place. May God keep everyone home in Lebanon safe and strengthen their resolve. It has felt inevitable for months now, but I hate that we're so close to winter with how cold it gets in Lebanon. My aunties in Beirut started gathering supplies a few days ago, they have plenty of canned goods and stuff like rice stored now. My stubborn communist uncle was a "nothing ever happens guy" though so we're grilling him in the family group chat now. My cousin is home in Beirut now, we were worried for him because he works in Tyre which will most likely be pulverised by the Zionists. May God give us the chance to witness the total destruction of this cancerous entity.

The motherfuckers did it again, fuck this earth. One of the explosions in Sour/Tyre yesterday was less than 100m from my cousin's office. We fucking lost contact with him for hours until everything settled and we got a thumbs up in the family group chat. How is this blatant terrorism even fucking justified by these absolute freaks. So many young beautiful people leave us every single day in Lebanon, for what? The continuation of the biggest terror state since Nazi Germany. My hatred and rage are genuinely reaching uncontrollable levels, fuck everyone from Sykes to Ben Gurion to Sadat to Clinton to Abdullah

News mega gang, listen up. Based on vibes, pit in my stomach, voice tone of family in Beirut, and the spirits of George Hawi and Kamal Jumblatt speaking to me:

Iran and Hezbollah will be attacking Israel before Sunday. If it doesn't happen, I'll show my face here again on Sunday and you're all allowed to call me a dumbass.

Israel bombed my hometown Beirut. Very strange feeling, because I'm not sad nor angry. The feeling in shia and revolutionary circles is more "thank you Israel", because we want this war. We want to have a direct reason to hit Tel Aviv, we want our troops to burn the occupied Golan, we want our missiles to fill the settlers with fear and panic. Alhamdullilah and may Allah accept the martyrs. My eyes will not be filled with the sight of Beirut for a long time, which really pains my heart, but if our collective sacrifices result in even one hour of pain for the zionists, then it was worth it.

فَٱرْتَقِبْ يَوْمَ تَأْتِى ٱلسَّمَآءُ بِدُخَانٍۢ مُّبِينٍۢ

"Then watch for the Day when the sky will bring a visible smoke"

Quran - Surat Al Dukhan - 10

Two days ago, on the first day of the Islamic month of Muharram, my son was born. The little fucker busted out of my wife a few weeks too early, but he's finally here. We left the hospital a few hours ago after two days of medical checks and both he and my wife are now peacefully sleeping while I'm writing. I won the naming battle and we settled on a traditional, but cool name in my very biased opinion. I'm now Abu Hassan, which sounds unreal, because how the hell am I a father lol. Now the real battle starts, I cannot do the same mistakes that Pete Buttigieg's father did and accidentally make him a liberal. Maybe in 16 years or so, you'll have Hassan LargePenis posting a VR interactive three dimensional chad n cuck ranking in the news mega about the slow Russian progress in the Central European front of WW3. Thank you all in advance for the well wishes!

Never turn off this website again. I saw the Bolivia news, rushed to the news mega and saw the gates of heaven locked. My hands started trembling as I realised that I had nobody to talk to about internal Bolivian politics. Out of desperation, and may Allah forgive me for these words, I started tweeting. Astaghfirullah wa atoub ilayh

I don't know how many of you beloved news mega Hexbears even know my name, but I wanted to tell you that this chad n cuck ranker is going to become a father in a few months. This is the main reason that I've been absent recently, my wife is having quite a difficult pregnancy and it's really hard for us both to prepare to raise a child far away from our homelands with barely any bigger family structure. It's a boy, but my wife isn't liking my name suggestions. How can she not love suggestions like Nasrallah, Qassam and Shahid-136.

To keep it news related, I've been getting into the Ukrainian war again and it's finally exciting to follow the line moving. Learning new names like Krasnogorovka, Netailove, Ocheretyne has been great, and now I'm excited to see what insane Soviet industrial achievement is in Chasiv Yar after the salt mines of Soledar, the coke plant of Avdiivka and the Azot mining complex in Severodonetsk. It has been also fantastic to finally see some of the most annoying battles end, like what was the point of Ivanivske, Marinka and Pervomaiske after all this time. Inshallah one day I can stop hearing about Synkivka, Ugledar and Robotyne, the line freezing there for so long deeply annoys me.

Genuinely impressed by how mind-bogglingly stupid the average westerner is. Feed the westerner any propaganda slop and he'll eat it with a massive smile on his face while thanking his master. The allegedly propagandized asiatic Russian and the dumb bloodthirsty Arab already knows that most state news is fake and shouldn't be trusted, but the westerner can't even form an opinion without eating some slop first. You know as an Arab dude with a fucking family here in the West, it's getting harder and harder to live with such a hostile racist society. I've discussed with my wife if it's perhaps smarter to just cut loose the "privileges" of the West and move back into the Arab World and raise our future kids there. I'm close to the edge, I can't tolerate life here anymore.