At a March 3, 2026 memorial for Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at a mosque in Richmond, Texas, Iranian-American Shi’ite Islamic scholar Hamza Sodager explained how Shi’ite seminaries were established in multiple countries at Khamenei’s direction to spread Islam, and that spreading Islam in the U.S. specifically had been a top priority for Khamenei.
Praising slain Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah as well as the father of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the Islamic “resistance,” Sodagar wept as he chanted an Islamic lamentation, envisioning Khamenei arriving in Paradise where he is greeted by slain IRGC Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Nasrallah himself. Adding “I don’t want to leave this world except in blood by the hands of the worst of God’s creations,” he also prayed for Allah to grant steadfastness to the mujahideen in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere.
Also in his talk, he related his experience crossing the border from Canada to the U.S. in January 2026 after participating in “religious gatherings” in Calgary. He said that border authorities stopped him and checked his phone, saw “a flyer of some speech I gave about Imam Khomeini, and one about Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” and asked him about it. Sodagar said that he explained to the official that “we commemorate the martyrdom of this man [Nasrallah]… the greatness of the man… how wrong the assassination was,” and that after that he was told that he was “good to go.”
View this clip on MEMRI TV here.
