In his last message before the Ba'athists in Iraq executed him on April 9, 1980, along with his sister Bint-ol Hodaa and hundreds of his supporters, Renowned Islamic philosopher Al-Marje Al-Kabeer Ayatullah Sayyed Muhammad Baqer As-Sadr said:

"Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the world, and peace and blessing be upon Prophet Muhammad, his purified family and guided companions.

O' my dear Iraqi people: I talk to you all, Sunnis and Shias, Arabs and Kurds, at this acute
moment of your crisis and Jihadi life, because the crisis doesn't belong to one sect or group. And since the crisis is the crisis of all Iraqi people, the brave reaction and the struggle must become the reality of all the Iraqi people.

Since I knew my existence (being) and responsibility towards the Ummah, I have spent this existence for the sake of the brotherhood of Shias and Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds. I defend the message, which unifies all of them. And the belief which embraces all of them.

I lived with my thought and being, only for Islam - the way of freedom and the aim of all. Thus I am with you, my Sunni brother and son, as much as I am with you, my Shia brother and son. I am with both of you as much as you are with Islam, and as much as you carry this great torch to save Iraq from the nightmare of oppression and injustice.

The tyrants and their allies are trying to make our righteous Sunni sons believe that the problem is a Sunni-Shia one in order to separate them from their battle against the common enemy.

I want to say to you, the sons of Ali and Hussain, the sons of Abu Bakr and Umar, that the battle is not between the Shia and the Sunni rule. The Sunni rule, which was represented by the guided khalafa, caused Imam Ali to carry the sword defending it in the battles of the Apostates under the leadership of Abu Bakr. We must all defend the Islamic flag whatever its sectarian colour.

Half a century ago, the Shia ulema issued their fatwas making it a Jihad to defend the Sunni rule, which was carrying the Islamic banner and hundreds of thousands of Shia went out to the battlefield shedding their blood to protect the Islamic motto. The actual rule today is not a Sunni rule although the people at the top belong historically to the Sunni branch of Islam.

Sunni rule doesn't mean the rule of a person, who has descended from Sunni parents, but it means the rule of Abu Bakr and Umar, which has been challenged by the tyrant rulers of Iraq today in all their practices.
They abuse Islam, they abuse Ali and Umar together, violate Islam every day in every step they take.

O' my sons and brothers, the sons of Mosul, Bassrah, the sons of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf, the sons of Saerra and Kadhimiyah, the sons of Amarah, Kut and Sulemaniyah, the sons of Iraq everywhere.

I promise you all that I am for all of you, for the sake of all of you, and that you are my aim in the present and the future. Your words must unite, and your plans must be unified under motto of Islam, for the sake of saving Iraq from the nightmare of this authoritarian rule, building a free, glamorous Iraq, brightened by the justice of Islam, and covered by the dignity of man. In this Iraq, citizens with all their nationalities and sects will feel that they are brothers and will all contribute in the leadership of their country, building their home and realizing their Islamic ideas and the dawn of our glamorous history."