 Imagine it's the fifth of Muharram you're in your tent and you hear noises and commotion from outside so you come outside and you see a few people debating things with each other some are saying let's leave why are we staying here if we stay this is going to happen to us others are saying how can we leave the grandson of the prophet alone you become confused you go back into your tent the same thing happens on the 6th 7th 8th finally on the 9th night you hear loud noises coming from outside for the last four nights you've been debating within yourself whether to leave the camp of Imam saying let peace be upon him or to stay with him not knowing what's going to happen to you on the 10th day on the 9th night the noises get louder there's more commotion outside naturally you leave your tent to see what's occurring and you see people leaving the camp of Imam saying in their hundreds and thousands looking around bewildered yourself for a split second your eyes fall into the face of Imam saying peace be upon you see the grief and sorrow and sadness in his eyes and it no longer matters to you that you've spent the five nights debating within yourself am I going to stay or am I going to go seeing that look on his face buys you loyalty and you decide to stay the morning comes it's now the 10th of Muharram the day of Ashura imagine you walk up to the Imam as his companions did and you offer your service to him but he lets you decide what you'd like to do so for example you could go and bring back water with Abul Fadlil Abbas you could protect the tents of the women and children from harm you could tend to the wounded or bring back the severed body parts of his companions you could fight in his army against the enemy you could stand shield in front of him in prayer you could keep the little children busy while their brothers fathers uncles go and die what would you want to do for Imam saying on that day I think it's a question I've asked myself many times throughout my life commemorating this event and I think we need to be honest with ourselves when answering this question I think in hindsight it's very easy to say I want to do this I want to do that but when you truly reflect on what you would have done on that day sometimes the answer is not very comfortable for you to accept I could easily say I would do this I would do that but sometimes I ask myself am I even worthy to be in that camp so before you even answer the question I don't think I'm good enough to even be with Imam at all I'm not worthy to look him in the face and I'm not worthy to stand alongside him whatsoever however as we know the Imam is generous and if he accepted horror into his camp I would like to think if I asked him he'd accept me into his camp the people who always fascinated me have been the ones who stood as a human shield while the Imam was praying the reason they fascinated me and I would like to be them if I had the faith to be them is because if you truly picture it you have an arrow flying towards you and you are volunteering to put your chest or your neck in the way of an arrow rather than hitting the Imam while he's praying and it's easy to say I would do that but when I truly reflect on if I could do that I worry that if I see an arrow coming towards me would I flinch and if I flinch will I move out of the way at that last moment and if I move out of the way will it hit the Imam truly reflecting upon myself I'm not sure whether I could do that I would love to be able to do that but it's not something I feel I'm good enough doing because what those people did was heroic literally put your neck or your chest in front of an arrow which is like a bullet again however if I could choose to do something it would not be something specific it would be something to help the people psychologically someone to talk to someone to give people hope we know the Imam at that time would be a very busy person I would help him for example bring the bodies back because taking a body 72 times can be quite tiring however at the same time I would be someone I hope that is one of the first to be killed I'll tell you why it's because on the 9th of Muharram when the Imam shut the lights and asked the people to leave he put the lights back on and everyone stayed and they said to him what life is there after you why would we leave so for me living after Imam was saying it's not an option and I will not be able to watch what happens to him and to the other companions it sounds a bit cowardly but want to die first so I don't witness that second reason is that there is a narration either the Prophet or his father Imam Ali told him when he was younger what's gonna happen in the future he said you're going to be killed in Karbala do you accept it Imam was saying yes I accept it your brother will be killed do you accept it I accept it your son will be killed you accept I accept it your nephew is six month old you accept it and then he was asked your women will be taken captive and the Imam paused and instead of saying I accept it he asked a question he said is that gonna be after my death or before my death and the Prophet or Imam Ali said it'll be after your death he said I accept it so even Imam himself couldn't bear to watch what happened afterwards so I do something that would give some kind of peace and comfort to the people around and something to aid the Imam and in the end whatever he asks I will hopefully do now imagine you've had a long day at work the students you teach have exhausted you you're hungry tired upset angry drive home you walk through the door you come inside and you see members of your family running around the house frantically one person's making tea and other persons organizing fruit and other persons bringing sweets and other persons making food in that commotion you grab someone's hand and you say what's going on as we got guests as people come to visit us and they say we've got guests and they've come to visit but not us they've come to visit you so you think to yourself maybe it's someone a colleague from school or a friend from mosque or a friend from outside or community you come up to the living room you open the door you walk inside you see sitting in your living room on your chair is Imam saying this in that situation what would you say to him what would you want to hear from him how would it make you feel having had probably one of the worst mornings of your life come home see him there we all dream of meeting Imam saying and those lucky enough to go on his pilgrimage have sort of met him in person I would say to him straight away I'm not worthy for you to be here in fact I wouldn't look him in the eye because I'm not good enough to look him in the eye these eyes that God's given me do not deserve to look at his representatives I'd go to his feet and when you go in a pilgrimage you have a list of things in your head you're gonna ask Imam to give you every time you go the list leaves your head and you just say what you feel in your heart so I'm not gonna ask the Imam for any requests I just want to say thank you to him without looking him in the eye I want to say thank you to him and I'd say to him that because of you my life has meaning I sometimes think to myself without Imam saying in my life what would my life be and it's scary when you think about it not that I would become an immoral you know out of Swartz person but in terms of giving me a direction in my life there would be nothing without this man in my life one of the biggest questions a human being can ask is what's the meaning of life and I think as followers of Imam Hussain the answer is given to us he is the meaning of life so I'd say thank you to him for everything he'd done and I would I would ask him to recite his tragedy to me I want to hear it from his own lips what happened to him I couldn't take listening to it but when I sit down by his feet and listen to what happened to him from his own eye witness account because we know the fifth Imam his grandson said if our Shia knew what happened in Karbala they'd die of grief his father the fourth Imam said Karbala made us living corpses so there's so much we don't know about what happened and I want to hear from him exactly what happened coupled with that I want to ask him how how did he do that because we as human beings when something small happens in our life that harms us disturbs us our faith fluctuates when you look at Imam Hussain did not once did his faith fluctuate it stayed up yes he was a human being who had emotions who felt sad but how he kept that air of faith in God is something that will always astound me many people ask this question why does God allow evil in the world and that question never bothered me because it's just a fact of life a question that's bothered me my whole life is that how has God allowed 14 innocent people especially Imam Hussain suffer when they did nothing wrong that's a question that's bothering me my whole life I would ask him I was saying that question is that how did God like this to happen not that I don't doubt God whatsoever but I want to hear from his own lips how he kept that faith and that will hopefully inspire me when I when the meeting ends at the beginning I asked you about almost 1400 years ago and you rightly replied with with hindsight it might be easy to say if I was there I would stop this or if I was there I would delay this tragedy from happening or try to aid this person in this manner and you finished your answer to the first question having me told you that Imam Hussain alay salam gives you the choice you said even if he gave me the choice I'd still do whatever he advised me to do because I would want to bring his heart at least some piece on a day where he had his heart broken into a billion pieces in this day and age a lot of us forget that we have a 12th Imam and in a way at least him being physically absent from us gives us a choice in using our own opinion and logic in how we want to serve him so I guess my final question is what have you done for the 12th Imam to bring his heart some piece what do you think he deserves from you and how would you take let's say an 11 12 year old boy's hand and introduce him to the 12th Imam what do you think is the best way I think first of all personally speaking I don't differentiate between the Ahlul Bayt the other narration that says the first is Muhammad the last is Muhammad and those in between are Muhammad so for me serving one Imam it's as if you're serving the rest of them however the question is is a good one in terms of what would I give to the 12th Imam what could we have to offer him I think there's three things that come to my mind that I personally would like to do the first two are linked together the third is a bit separate the first thing I would like to do is to be an instrument to be a tool to be a part of his vision and we know the vision of the 12th Imam is justice and good manners because that's what Islam is justice and good manners so in my day-to-day conduct with my fellow human being whichever background they come from I want to be someone that treats them justly there's never never ever oppresses them and as good manners with them I mean that's a small step if everyone did automatically the world would be a good place because as we know in terms of how long I've been alive I think right now the world is not is in the worst place I've seen it since I've been alive so I think small things is the way to start the second thing is I would say the most important thing and it comes linking to a narration by the 6th Imam where he says bring people towards us with your actions if you notice we in this year school of thought we don't have stalls and on bus stops and on street corners telling people they're gonna go to hell if they don't join us because we like to say actions speak louder than words so I would say that the second thing I would like to do to the Imam for him rather is to be a good ambassador for him so if someone comes across me they see me they interact with me they say to me who do you follow that makes you like this and I say I follow 14 impeccable people and the last one I'm waiting for him to return because I don't think we realize the power of leaving a good image of our religion in people's head in today's society if you can have good manners with people they can see where it's coming from and that will portray the Imam in a very good way and conversely if you oppress a single human being while representing being a Shia Muslim you've damaged the Imam in a very very severe way in my opinion that's the second third way is recently I came across a narration where it astounded me and it said that when the 12th Imam returns what's he gonna say first to the people so he announces it's him what is first words now when any president gives their first speech King Queen ruler whoever it might be gives their first speech everyone's watching and we focus on their first sentence because that sets the agenda of who they are and according to some narrations the Imam says oh mankind or universe rather my grandfather was killed oppressed my grandfather was killed thirsty these are the first words that the Imam's gonna give to us after over a thousand years that to me shows that the whole purpose of him coming back is to as we say on a Friday investigate the blood of Karaballa he's made it so important to the universe to tell them my grandfather was killed thirsty and oppressed that gives me a message and that says to me that I must do the same I must tell people what happened to Imam Hussein and Karaballa not to convert people not to show off not for PR because that's at least we owe him I'm Hussein that the world knows what happened to him and I can guarantee as a byproduct by people learning about what happened to this man the world will wake up because I was saying they didn't die to save us as such that's not an ideology as such he died to wake us up and I think the 12th Imam wants us to ensure that his grandfather's memory will never ever go in vain so I would do something ensure in whatever capacity I feel that Imam Hussein story is told to people and I believe this can be done in any walk of life whatsoever you can wear a turban and go in a pulpit and do it you can be a street sweeper and do it you can be a CEO and do it every walk of life you are in I believe whichever job you have you can tell people about Imam Hussein it would do you know how much so ever so those are the three things I'd give to my mom if he accepts and how would you introduce an 11 or 12 year old to the 12th Imam I think every religion or non-religion has this view that the world's not good enough right now it needs needs to be saved whether you're a Christian waiting for the second coming of Christ whether you're the Jewish faith waiting for the Messiah to come whether you're one of us waiting for the 12th Imam to come we're so many Muslims for the Matthew to come we will have this core belief that there are going to be people who will make it all better in the end I never portray the 12th Imam as a religious figure because that's off-putting straight away in the society we live in he's a man of principle as I said before he's a man of justice and good manners I would tell an 11 12 year old that one day a man will come and if you're just a good human being who is just who has good manners he will make you go far and he'll help you he'll put his hand over your head and guide you that in itself is attractive because I think an alternative to the current world we live in right now the 12th Imam is that alternative that we have he's the hope that we have and again as we have an eye on theology every Friday every day even we wait for his coming and we pray for his coming and if you have this man in your head that one day he will come psychologically you can keep going every day might be difficult but you know there's an end point coming and the 12th Imam as we call him ourself is the relief he's the relief so I would introduce him as a figure who is universal not as a Muslim only as a Shia only I think that's wrong his universal figure for every human being he's the Imam of all mankind not just us