 Imagine this 1400 years ago. It's the ninth of Mahara. At night you're in your tent. You hear noises and commotion from outside so naturally you come out to see what's going on. When you come outside you see people leaving in groups of hundreds and thousands. As you're looking around for a split second your eyes fall on the face of Abul Fadl al-Abbas. And you see him looking at his brother, Imam Hussain, and you decide there and then you're going to stay knowing exactly what's going to happen to you when the morning comes. The morning comes, it's now the day of Ashurah You're the 73rd companion of Ababullah Hussain. So imagine on that day you walk up to him to offer your service, to ask him where he would like you to serve and he replies it's up to you. Where would you want to participate on that day? It's a very interesting question. For me, very recently I was just having a discussion family and friends and it's a hot topic, Salah or Azadari. Everyone, every Maharan comes up but someone brought up the point of the importance of Salah, then incorporating the importance of the respect of Ababullah. And there were those companions who went Ababullah Hussain to pray, protected him in prayer. And what greater combination of love for the Ahlul Bayt and love for the religion could there be than protecting the Imam in prayer? I would love to have served in that kind of position. Now imagine you've had a long day at work, come home, walk through the front door, see your mom, dad, brothers, running around the house frantically. One person's gathering fruit, another person's gathering tea and other person's making food and you grab one of them in that confusion and you ask one of them what's going on, who's come round to see us? And one of them replies they haven't come to see us, they've come to see you. So you ask who is it, where are they and they say they're waiting for you in the living room. So you come to the living room, you open the door, you walk in and you see sitting there waiting for you is Imam Hussain of Israel. Now in that situation what would you say to him, what would you like him to say to you, what would you have to talk about? Really interesting question. It's given me a little while to think about this actually. It'd be difficult because other than both having belief in one God and the Messenger of Allah, I don't think there's that much common between someone as high as Imam Hussain and someone as low as myself. I'd find it very difficult to hold a conversation if I was in front of any of the imams or any of the Ahlul Bayt. I wouldn't know what to say and I wouldn't expect, I wouldn't expect even to hear anything for them to reply back to me if I did have a question or anything to ask. But if there was anything I would want to know if what I've tried to achieve in my life and upholding the message that Imam Hussain was left behind and to keep stronghold of the religion of God and Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, if what I have attempted is seen fit or beneficial in the eyes of Imam Hussain that would really be all I'd want to know. So now you've had your discussion with him, your conversation with him and it's time for him to leave your house. As he's walking out the door he turns back and looks at you as a farewell message, what would you want that to be? What would you want him to say to you? What would you do in that situation? I would most likely cry, probably ask for intercession, forgive me for anything I've gone wrong because if there is anyone that God will listen to throughout our books, throughout hadith, it's the shafa'af about Abdullah, we pray for it every day. So if that's something that he would accept to grant you, what more could you ask for in life? So given the magnitude of his sacrifice, what he gave up for Islam and his status before God as you rightly mentioned, what do you think he deserves from us in terms of his programmes, his Majalis, what do you think is our duty towards him? I believe Abdullah gave everything to keep the message of Rasulullah which was given to him through Jibra'il from Allah and if we don't even attempt to try and upkeep that message during an injustice, holding Majalis, holding even any event at a masjid or Hussainiyah, gathering, small gatherings, house gatherings, bring the topic of Ahlul Bayt up with your Muslim, non-Muslim friends, just even creating something as simple as just creating awareness and there's campaigns out there trying to teach the people who was Hussain, who was Hussain, things like that, they're minor sacrifices, they're not even sacrifices, they may be minor inconveniences in our life, you have to go here, you have to go there to try and spread the message of Allah and on the scale of what he's done, we do nothing. But like I said, it's like the frog in the fire of Nabi Ibrahim, he tried to put the fire out by mouthfuls of water every time he came and even though he was never going to put the fire out, it was an attempt and we're never going to be able to meet the requirements of being a soldier of Aba Abdullah but all we can do is, with whatever we do have, is attempt to be like that. So I think that frog analogy is one of the biggest roles that frog plays a big role in me relating to how I serve Aba Abdullah. I could never serve him individually, I could never serve him and fulfill the service required for Aba Abdullah but you're that small piece of a puzzle in trying to serve him and in doing so, bettering yourself, bettering the people around you and you know in essence trying to bring back Imam Mehdi to a better world. At the beginning I asked you about 1400 years ago with I guess hindsight it might be easy to pick a specific event or a specific part of it and say if I was there I would give my life protecting this person in particular or I would be trying to stop that calamity from falling on this person or I would aid in for example bringing back water with Aba Abdullah Abbas, may Salam or protecting the tents of the women and children and I guess knowing what we know of that day might be easy to pick something and say I would definitely serve if I was there I would do this. Now in today's day, in this day and age, a lot of us often forget that our 12th Imam is among us and in a way him being at least physically absent from us is a way where we have the choice in how we want to serve him given obviously that we follow all the other rules correctly. Now some say Imam Sayin had 72 on that day, how many does the Imam have today? So I guess my final question is what have you done for the 12th Imam? What do you think he deserves from you and how do you think he feels with you in particular? Well it's like every day in my life be for your sake, O Imam of our time, may our parents be at your disposal. No we say all these things, if push came to shove, where would we stand? So again it's a really really interesting question, interesting point to ponder over but I'd refer back to my previous answer where we're all you know no one can I guess we do have the ability, we can have the ability but we seem too easy small things that might not see is, ah it's minor, it's minor, they add up, they add up and it's when those small small sins start becoming regular and you lose, you lose a connection it's why you get what you call them seasonal Muslims or seasonal Shi'as, the Shi'as just in Ramadhan and Haram and stuff like that, you lose that connection through minor sins and everyone's guilty of it, we're told throughout everyone's going to be guilty of it and again Allah has given us the ability to push them aside but we don't, we'll do it, we'll turn a blind eye, we'll turn a blind eye on our friends who do, Amr ibn Mataruf, Naghiyalin and Modika is seen as derogatory or like you're trying to talk from a high horse, people don't take to it kindly nowadays respecting that man is gone, it's difficult and where would I stand? No idea, I do what I can, I try, I run youth projects, I try and better maybe from my mistakes and the older generation's mistakes, I try and take those mistakes and teach the youth that when I say youth I'm talking like 12 to 18 year olds, I try and say listen we made these mistakes, don't fall into that trap and with technology, with westernization, modernization sinning becomes easier day by day by day and it's just about controlling your nafs, that's why it's known as jihad al akbar really and if we can know how to control our nafs, it's through knowledge, it's through yiqeen, it's through belief in God, belief in the ahlul bayt, looking up to them as role models and if you do that successfully then I believe you may have a rank in the army of Imam al-Mahdi but may it be known