 it's Saturday night and as I was looking at my watch it said 10 30 exactly 10 30 p.m. Karbala time so that means hashtag galenti is live from the holy city of Karbala and of course you already knew that because every Monday Wednesday and Saturday 10 30 p.m. Karbala time hashtag galenti will be live and it is live right now from this blessed city episode 63 now tonight's topic is targeting a very special sector within our societies that has rarely been given delight and has been really discussed over the past what several decades several centuries but tonight hashtag galenti chose to talk about it but we'll continue talking about it but after we check out what's trending and we'll be back very short once again welcome everybody for joining us tonight now for what's trending now there dozens are were injured and a few were killed in an explosion on Saturday at a rally in Abbas Ababa attended by the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed official said the 156 were were needed medical attention and one and 51 people were hospitalized it's it was a tragedy that officials are saying and the a man wrote on Twitter said thank you to all those who volunteered to donate blood for victims of the incidents currently there is no shortage of blood please keep up the good work that's what the defense defines being Ethiopian we thank everybody who actually did donate and one of the important things when such incidents do happen everybody should stick together and our hearts are with those who who were injured and lost their lives in an incident now this is actually very surprising as well and if my eyes do look closed and I sound sick I am sick so pray that I get well but Saudi women are now allowed to drive after midnight I don't know why they chose after midnight but they said after midnight women are allowed to drive after they lifted the ban a few days ago coming to the end of the ban actually now the change was announced last September and Saudi Arabia issued the first license to women earlier this month so congratulations to the women of Saudi Arabia now you're free you're not oppressed no more I'm just kidding but let's go check out what tonight's topic is so we can you know get on with it let's go once again I do welcome everybody for joining us tonight on hashtag LNT episode 63 coming your way from the holy city of Karbala now as I mentioned before what's trending tonight's topic the main focus of tonight's topic is about a sector in our society that only a few are talking about it if not few are only talking about it they sadly seem that they're been neglected uncared for a lot of people don't talk about them they don't they're not cared for by a lot in our society and on top of that none of the things that happen to them is under their control so it's sad to see this but so all women who lost their husbands in war in terrorist attacks and in any other way tonight's episode is about you guys tonight's episode is what really defines us and really keeps a person's eye keeps a person's eye out for the poor and for the needy tonight is international widows day and you know hashtag LNT chose to talk about it because we really care for you guys and to show how much we care for everybody now there's no accurate figure as to how many widows are out there but there are over 258 million widows around the world with 115 million of them living in deep poverty now this is according to the UN now if a widow does not have a guardian or a brother sister supporting her who will she go to who is she going to resort to whose responsibility is it at the end of the day what should our responsibilities be towards those who had no say and had no control over their husbands losing their lives although many of them lost their lives defending the country defending the nation defending the religion as we'll get to talk about it later on so tonight my dear viewers the question for you guys is very very simple and three two one right there what are our duties towards widows very simple question go through the the ideas that are in your mind look at what are the duties that you should or what are the responsibilities that we need to do the number to call us that should have already popped up but yet right there plus nine six four seven seven four zero six seven eighteen thirty six and you can let us know by picking up the phone opening WhatsApp and down that number right there you can call us send us a voice message a text message and you can also participate on our live Facebook at Imam Hussein 3 TV and let us know what you guys think about tonight's question what are our duties towards widows let's take a quick break and come back to continue talking about tonight's topic once again I do welcome everyone for joining us tonight now as I mentioned before the break I am a bit sick so if you if you hear me cough or you know I do apologize in advance because you know anyways tonight's topic as we mentioned is about the international widows day and we've dedicated a whole episode on widows tonight hashtag and she wants to show all the widows out there how much we care about them especially the host how much he cares about them and the crew as well but very important to keep in mind is that your participation is important tonight to let us know what you guys think and to let the world know as well what you guys think about their duties you know remind them because some people may forget what their duties are towards widows so do remind them of what their duties are and what their duties should be that's the question for tonight what's our our duty what yeah what are our duties towards widows now in many countries just to give you some background information on this topic now in many countries widowhood is denounced and seen as a sort of a source of shame onto the woman now widows are thought to be cursed in in some countries which is you know absolutely disgusting I don't know what kind of mentality such individuals hold but such misconceptions can lead to widows being hated being abused and even worse what do I mean by worse worse basically some of them are kicked out of the house they're physically abused and emotionally abused and even sometimes killed many cases if you look at what I want to mention some countries where people are gonna say oh wow you're being racist but in some countries they're being killed and not by random people no by family relatives why because we'll get to talk about it later on as well now in many countries widowed women their social status is linked with their husband's social status so what that means if her husband dies so does her social status so so does her place within the society meaning that there's no place for that widow to live in that society anymore which is unfortunate you know she's a human whether she's married whether she's divorced whether she'd widowed whatever she's a human being at the end of the day so if her if she's widowed we have to look at the circumstances and if the circumstances are being well her husband died in an act of war then we're responsible for that specific women or for that specific sector of society now the regain of her social status widows are expected to marry one of her male her husband's male relatives her brother his brother his cousin any of the any of the male relatives of her husband which sometimes if the woman refuses due to maybe her high love for her husband she might refuse it and then physical abuse comes in and sometimes she is killed but we do but joining us right now head of LFT lady Fatima trust from the UK Muhtar Amir Ali Kareem from the UK Muhtar just to give a few backup information about you joining us right now on the line Mr. Muhtar from the UK head of the lady Fatima trust in the UK salamu alaikum welcome to hashtag and see alaykum salam wa rahmatullahi wa alaykum salam wa rahmatullahi now tonight's question is very important and due to your expertise in this in this field we thought it was suitable that we would contact you now Mr. Muhtar if you can give us some background information on the statistics of widows and according to your blessed organization what are the simple duties and statistics if you can begin with statistics of widows yes thank you for the opportunity the lady Fatima trust has been fortunate enough to be working with widowed mothers in Iraq and other countries around the world particularly in Africa and the Indian subcontinent yes our affiliation with Iraq goes back 20 years during the time of the former former regime yes when the widows widowed mothers from the war years and the unsuccessful occupation of neighboring countries came to light it was particularly painful for us to be seeing particularly in the cities that our believing brothers and sisters would visit foziara yes and to see this as a perpetuating condition to see war after war and followed by sanctions and followed by the terrorist activities yes see the numbers grow and for us to helplessly be distant to feel that pain whilst we were there but then return to the comfort of our homes and not feel anything that we were able to assist mm-hmm but the need to assist when beyond pure statistics so you'd hear that the United Nations was saying two million widowed mothers in Iraq and just to clarify you know when in developing countries when someone thinks of a widowed mother someone thinks of 60 70 perhaps 80 year old lady unable to fend for herself maybe with grown children in the nature of the violent activities in Iraq that were causing these issues some of the widowed mothers were very young yes yes and you to the circumstances that had caused them to be widowed it was highly traumatic so you'd see someone in Africa who was widowed after after their husband had gone through a state of illness mm-hmm where they had struggled to keep him comfortable and he died after trying to fight that illness in Iraq it was very much immediate at times yes terrorist activity the husband goes out he's either going out to work or gone out for a social evening and that's it never returns yeah there's no warning of that incident that takes his life yes now those conditions despite the volume of mothers the intensity of the need was far higher as well because of the trauma the post-traumatic stress that it involved yes the young children that the person who passed away leaves behind yes now mr. Muhtar now how can we help them what's our duty towards them and towards those children so there are two levels of assistance yeah first one being the immediate okay here and now the person has medical needs they'll have some financial need yeah but the big the highest ethos that we aspire to work to at the lady Fatima trust yeah look at the medium and long term yeah you know there's a there's a figure widows where you think okay here's someone who is now lost her husband well will they be housebound they themselves will have medical conditions in terms possibly of their own trauma you know and a mental sort of support required yes but that individual has a life ahead of them right yes they have a capability as a human being and what is that we can do to try and help the individual affected the widowed mother and her children through her to look forward to a life going forward right to have an imagination to say what should life be like yes now how do we do make something of it for themselves how do we on that immediate need of putting food on the table yes how do we do that so in those can in those scenarios every human being has an idea of where they want to take their life right yes so it could be a I've been struggling to scrape together to put food on the table I haven't even thought about tomorrow today struggles are taking me away but if you can take that away and say okay so if you had a stream of income where you could go out and be an entrepreneur you can go out and be a nurse a teacher whatever your life passion is be able to be independent in your own living where does that take you yes and in the experience that we've had it's transformation on those individuals who want to take that step that's important for cultural reasons for the individual's own mindset sometimes it's a challenge sometimes just having that free handout and hold the individual back yes but then to take it beyond that and say that look imagine a life of independence imagine a life where as a mother you're inspiring your own children the way they want to be you don't want your children to be gripped in poverty the way circumstances have gripped you in poverty yes what is it that you can do to be an exemplar your own children to your nephews and nieces to the children in your neighborhood to be able to say look despite that setback you overcame it you chose your destiny and they too should aspire to something bigger yes thank you what is it that you need to be able to do that is it some some skills that you want to train in like sewing or like making like a beauty salon is it working in a classroom or a hospital setting there's got to be more to life than just worrying about where the next meal is going to come from right yes of course thank you very much Muslim Muhtar Amir Ali Kareem from the United Kingdom head of the Lady Fatima Trust to join us tonight once again we do thank you for joining us tonight now the main point is to take from that very long interview with although it was short in time but very long in information hopefully everyone can benefit from that but to empower and to encourage the mothers and the children of the widowed mothers and the children of the orphan children but let's take a very quick break and come back to continue the episode tonight thank you very much dear viewers for joining us tonight now let's go back to the topic and talk about before that we were joined with Mr. Muhtar Amir Ali Kareem from the United Kingdom head of the LFT Lady Fatima Trust who specialized in supporting widowed women and orphans in Iraq and worldwide as well now going back to the topic and you know just to carry on with Mr. Muhtar was saying that the misfortunes and the circumstances that a widowed mother goes through or a widow goes through it's unfortunate and it varies in different countries but the similarities between all of them is that when they do have children and the children start to grow up that woman has to be the bread winner the bread owner for that family and if she can't due to maybe her chastity and sometimes the widow has to step over that and go out of her line because no one's willing to support her go out of her line out of her league just to go work just to go find a job just to support her family and if they're not able to break that social and cultural boundary of the woman can't work and the woman has to stay at home although no one's supporting her and although she's a widow she has to and if she had you know kids that are you know nine and above ten and above she would have to make them quit school which is very dangerous at that age and make them work in order to feed themselves in order to feed the family and that's very dangerous my dear viewer so just to take that in a widow who has done nothing wrong in her life all that she all that that's happened to her is that the the backbone of the house is gone the husband although I hope it's safe to say that although it is safe to say that but the most important person within the household is gone due to an unfortunate circumstance yet no one is willing to take the step and helping that individual and when she does go out of her league people begin to criticize and that's one of the important things to keep in mind for tonight widows suffer and their children suffer on various levels deprivations they suffer increasing the children's especially the daughters when there is no support for the family when there's no support for the mother nor the children the level where her daughter of invulnerability abuse of risk it increases a lot and that's important because and that's very dangerous very dangerous especially for for the daughters of the widows but we just received a text message from Zaynab from Pakistan who says widows should definitely be given more attention in society we even hardly hear Molana's talking about them on the pulpits okay thank you very much Zaynab from Pakistan for joining us tonight and yes it's unfortunate sometimes that the specific moments are not talking about on the pulpit but hopefully hashtag galenti will you know increase their courage and let them talk now I'm kidding all the respect to to more Molana's majority of them are friends so big salam to them a huge shout out to them now just to you know go back everything that we said is a mouthful but all the statistics and everything that we've mentioned is according to the United Nations now a quick point just to go through a lot of people they begin to wonder why hasn't anyone given any help yet what are some of the duties that we can do in order to help the 258 million widows worldwide 584.6 million offspring of orphans that's a huge number it's not a small number half of a billion are orphans and a quarter of a billion are widows so imagine the societies that these individuals are living in now what can we do to help them number one and the most important thing to keep in mind when helping is including them in society don't exclude the widows from society just because her husband is dead doesn't mean that she should live alone in the house as you know and in many cultures they say when a woman if a woman's husband dies she can't she can't eat carrots she can't eat cucumbers she can't do this and this she can't go out she can't put perfume she can't even look at a kettle like the tea kettle she can't like she can't do a lot of things but I don't know what kind of rock they're living in but always include them in society don't exclude them don't let them live alone bring them in because they're already going through trauma bring them in and let them be included within your gatherings within your celebrations even if they're sad try to cheer them up because they have a long way ahead of them but we just received a text message from Andy from the USA you are rights widows are neglected especially here in the US no one really talks about them and there are not a lot of organizations that take care of them thank you very much Andy from the USA for joining us tonight we receive a voice message from Hawraa from Canada what does Hawraa say I think our duties towards widows should be the same duties towards any other citizen they should be treated with respect and given the same opportunities to any other person I think that more support should be offered and more work opportunities because now they are the main bread earner of the family okay thank you very much Hawraa for joining us tonight we are receiving Facebook comments we're running out of time so if we get time we'll go through them quickly Maria Mona she says we should always strive to help them in whatever we can we should help them financially without embarrassing them also they have many insecurities we should always make them feel protective thank you very much Maria Mona for joining us tonight and very informative as well very important now another way that we can help widows is to establish a center within our communities specifically for helping widows and this is important so I'd like to elaborate on that just a little now centers that bring all the widows together let them sit together share their stories because a lot of widows what tends to happen to them they're excluded they're segregated from society they live alone so they don't have anyone to talk to a woman likes to share her thoughts woman likes to share stories that's why I love women but that's why they talk a lot all the respect to you guys so they always like to share what's on their mind bring them all together let them as you see an Iraqi Khalifargan let them you know loosen up talk about their problems because they'll fix them at the same time when everyone hears their own story that center as well they can learn from each other from that center begin to look for new husbands for them that's important husbands what we mean what we mean is not temporary no no long-term permanent marriage is what we're talking about not something temporary not we're talking about permanent marriage now we know that a man his first wife doesn't want he wants her to be a virgin he wants her to be his is only one now his second wife that's gonna raise problems in the west because polygamy is not accepted in the West so another way of or another duty that we should do is also educate the West educate the governments of the West on the importance of polygamy in this matter if there's a widow in your community it would help solve all of her problems and all of their problems it will help lower the number of widows and it will also increase or decrease poverty significantly and we mean that a lot because there's no one out there that able to help the widows like the man of the house and to sponsor them sponsor a family a widow and her children you know if you have good money coming in why not spare a few hundred dollars three four hundred dollars a month just to donate help them out talk to your friends bring everyone together let them help a family two families three families because honestly the amount you give Allah will double it back just keep that in mind now let's go and check out what Islam has to say about widows now widows in the region of Islam should receive all of the same honor care attention of a married woman there's nothing different than a widow and a married woman if you think that there is a difference then you have to go check get your brain checked out because there is no difference between a married woman and a widowed woman and the eyes of Allah the widowed woman maybe her status is way elevated than a married woman because her husband gave gave everything for the sake of his country or religion or nation now Islam encourages men who are able to marry again a second or third wife to go and marry a widow because as we know Prophet Muhammad also married a widow where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded him or recommended him to go marry that widow so of course at the end of the ad so you know the four months and ten days that a woman has to go through after that if she was pregnant let her give birth and then marry her after so it's important to keep in mind the end of the day at the end of hashtag galenti tonight always keep in mind that do not end the support always give a helping hand especially to the widows and let them be included within your society to help them out and to empower them that's most that's the the most important thing that we need to keep in mind for tonight ladies and gentlemen that's it for hashtag galenti sorry for not reading all the text messages out loud inshallah we will post them later on Instagram and we will share them as well thank you very much for joining us tonight do stay tuned for the upcoming episodes every Monday Wednesday and Saturday so next Monday you'll see this face right here 10 30 inshallah if I don't die from this illness inshallah not all right guys take care what's