 My name is Sajad Lakhani. I am from Chicago, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, United States. And I went to U.S. 45 years ago as a student and did my B.S. in business administration and accounting. And that was in 1977 and been in business ever since. I worked as a person for three, four years in open mountain business and I owned new car dealerships. And I'm semi-retired right now. I sold my businesses and everything. I'm semi-retired and kind of enjoying life, masha'Allah, and enjoying my religion and doing the best I can to raise my kids. I am with my Islamic center over there back home. And we do a lot of things over there. So I'm a director of finance and I'm a director of fundraising and all of that. Other than that, I am with Bucky Organization. Bucky Organization, we started in 2007. We have a group of people that we all came down here together. And we wanted to kind of raise the platform of our goals and of what we wanted to do and achieve. And masha'Allah we are being successful in that. We established a first year, we established a mock-up over here. A mock-up is probably serving as a virus which we always wanted to do. But at the same time, we wanted to make sure that the elevation of a cause was such that we can go ahead and kind of make people realize that there's something, first of all, Janatul Baki out there because a lot of people don't know what it is and how it is. And so that was primarily a goal, is to give more light to our cause. Why was this your first time visiting Karbala? No, I came to Karbala in 2004, right after the war had just ceased and there was a break there. And the first chance we got, we came together as a group. Again, you know, and it was a historical time. Because it had just opened up and people were just about free and you could see the faces and you know, the calmness over there. And there were certain security situations. Last time we were here, we couldn't go to Samara and so that was my first time visiting in Kazmen. That was blocked off at that time. The first time when I came over here, it was eye-opening for me because it was something that I always wanted to do. And since I was a kid, because we've been doing Azadari and we're doing all kinds of, you know, religious rites and rituals and stuff like that. And I wanted to see it firsthand how, because I've seen it in Pakistan because there was born. And US, because we had just started, was so limited that I did not expand my horizons until I came to Karbala because I saw other people come in, you know, from other countries and just participating in the rituals and participating in Azadari and stuff like that. So it was very eye-opening for me. And my second time is now and my God, the change is tremendous. I mean, the Haram when I first came over here was just a little, you know, it was Haram. In my, other people said that was nothing. It was smaller than that. But from 2004 to 2017, it is tremendous. They've expanded it and it's so beautiful. They made it the architecture and everything. If they kept the originality of everything and they've extended the canopies and stuff like that, which makes it very easy for Zawars. And my thing is that I wanted to come in Arbaeen because I did last time too because Arbaeen is something that every Shia Muslim wants to do one time because of the call. And the one thing I want to take the impression because my kids and the western youth over there, it is kind of devoid of the spirituality. We have it over there and they do Azadari and everything. But you don't get the click, the opening, the eye-opening until you get them to Karbala. And that is one of our goals is try to achieve that. Well, like I said before, I do belong to Baki organization. And the first thing was to elevate the cause of Janatul Baki, which is a symbol of oppression and it was desecrated in 1925. And we wanted to make sure the world is aware of that and what had happened. There was some protest and there was some, you know, outcry on it, but nothing sustainable and people kind of forgot about it. And especially when we were in U.S. and we talked to a few people, we were shocked to find that even our older generation, my generation, younger than me, were unaware of certain things of Janatul Baki. So we took up this cause and we said, you know what, this is not right. Every Shia should have some knowledge of Janatul Baki. Especially, again, I come to the youth of the country over there because they are the flag bearers of our future. If you don't train them right and if you don't have the infusion of knowledge and understanding, they will never get to the point where we were by culture brought up, by situations, by neighborhoods like around Karbala. You see, every little child is in the Azadari. Every little child is doing things over there. It's not like that. The culture is totally different. It's foreign. It's alien. So we are kind of concerned about the generations and we want to make sure they remain steadfast in the right path, the path of Elul Beth. And we want to make sure that for me, especially and for the group that I am with, we want to make sure that that is sustainable. And the cause that we have, we are trying to make it a worldwide cause. I can go more into it if you want to, but I will just stay with what you have. And the important thing is that making sure that the cause is elevated, making sure the cause is recognized around the world, making sure that we do something about it. And also at the same time, take the spirituality and the experiences that we experience and go ahead and infuse our youth with it and take a group, do some more building, do some more youth building, do some more youth programs. Bring them to Karbala, take a group of people and say, okay, sign up. We will subsidize your trip. We will bring you to Karbala. Things like that, that will make us, in fact, guarantee their futures that we have something more sustainable in the future. The name of my son is like, it's an infusion. The name is since birth. My mother gets up, my dad gets up. The name is synonymous to my living. The name is synonymous to my upbringing. The name is synonymous to my well-being, my health, my whole future. If you are in that environment and the parents provide you that environment and the longevity of the cause and the faith, as a child, when you are into it, it is very easy for you. I mean, you look at the Rosa of Imam Hussein and what happens? The tears come to you. The first thing you want to do is go to Aba Abdel Allah, and say hello to him. We walked from Najaf to Karbala. We were at Imam Ali's Rosa over there and then we did the walk. The walk was very spiritual. I'll talk to you more about it. But as soon as we got to Karbala and we had group and we had some kids in there too, the first thing everybody wanted to go was to Maula Abbas. Get his permission and say salam to him. Even though we were dead tired, blisters on our feet and stuff like that, we went there first and poured our hearts out over there. Then Imam Hussein, even though Mashallah in Arba'een is huge, but nobody wanted to go and rest or take a shower or do anything until they first say salam to our Maula. So the feeling is indescribable. I mean, it is emotional naturally. But then if you take the logic of it, it's very logical too, the cause. And if you take the intelligence of it, it's very intelligent too because Imam Hussein stands for knowledge, Imam Hussein stands for purity, and all these things are an accumulation of me as a person and our community. Sunni is probably a more brainwashed than anything else because I have a lot of Sunni friends, you know, and the first thing when we talk about Ashura and stuff like, oh, you guys do this or you guys do that. And I said, where did you get all that information from? And so, no, we heard it from our people. I said, well, you know what? I want you to come to one of our Majalises because we have them over there too, you know, all two months and eight days. And I said, you don't hear, you hear about Imam Hussein's message, but you also hear intelligence and you hear lectures that are very, very, you know, it'll tickle your mind. It'll get you to ask questions about science, about anything you want and it is not limited to religion. So you're not talking religion at the same time. It is philosophy. It is psychology. So I took few friends with me and they were amazed. They're hooked, you know, and they don't have to convert, but I just wanted to make sure they then send the message. Generally speaking, Sunnis, if you talk to them, they are easy, if you have good rapport with them. But if they are hardcore, it's impossible to talk to them. Just like any other, you know, everybody has the right wingers and the conservatives and stuff like that, and we do too. However, talking to Christians and everything, I know a few of them. In fact, I got a lot of friends and they have their own movements that they go to camps and, you know, retreats and stuff like that. And we talk and we invited few pastors to come and speak to them, to us about their religion. And then we tried to find the common ground with Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. And then we gave the Quranic view of what the Virgin Mary and Jesus were and they were amazed at the similarities and yet the propaganda is such that they divide us. So, you see, the gap is huge, but a little bit at a time it can't be bridged. But the only way it can be bridged is if we as Shias are intelligent enough to talk to them calmly, just like Aima taught us, you know, talk to them calmly, talk to them with logic, talk to them with reason because we have all of that. Masha'Allah. And if anything, they don't convert, but they will listen to you. They will talk to you, they will reciprocate with you, they will even come to your lectures and stuff like that. And we do, we go too. And then we ask their priest and their pastors and deacons questions too as to why do you think this was like this? And then when they give an answer, you say, well, you know, in the Quran it says, here it is. And it says, gee, I didn't know that. So, you see, it is very important and we try to dispel knowledge, we dispense knowledge with Christianity and Quran and the similarities of the holy books. And when we talk to them, we give them that information in writing so that they can compare the notes. The main thing that I can tell you about Arba'een, the beauty of it is indescribable because you asked me about so many people eating and everything. In fact, every year when we sit down in morrow majlisys and stuff like that, we talk, it's a miracle that such a small area can put together 20 million people. So we said, you know what, now let's calculate, 20 million people are there and they will eat only two breads. Two breads in a whole day, nothing else, okay? Now how many breads is it per day? And then we went into and the amount was huge. And we said, wait a minute, now you're talking just then, I'll talk about the sanitation, talk about people's, you know, toiletries and habits and stuff like that. How does this is accommodated in an area like this? So the only answer that I or my friends when we thought it could come up with, that it is a miracle of Allah and it is miracle of Imam Hussein that the ground of Karbala expands during Arba'een to accommodate all the people. And it is a Janatul Ma'ala. It is Karbala Ma'ala Janatul Ma'ala. We say it is a piece of heaven. So if you come to Karbala and if you go die and go to heaven, it's like you will say to yourself, I've been here before, you know, that is the analogy that is used and that is not an analogy, it's a fact, I believe it's a fact. It is divine power and divinity that does that because a common person, if you look at Hajj, two and a half million people, three million people, stampede, people getting dying, diseases, this, that, beatings, brutality. Karbala, you come over here and you're talking to a person and he's smiling at you and he's crying at the same time because he just walked into the Zari of Imam Hussein and you touched it and he's kissing your hand and you're for it. And why is he doing that? It's because you kissed the Zari of Imam Hussein and the reverence of the Zari and the kissing of the Zari is so huge and so great that the person talking to you is feeling that, is feeling the power of your going in there and touching the Zari and he's feeling the power. The people over here, the security over here, they talk to you even, and I just, you know what, I did five minutes, I just stood there and watched one security area, one security area because we have a hotel right down here. And it was throngs of people and this is more busier today, it was yesterday, last night, throngs of people going through that. Not once did I hear a person raise their voice, not once did I hear a higher decibel, not once did I hear somebody getting pushed by the security guards or the people because if it was pushed, it was more like the power of the pushing from behind that you can't stop, it was like the mass of the people that is, you know, coming in. It was amazing. So you can't find this. So here's just to kind of tie it up. So we said, this is such a great miracle. We need to bring this to the world's attention, especially the walk from Najaf to Karbala, you said the mock-up and serving and everything, I'm going to tie that in together because when we started from Najaf and walked to Karbala, I was amazed that I would count my steps and I said one, two, here's ten, mock-up. Eight steps, mock-up, two steps, mock-up, one step, mock-up. There was not more than ten steps that I did not find a mock-up. Now imagine that. And these people are all doing it out of love for Imam Hussein and to serve the Zavars. It is not like somebody is paying them, there's volunteering. I mean, like, you'll do this or you know, you're making money off it or profit, nothing like that. All they want to do is make sure that your walk is with comfort and with ease. So then I saw a guy, he pulled my hand, literally, this young boy, you know, very cute looking young, pulled my hand and said, what is it? You know, I don't speak Arabic. And he started doing that to my legs and I said, stop. I was so amazed and so moved that I just kissed a little boy's forehead and said, you know what, I'm okay because I don't want to stop anywhere but I wanted to go with the flow and we wanted to go slow because we don't want to go fast because you miss the miracles. Little angels with bare feet, you know, you see them like little angels, little girls with a bias on and everything. Little boys running around and standing right in the middle when there's a huge mass of people going and what he's got on his tray, he's got sweets, you know, and everybody's taking one and walking. Where else in the world? I have seen the world. I've seen the western world and I've seen the eastern world, masha'Allah. And indescribable, not seen anywhere. And my plea, back home especially my children and the youth over there, my plea to every Shianan in the early years that they must experience Arba'een once in their life to realize the beauty and the miracle of Imam Hussain and the wonderful way that it is executed. It is an execution that tells you about our sharia, how to behave, the etiquettes and the manners that you're taught by the Holy Elibat. It is actually executed by every person that you see out there and I'm not exaggerating because I experienced it in 2004 we didn't walk but we experienced the hospitality of Karbala and Najaf and we experienced this time greatly because we walked and there was like two and a half days on the walk and we would go to the markup and you know the hospitality, great, sleep here, give you a pillow, do this, are you tired, you want aspirin, you want this. And if you say I'm hungry or thirsty, two people come and bring you some chai, amazing. So I said in the Guinness world of records they say all these great things, how about this? So our Baqi organization, what we want to do next year is actually do a viral face live Facebook. We are working on that right now very hard because we do that too because we've done on our protest, we go to Washington DC and protest in front of Saudi Embassy and we talk about you know Janatul Baqi but as a symbol because there are other causes that is but mostly Janatul Baqi and to restore and you know rebuild Janatul Baqi. So we went ahead and we said you know what we did live Facebook. So we said we're going to next year try to do this and capture the walk and interview the people as you go along just to bring the beauty of it back home because we want them to come here and experience. You people are lucky because it's easy because you are close by but the kids over there, they need the infusion of spirituality of such kind to continue through their life and make sure they follow the path of Allah. I can say very well that I would like to come every year and inshallah my goal is to be here every year. I want to make sure that every youth in our country over there in U.S. understands the beauty of Karbala, the beauty of Arba'een and not only that but the beauty of the Rosa of Imam Hussein and Hazrat Abbas and would like to make sure that they come and visit that and make it palatable for them, subsidize, do something so that each and every kid can come here and get his faith rejuvenated by Karbala and follow the path of Allah.