 Imagine, it's 1400 years ago, it's the 9th of Muharram, you're in your tent and at night you hear voices and sounds and commotion from outside, naturally you leave your tent to see what's going on, come outside and you see people leaving the camp of Imam Hussain alayhi salam in the hundreds and thousands, looking around bewildered, for a split second your eyes fall into the eyes of Aba Abdullilah, the same in Israel. You see the sadness and sorrow in his face and it moves you enough for you to decide that you're going to stay and not abandon him. The morning comes, it's the day of Ashurah, imagine you walk up to the Imam and you offer yourself to him, you offer your services to him and he gives you a choice in where you would like to participate or help. So for example you could go and bring back water with Aba Abdullilah, you could protect the tents of the women and children from harm, you could tend to the wounded, you could go and fight in the battles, you could stand in front of Imam Hussain alayhi salam while he offers his prayers or you could simply distract the little children while their fathers, brothers, uncles are out there fighting, what would you want to do? It's easy to say that I'd want to be one of the first to sacrifice their lives for Aba Abdullilah, Hussain, knowing who he is, his value in the eyes of Allah and the eyes of the Prophet. It's easy to say that I'll be the one to go and stand against those 30, 40 thousand but there are moments in your life where you're scared of even walking into a dark room, you look for that light switch, you look to find some sort of reassurance that nothing is going to bring you harm and then for you to say that I'm going to stand in front of 30, 40 thousand men who are trained to fight, who are trained to kill and to say that I would step forward. So it's difficult but when you said that my eyes caught the eyes of Abdullilah, I can imagine the sorrow and the grief that's going through his heart, not for his own sake, not for his own life or his wealth but seeing what's been inflicted upon his family, his friends, his companions, his children, his wives, knowing that he's the one that they want and there's nothing he can do about it. That in itself, just looking into the beautiful eyes of Aba Abdullilah would make me want to do unimaginable things, things that I'm afraid of, I wouldn't think about doing in a million years and I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know where to begin, what to say but I know that I would find reassurance, I would find comfort with the words of Aba Abdullilah. I imagine you've had a long day at work, you're tired, you're hungry, you come home, you open the house door, you walk in, your family are frantically running around the house, one person's bringing fruit, another person's making tea, another person's making food and it occurs to you that you might have a visitor or guests at your house. So in that commotion, you grab someone, you say what's going on, who's come to our house, who's come to visit us and they reply they haven't come to visit us, they've come to see you. So you think to yourself maybe it's a friend, maybe it's someone from work, maybe it's someone from school, college, etc. You go into the living room, you open the door, you walk inside, you see sitting on the chair in your living room is Imam Sayyidina Alayhi Sallam. In that moment, what would you say to him, what would you want him to say to you? Firstly I wouldn't know to what I owe the honour of having Aba Abdullilah in my own home, what I've done in my life to deserve this favour. I'd begin by questioning my own deeds, my own acts, reevaluating everything I've done and even then I'll still know that I'm not worthy of this visit, I'm not worthy of his presence. Seeing him in dreams is one thing, but seeing him face to face, you can't put words to it. Honestly I wouldn't be lost for words, I wouldn't know what to say to him. I think for me I'll just sit there and listen to his words, gain as much as I can from him because I know in front of him the value of my words means nothing. I'll just be lost in awe and just listen to him and try and soak in every letter, every word, every sentence from him. But for me that would give me the reassurance that maybe I have done something that hasn't gone unnoticed by Aba Abdullilah and that would encourage me to carry on in my service towards him in whatever little quantity it is or quality. But that's beyond my wildest dreams, I wouldn't, it's never been something that I've thought about, never been something that I've contemplated of because I don't think I'm worthy. And like I said, I've never seen Aba Abdullilah in my dreams, so even that would be worth the heavens and the earth. What would you want him to say to you? Would you want to hear? For example, I've accepted you as a servant, would you want to hear? I'll look after you for the remainder of your life and I'll come to you in the grave. What would make you the happiest to hear from his holy mouth? I'm going to say I'll always be there. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I'll look after you. I'll shadow you throughout your life. I think just knowing the presence of Aba Abdullilah around me will give me the strength to do unimaginable things. Things that I never thought I'd be capable of doing. I think having that presence or knowing that he's there to support you and to support the whole community that you work with for me is, yeah. I mean, we do everything that we do without this reassurance from Aba Abdullilah. And I think just having him around you, knowing that he's there, knowing he's seeing the effort and the work that you're putting in. He's the reason we're doing all of this and knowing he's glad or happy and accepting us for doing this work. It's just that cherry on the top, really. He doesn't need our service. He doesn't need anything that we're doing. It's for us and for the people around us. But if you can compare it to you being in school as a young kid, learning something new, trying to improve your handwriting, and then your teacher or your professor coming over to you and saying, well done. It's just a few words. It doesn't give you anything. But to you, those two words mean everything. There's a story about a man who attends one of Imam Sain's Majlis in the holy month of Muharram. He comes into this majlis. He sits down through the lecture, through the na'i, through the latum. At the end, when they bring round food and tea, for some reason the majlis brought tea but no sugar or sugar cubes or sweets. So this man puts his hand in his own pocket, takes out a sweet from his pocket, eats his own sweet, doesn't offer it to anyone else, drinks his tea, goes home. That night he falls asleep. And in his dreams, he sees its judgment day. And he sees one of the angels come and give him his book of deeds, his folder of deeds. And he opens it and he sees this many amounts of palaces and this many amounts of gold and this many amounts of rewards. And knowing himself and knowing the life that he'd lived, he becomes severely confused. He turns around to one of the angels and he says, this isn't my book of deeds. This is someone else's you've surely made a mistake in giving this to me. And the angel turns around and says, no, this is yours. And he says, well, what's all of these palaces and gold and this and that for? And he says, remember that day you went to the Majlis and you noticed they were handing out tea, but they didn't have sugar or sugar cubes or sweets to give you. And you took out your own sweet from your pocket and you ate that within the Majlis. Imam Hussain al-Islam has counted that as your donation towards his Majlis. And this is the reward that you get for doing something like that. So by no doubt Imam Hussain al-Islam notices every small thing that you do and all the contributions that you make towards him. Now at the beginning, I asked you about 1400 years ago. I asked you about a day where we have some information on we know about the events that took place. And with hindsight, it might be easy to say that if I was there I would do this and if I was there I would stop that or if I was there I would try to delay this tragedy or the effects of that tragedy becoming as bad as it was, for example. And I also said to you that you walk up to the Imam and the Imam gives you the choice, lets you decide what you want to do. Now in this day and age, so 1400 years later from that day, a lot of us forget that we have a 12th Imam who's among us. And in a way, him being at least physically absent from us gives us a choice in how we want to serve him because he's not here to say, for example, Hassan go and pick up this, Hassan go and do this for me, Hassan go and stop that from happening. So we have to use our own logic and our own understanding and opinion in how to serve him the best, what to do to make him happy with us. So my final question is, what have you done for the 12th Imam? What do you think he deserves from you? How do you think he feels about you? I'm embarrassed really. I wish I had a whole list of things to say that I've contributed towards or I've established or I've done in the name of my 12th Imam. But looking back, I can't put my finger on a single thing that I can proudly say in front of my Imam, I've done this for you. I've helped your ummah, I've helped your shia, I've helped your humanity in this way. I feel almost selfish from the day I was born, from what I was taught, from the way I was brought up. It's that you need to get an education, get a career, build something, have a family and then call it a day. I've never really sat down and thought at the end of my day, what have I done to serve my Imam? What have I done to serve my people? Instead, I'm sitting there and all lying there thinking, how much money have I made today? How many steps forward have I taken towards my career? And that's really taken me back really. And I remember hearing in a lecture once that it's not us or we are waiting for the Imam, it's the Imam that's waiting for us. He's ready. By the will of Allah, he can come at any time and do as he wills and establish whatever he wishes to establish. But it's not a one-man mission. He's not there to do it for his own gains or his own goals. He's there to guide humanity in a certain direction and if they're not willing or they're not ready to accept that direction or to follow that, then they'll all go for nothing really. We try and remind ourselves every day, once a week or once a month or once a year in Muharram or Ramadan. I say to myself, if I lived 1,400 years ago, I wouldn't spend a day apart. I wouldn't spend a day away from my Imam. If I parted ways with him for a single moment, I would yearn for his presence. I would run back to him. I wouldn't wish to leave his presence. But as you mentioned, I do have an Imam. I don't see him. I can't speak to him. I don't hear from him. But why am I not with him every single day? I know he's with me. I know he hasn't left my side. And I know he's disappointed. Seeing the eyes of Abdullah, Al-Nudayyab, Ash-Shuraat, the sorrow and the helplessness in his eyes, I know for a fact that's what the eyes of Mehdi look at the moment. I know if I looked into his eyes right now, I'd see the same look. And I'm fearful. I'm fearful that if he does reappear today, tomorrow, would he call upon me? Would I even go to him? Would we even recognise him? I think that would be the biggest loss of my entire life. Everything that I've worked towards, everything that I've hoped for, everything that I've dreamed of, would all mean nothing. If in that single moment, I stumble, even for a moment, that's enough.