 Imagine, it's 1400 years ago, it's the ninth of Maharram. At night you're in your tent and you hear noises and commotion coming from outside. Naturally you leave your tent to see what's going on and you discover hundreds and thousands of people leaving the camp of Aba Abdillah. Looking around, bewildered, your eyes fall onto the face of Abal-Fadlil Abbas, alaihi salam, and you see him looking at his brother with sorrow and sadness. There and then you decide you're going to stay. The morning of Ashurah comes, you've now become the 73rd companion of Imam al-Sayn al-Azim. Now knowing what you know of that day of the events that are going to unfold, imagine you walk up to the Imam and you offer your service to him and he leaves the trace up to you. So for example, you could go to bring back water with Abbas, you could protect the tents of the women and children. You could help bring back the bodies or at least the pieces of the bodies of the companions. What would you want to do on that day? I think each scenario has its own and if you were to ask somebody, would you stand where Zuhera stood, would you go to the river? To be honest, we all talk about wanting to be martyred on the day so that is a very difficult answer but I think something that stands out is that there was no, and this is all in Allah's hands, but there was no male present post Karbala, besides our 4th Imam al-Assalam. But he was in a state which was, he was not in the best of health although he recovered after Ashurah. So I don't know whether you would want to stand there and take the arrows in the chair. It's a very difficult question to answer, whether you'd want to go to the river, whether you'd want to stand in front of the 6 month old so he doesn't get it. I don't think I can answer that question. As long as our names are out, if our name was written as part of the, if there were 73 and I was part of the 73 then I wouldn't want anything else. Now I imagine one day you come home from work, you open your house door, you walk in, you see your family are running around the house frantically. One person's gathering fruit, another person's bringing sweets, another person's making tea. And it occurs to you that you might have a guest or guests at your house. During that commotion you grab a family member and you ask them who's come round our house, who's come to see us. And they reply, they haven't come to see us, they've come to see you. So naturally you ask who is it and they say they're waiting for you in the living room. So you come up to the living room, open the door, walk in and you see sitting there is Imam saying the same thing. In that moment what would you want to say to him, what would you want to hear from him? I think first of all I wouldn't even feel ready to present myself in the state that I am as a human being in front of these pure and holy personalities. But if that scenario was to occur I don't know whether I'd want to give him condolences, but for whom I don't know who I'd give condolences for. Starting from his mother all the way through to his children and beyond. And it's easy for us to say but I would say to him that had I been there that day I would have taken it. I would have stood there protecting you whilst you prayed. But yeah I don't know. What would you want to hear from him? I want him to say that you are one of me and that would be enough for me. If he said to me that I accept you as one of my share then that's it for me. I wouldn't want anything else, I wouldn't ask him for anything, I wouldn't want anything from me. I wouldn't want him to say that I accept you and you are my follower and that's enough. So at the beginning I asked you about 1400 years ago we said that you would walk up to the Imam and the Imam would give you a choice in how you wanted to serve him. A lot of us often forget that our 12th Imam is among us today and in a way him being at least physically absent from us is a way of him giving us a choice in how we decide to serve him and uphold his message. So I guess my final question is what have you done for the 12th Imam? What do you think he deserves from you? Given that on that day Imam Sain had 72 loyal people who gave everything for him whereas this Imam? I genuinely believe that if anyone says that they have done something for the Imam then the Imam would have been repaid by now. I don't think anyone has done anything for him. We have done it all for ourselves without trying to sound controversial. We say al-ajal al-ajal but as human beings we need to ask ourselves Do you really mean that? Because your first question is about Imam Sain and so that's Imam Sain who has passed but would Imam Mehdi say to us that I've accepted you, you are my followers? We all try, we all have our own small contribution whether you recite, whether you give medallist, whether you work in a channel producing documentaries that's kind of spreading the message and you serve food and mosque or whatever you do everyone has their individual parts but really I believe as a community, as a nation I don't think we've really done much for him without trying to sound controversial we are so bogged down in our own politics and our own divisions we can't even be united as an ummah because of small different divisions of whatever reason there might be I think it's time that everybody puts all their differences aside we've worked towards a common goal because we're calling him every day he's not coming and we need him so in terms of what we've personally, I can say I've done this, this and this but I don't believe I've done it I try but you're worried, you're worried how far did your ummah go what if your intention wasn't clean what if you did it for your own kind of reasons what if you did it for yourself and not genuinely for you everyone tries and I'm not saying no one tries everybody tries and everyone wants to do something for their ummah but I still think we, no one does enough and we pray that because there are people that I see and they really strive and struggle to, you know, especially the kind of we talk about the real people of knowledge that are amongst us not necessarily here or wherever they are you see people making an effort but at the same time there's umm as a community we, yes, Muharram, Safar, Ramadan and then what about the rest of the months where are we for the rest of the months even if we talk about Azar I know we have two months of it but then does Imam Hussein just vanish for the rest of the year do we forget him because that's the trend and now I don't want to say it but it's become like a fashion that Muharram Safar you are like this and for the rest of the month even Ramadan is the same as soon as it comes we turn back to our normal selves do we give, and this includes myself do we give Salah the same importance outside of Ramadan that we do during it and everything has to be in balance and sometimes I think we lose that balance so I've still not answered your question because my answer is I don't think we've done enough but inshallah that's the aim and this is the difference between us and them and him is that we make mistakes but I think the biggest mistake is not to learn from the old ones so if you don't do something right you should try it the next time and hopefully wherever we end up is not too far from where we should end up hopefully Khuda