 I begin in the name of the Almighty God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. The one who has created everything in utmost perfection and may the peace and blessings of the Almighty God be upon his pure and beloved messenger, the peak of humanity, the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and his immaculate progeny of the Ahl al-Bait, especially the leader of our time, the awaited Savior, Imam Al-Mahdi, adjala Allahu ta'ala, farajah. May Allah hasten his reappearance and make us all amongst his sincere and dedicated servants. As we continue our exploration into the first general ziyara of Imam Al-Hussain, peace be upon him, we come across this passage which encourages us to be true slaves and servants of Aba Abdullah al-Hussain. This passage reads in the first general ziyara of the Imam al-Hussain, peace be upon him. Imam al-Sadiq al-Hussain is teaching us. That's how you address your master, Imam al-Hussain al-Hussain. You address him by saying, I am Abdullah, I am the slave of Allah, so that no one accuses us of committing shirk or that we do not follow Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I am the servant of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I am Abdullah wa Mawlaq and I am your servant, O Aba Abdullah. Wa fi ta'atek, I am in your obedience. Wa lawafidu ilayk. I have come to you to visit you. I have come to migrate towards you, as we explained a few nights ago. As a believer, one must make the necessary effort to migrate to Imam al-Hussain, peace be upon him. When we usually think of the servant of Imam al-Hussain, peace be upon him, the companions of the Imam, usually we think of men, brave warriors who sacrifice their lives in the way of Aba Abdullah al-Hussain. However, based on this passage, that we should be truly humble servants of the Imam, peace be upon him, there is one category of people whom we usually are oblivious to, that they can also be true companions of Imam al-Hussain and they were companions of the Imam, peace be upon him. Just as the men sacrificed with bravery, with courage, with sincerity, they also sacrificed and they played an instrumental role in the revolution of the Imam, women who stepped up to the plate and they acted as noble leaders. They mobilized people for the sake of Imam al-Hussain, peace be upon him. You know, the second most common misconception about the religion of Islam in the West is that the religion of Islam is anti-woman. It's a religion that marginalizes women. You know, there is some truth to that, not the religion of Islam, but Muslims. There's a lot of truth to that. When you look at the history of Muslim societies and cultures, we do see that women are marginalized. This is not something to ignore or deny. The religion of Islam is one thing, but Muslim practice is another thing. When you examine the position of women historically in Muslim societies, we see that sometimes they have been marginalized. Our societies, our cultures have not done enough in order to encourage women to become active leaders in society, and oftentimes we place impediments. Even if they want to be active leaders in our society, there are many impediments. We don't encourage them, especially in many of the cultures that you see in the Middle East. Those cultures do not encourage women to become active leaders in society, so there's a lot of truth to that. But that applies to Muslims, those who claim to be following the religion of Islam. It does not apply to the religion itself. You know, interestingly, once I was having this conversation with this non-Muslim woman and she was telling me that my impression of the religion of Islam is that it does marginalize women. It's a religion that's anti-woman. She didn't say that Muslims don't adhere to your faith and they marginalize women. She said the religion itself marginalizes women. I said to her something, she had no reply. It is as if it was the first time for her hearing this. I told her, when you look at the statistics and the numbers of converts to the religion of Islam here in the United States or in Canada, when you look at the ratio of female converts to the religion of Islam, you see that it is higher than male converts to Islam. In some states, two-thirds of all converts are females. In some other states, three-fourths, we're talking about 75% of converts being females. So if you have 100 converts, 75 of them are female. I asked her, why do you think so? If this is a religion that suppresses women, marginalizes women, does not give them their rights, why are more women embracing this religion? What does that tell you? This statistic in itself reveals to you that what we're told in the media is false or these Muslim cultures, they don't represent the essence of the faith of Islam. Why would so many women who live in the West, who have freedom, why would they join and embrace a religion that supposedly takes away their rights? That doesn't make sense. The fact, the very fact that the majority of converts are women, tells you a lot about the religion of Islam, that it's a religion that protects women, gives them honor and gives them dignity and elevates their status. But most people have this misconception that it's the religion of Islam that is marginalizing women. I remember once at the University of Michigan, I was taking a class, the sociology of women in the religion of Islam. The teacher asked the students, many of them were Americans, were non-Muslims, the teacher said, I want to see a show of hands. How many of you think or believe that Islam oppresses women and advocates for violence? Because on that day she was discussing domestic violence. She said, I want to see a show of hands. How many of you think that Islam advocates domestic violence? Half of those students raise their hands thinking that Islam actually advocates violence. And then she asked them a second question. She told her class and I was there present in the class, how many of you know a Muslim? A Muslim woman, a Muslim female, everyone raised their hands because they had come across a Muslim, they either had Muslim friends or they knew someone who knew a Muslim. So, when everyone admitted that they know of a Muslim, of a Muslim family, of a Muslim woman, she asked the third question, which was an interesting question. She asked them, how many of you know personally a Muslim woman who's oppressed, who's subject to domestic violence, or you know someone who knows them? Not a single person raised their hand. She told them, see, this is what the media does. Half of you raised your hands saying that Muslim women, they're marginalized, they're oppressed, and they're subject to domestic violence. But when I ask you if you know anyone personally, you don't. Because the reality is this is being exaggerated. Yes, there is domestic violence in Muslim communities. This is not something to deny. But domestic violence is not a problem of Islam or Muslim communities. It's a global problem. Everywhere you go in the world, you have the problem of domestic violence. Here in the United States, every year over five million women, five million, can you imagine, are subject to domestic violence, abusive relationships with their partners, where they're being beaten and assaulted. And one-fifth of all these assaults involve a weapon. We're talking about one million American women in the United States who are assaulted with a weapon. Look at the domestic violence statistics here in this country. 33 percent of all women they admit once in their lifetime, they have been assaulted. They've been subject to domestic violence. Every single day, the domestic violence hotline receives 20,000 phone calls from women seeking help because they have an abusive partner. Every nine seconds, as I'm speaking to you every nine seconds, a woman is being assaulted in the United States. And every single day three are murdered. Every single day, three women in the United States are murdered due to domestic violence. So please don't come and tell me that this is the problem of Islam or Muslim communities. This is a global problem. Any society you go to, domestic violence is an issue. Why blame and pinpoint at the religion of Islam? Now in those Muslim communities where they claim there are higher rates of domestic violence, if that's proven. I tend to dispute that. But if it's proven that the rate is higher, this has nothing to do with the religion of Islam. It has to do to two factors. Number one, ignorance. Lack of education. Lack of education does increase domestic violence. That's number one. Number two, poverty. Poverty has also been proven to increase the level of domestic violence. It has nothing to do with the religion of Islam. The religion of Islam is very strict when it comes to domestic violence. Hence we have a narration from the Holy Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa ala. This narration states any man who is abusive to his wife, who harms her, bothers her, or commits any act of injustice to her. You know what the consequence is? The hadith says, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will not accept his salah, his fasting, and anything he donates in the way of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will not be accepted, and he will be the first person to be taken to hellfire. This is the religion of Islam. Another hadith states the one who raises his hand to hit his wife, to batter his wife, then right there a hand in hell shall be raised for him. These are the teachings of the hadith. Peace be upon them and the Prophet. The religion of Islam denounces domestic violence. Why is the religion of Islam held responsible? But this is what the media does. When you examine the history of humankind, brothers and sisters, there is no family in the history of humanity who empowered women, who encouraged them to be leaders, who protected their rights like the family of Ahlul Bayt. You will not find any other family who elevate the status of women like they do. From the very first days of the religion of Islam, when you had lady Khadija alaihi salam, you know once I was having this another conversation, were they not Muslim women and she had a lot of misconceptions about the religion of Islam. I told her one thing because she thought that Muslim women have to stay at home, they can't work, they're locked up, they have no freedom, they have no social lives, no economic lives. I told her something, I told her look 14 centuries ago there was a woman by the name of Khadija, peace be upon her. This woman was a very wealthy business woman. She had caravans, she had camels, she would exchange goods from one city to another city. She was a very affluent woman. Now this lady, she was looking for a trustworthy man to work in her company to go on business trips and she found a trustworthy man in the city of Mecca. After a while when she realized how well he behaved, how noble this man, a man of character, excellent character, she came and she proposed to him and he accepted to marry her. Do you know who that was? Like no, who could that be? I told her that's our prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa had. He did not marry a woman who was locked up in her house who had no clue what's going on outside or had no clue how to conduct business. His first and most favorite wife was a wife who was a business woman. This is the religion of Islam. You want more empowerment than that? The prophet of God who is a role model for humanity, he chose his first and most beloved wife to be a woman who was empowered, who was free, who had a huge business. Don't come and tell me that the religion of Islam advocates for a woman to be locked up in her house, have nothing to do with the world. Look at the history of the Holy Prophet peace be upon him and in those early days this great religion of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Look we're talking about the final religion, the best most comprehensive religion and the prophet says one primary reason why this religion is successful is because of the sacrifices of Khadijah. Show me empowerment more than that brothers and sisters for the prophet to attribute the success of a global religion of God's last religion to a woman. Show me empowerment more than that. Show me praise more than that. Show me elevation more than that. The Ahlul Bayt peace be upon them played a crucial role in encouraging women to be leaders, to be active members of their society and on this evening I want to share with you an example and use this as an example that serves as the basis for this argument that the religion of Islam that the Ahlul Bayt peace be upon them and Imam al Hossein al-Islam when we address them all by denying your servants I'm migrating towards you. This example demonstrates that we need to encourage the female members of our society to be as leaders and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala expects them to be active leaders in society not only for us to you know respect them give them the rights no they must be active leaders in our society. Let's go to this amazing example and I'm pretty confident most of that most of us have not even heard about this amazing figure from the Ahlul Bayt peace be upon them. Normally we are told that when an Imam al Mehdi went into occultation how many deputies did he have? We are told that he had four deputies four ambassadors right? Well that is true he did have four male deputies but essentially the Imam al-Islam had a fifth deputy. He had a fifth ambassador. Ahmad ibn Ibrahim was one of the close companions of Imam al-Asqariya and Imam al-Hati. Sheikh al-Tusi and Sheikh al-Sadoog narrate this hadith in their books an authentic hadith. They say Ahmad ibn Ibrahim who was by the way a scholar and he had books. He says in the year 282 in the Hijri calendar that's 22 years after al-Hajjah to Sura started the minor occultation of Imam al-Mahdi year 282 because Ahmad was born year 255 and he went into occultation year 260. He says in the year 282 I went to see al-Haki. Who was al-Haki? al-Haki was the daughter of Imam al-Jod al-Islami and of Imam al-Asqariya, of Imam al-Mahdi. He says I went to see al-Haki. I was confused. There is no enough for me to go and refer to. I was confused and this is what this was one of the very close special companions of Imam al-Haki. I went to see al-Haki and there was a veil between me and her. See al-Haki and how she was a leader such that one of the great scholars of the time he goes to her to ask her a question. He says I went to her to see al-Haki. I told her al-Haki. Who are you for? It's your religion. It's the time of faith but who is your Imam? She called me my Imam. It's the son of al-Hasta and she mentioned to me her but where is he? Do we have access to him as your parent to what she said? No. He is in occultation. This is who he is. If he is hidden then who do we refer to? Who is the link between al-Haki and Imam al-Haki? I told Ahmad ibn al-Haki. Listen to this very carefully. She told him al-Imam al-Hasta in his will and also al-Imam ibn al-Haki in his will. He has referred us to al-Jaddu al-Mami Muhammad. So the great mother of Imam al-Haki. The wife of Imam al-Haki, the mother of Imam al-Hasta, the great mother of Imam al-Haki. She is the link between al-Hasta and ibn al-Haki even though he came back with a high status. He was really confused. He told al-Haki that you know what? This is very strange. The Imam is absent and in his absence he is referring to al-Haki. He is absent substituted when he is appointed.