 Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin wa al-Muhammad Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin wa al-Muhammad Fourteen centuries ago, the beloved grandson of Prophet Muhammad sacrificed everything he had for the sake of becoming an inspiration for all of mankind despite religion, faith or creed. His legacy shines over humanity as his heroic act of sacrifice became an inspiration for millions of people across the world. From civil rights leaders like Gandhi to ordinary people who serve at their local centers and charities. However, and moreover, the initiatives of Shi'a TV channels today embody the reminder of Prophet Muhammad's Imam Ali when he says, Oh Ali, the guidance of one person through you is better than owning this entire world, respected viewers, brothers and sisters in Islam. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Welcome to a very special episode. Tonight's episode is different from the previous nights. We usually have a scholar, you know, a person with a turban or a person who has extreme knowledge in religion. However, tonight is a very special episode. I will try my best to find out the level of dedication of Imam Hussein TV media channel group towards Ahlul Bayt, peace be upon them, and especially towards our master, Imam Hussein, peace be upon him. Please welcome with me Stad Masoud Khakani, the manager and director of Imam Hussein Media TV channel group number three. Assalamu alaikum. How are you? Thank you. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Thank you for joining us tonight. My pleasure. I know that during the live shows, usually in backstage, you know, fixing out the cameras, seeing how the live goes. Alhamdulillah. It's good to have you in tonight's episode. Thank you. The English channel, Imam Hussein TV channel number three, bearing the slogan, the channel dedicated to the young Shia around the world was established on the third of Shaaban 2013, which coincides with June 11th. According to statistical figures, the TV channel, the English channel has generated since its launch up to 2016, approximately 2,800 hours of live shows and live programs. Not only live, but also other types of programs as well. Yes, as well. Yes. Can you provide some history of Imam Hussein Media channel group? Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. First of all, I have to thank you and other team of the Imam Hussein TV. Thank you very much. To manage these and to try, because you are trying your best to deliver the message of Imam Hussein around the world. Thank you very much. And I have to thank our respected viewers for watching us, for giving us their spiritual support from the beginning of this channel so far. As for your question, I have to say that Imam Hussein Media group established around seven years ago when a group of an Islamic center in Iran went to visit the eminent Ayatollah, Sayyed Sadak Shirazi, in Qadir, in the occasion of Adil Qadir, around seven years ago. In that meeting, Sayyed Shirazi told them that the team of Wahhabi scholars are going to establish a channel in the name of Imam Hussein, and trying to use the holiness of this name to misguide people. And mentioned the importance of establishing a channel. This team of Islamic centers, to be honest, they were not experts in the media. They had a background of the Islamic centers or Majales, something like this. But because of that, they began a big project named Imam Hussein TV. At that time, it was in Persian language. They began working on the different aspects of the channel within the production team, making studios, bringing different types of experts and people who can assist them in the channel. They also have their abilities. And they found one of those people who joined them as the director was myself. And around six and a half years ago, I joined Imam Hussein TV team. We established being on air six months after that meeting in Persian language. And Alhamdulillah, day by day, we improved and we found we could affect or we could gather a large amount of audience around the world, especially in Persian speaking countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, as well as some European countries, because you know, there are a lot of Iranian and Afghani people around the world, like North America or Europe, and they're living there. So Alhamdulillah, we could provide them with good quality of the Islamic, different types of Islamic shows. After three years, we decided to establish an Arabic channel. And Alhamdulillah, I myself was on that time being privileged to be the manager of the Arabic channel. And after that, after two years, we decided to begin English channel. And it was the year that you mentioned three years ago. Yes. And in the Holy Occasional Third of Sha'ban, the birth of Imam Hussein, we established the Imam Hussein TV3 in the English language. And it's, sorry to cut you off, but it's important to state that all three channels were actually opened on the third of Sha'ban. But in different years. Yes, exactly. We tried our best to find good events and occasions and which event is better than the birth of Imam Hussein. Definitely, of course. For establishing his channel. Yes. After establishing English channel, you know, our main office is in Iraq, Karbala. But Alhamdulillah, we got a lot of assist and we tried to make programs around the world, especially in the UK, London. And in some cities in Canada and the US, as well as some European cities like Copenhagen, Denmark. And as well as, of course, Lebanon. You have Australia as well. Australia as well. But we are trying our best to manage and to handle different types of programs and to produce different types of programs to attract different tastes of people, especially youth. For every channel, whether online or via satellite, I know you mentioned that it's been approximately seven years now. Every channel, as I mentioned, online or via satellite, they have to have main objectives to look forward into the future to see what their main goals and what their motives are to continue running. From my experience in working at Nohazan TV3, I came to notice some objectives. This is personal. You might have something else, but protecting the faith of millions of young Shias around the world, especially in the West. Because, you know, we face a lot of misconceptions, especially Muslims living in the West. You know, Islam this, Islam that. So the TV channel somewhat tries to refute those misconceptions, assisting Muslim parents to help them raising decent children and virtuous young Shia to lead. I mean, it's important. It's different. When we mentioned that, you know, we're raising our children in the proper Islamic way, some may think that we're, you know, raising them to be extremists, you know, or radicals. You know what I mean? They always focus on the negative aspect of Islam. But the channel, the channel, yeah, it's an unfortunate, but the channel seems to, you know, go against that view and show what the actual, you know, how to raise your children the proper Islamic way that Prophet Muhammad, Imam Ali, the Ahlul Bayt, the companions of Prophet Muhammad, of course, the pious companions of Prophet Muhammad, who came to actually, you know, benefit humanity, not, you know, destroy humanity. So if you can mention, what are the main objectives of the channel or the media group? Thank you for mentioning some of that. As the main objective, I can say that according to the name of the channel, we are Imam Hussein TV. And our main focus is on the, sorry, the history, the message and the rituals of Imam Hussein. So we are trying our best to produce different types of show for first introducing Imam Hussein to the world. First of all to the, especially Shia youth. Yes. And after that for non-Shia and non-Muslims. But before all, we are focusing on Shia youth, because as you mentioned, unfortunately, they are being influenced by the western culture. And it's very, very difficult for the parents to keep them in the line, in the line of Islam. And some of them, unfortunately, when they try to bring them to the line of Islam, they go more and they become extremists. Yes. And Alhamdulillah, in Shia sect, we don't have such a series. We have less. Yeah. But in the other parties, unfortunately, we see that. We do. They become extremists and they change the culture and they begin fighting with the culture that they are living in. We don't want to make struggles. We don't want to make... Raise tension between the Muslims. Yeah. Even between the Muslim and non-Muslims. We don't want to encourage people to fight with non-Muslims. We just want to provide them with the pure Islam. As Imam Hussein says, from the channel of Imam Hussein, from the message of Imam Hussein, to encourage people and to make them know about the pure Islam. So in this way, we are producing different types of shows, especially, for example, one show we exactly directly say that the show name is Who Is Imam Hussein? Yes. The history of Imam Hussein, what happened to Imam Hussein in his youth, in his childhood, in his long age, and especially in the event of Karbala. What lessons can we get from this and the rest? Also, we cover different types of rituals around the world, especially in Iraq and especially in Karbala in particular. In different occasions, like I can mention, happy occasions like Sha'baniyah or Rajabiyah. And as sad occasions, I can mention Arba'een, Ashura and the Arafat. Yes. So covering the events around the world, especially in Iraq, is our second mission or objective. After that, we are trying to help teachers, Islamic teachers, to provide them with pure, useful information or material to use in their studies. So in this case, these teachers or these Islamic scholars can have a resource of pure information, pure material to enhance their knowledge, to improve their knowledge and to, how can I say, to extend this knowledge and distribute this knowledge to the communities. The other objective is to make the Islamic Shia communities around the world more active. Yes. Unfortunately, we can see that most of our communities, most of our Islamic centers and Husseinis around the world. They're segregated. Segregated and they are not facilitated. Yes. They are not together and they are not facilitated. Yes. When we see the quality of the lectures or the programs they provide, even for their websites or their YouTube channels, you can see that the qualities in most of the communities are very, very less. And in comparison, even with such countries like Iraq, you can see that there is a big difference between the quality of the Islamic programs in Islamic countries like Iraq or Iran. In comparison with Islamic communities in the West, especially in North America, Australia or the Europe. So we are trying to encourage the people in the communities to enhance the facility of their, sorry, sorry for coughing. No, no, no, it's okay. I will ask you. You have a little cold? It's okay. For goodness' sake. No, no, it's okay. We want to encourage the brothers and sisters around the world in the Shia community to enhance, to improve their facilities, their equipment, the camera, microphone, even the decoration and set of the majlis to record and even providing live coverage of the majalis around the world in the channel. In this way, we can compete some other groups around the world trying to change the culture of people, especially our youth, to their religion. Yes. And we want to compete them with the quality. As you know, when a young boy or a young girl, lady opens the TV, first of all, the thing which may make him or her attractive to the channel to watch it is the quality, the video and audio quality. Yes. So we have to increase or improve the quality of, first of all, our productions and secondly, the productions of our brothers around the world. And we encourage them and also we provide them with the chance of airing their programs in the channel. For example, in Ramadan, we have eight majlis around the world. For example, from Canada, from the UK, from USA, from Australia, we air their majlis with their equipment to encourage them to improve their quality. And there are, alhamdulillah, after three years, we can see that a lot of communities joined this, how can I say initiative? Yes. To have better quality. First of all, for they, they reuse and who are participating in the majalis. And secondly, for the rest of the communities to watch them. You know, there are a lot of people who cannot join to attend the majlis because of different reasons. Being far from the majlis or being ill or having some problems. No, very busy. Yes. Especially in the West because people are very busy. They prefer to watch it in online or YouTube or by the TV channels. So we want to provide different types of viewers with different platforms like internet based platforms like YouTube or website or mobile application or social media, as well as TV satellite broadcasting. And other ways to provide the people, not, how can I say, we can say that we don't make any excuse for the viewers. However they want to watch, they have the ability. Insha'Allah, day by day we are increasing the methods of conveying the message, insha'Allah. Perfect, perfect. I mean, and it's important, you mentioned a point right there before we go into a break. I would like to add upon that point is that Muslims in the West should actually go hand in hand with each other. No, looking at the similarities. Before you, I had said Hassan Qazwini who joined me for 14 nights. In an episode we talked about Muslims should focus on the similarities more than focusing on the differences. I mean, this topic is raised between, you know, sets, between Sunnis and Shi'a, Sunnis and other schools of thought. Shi'a and other schools of thought. But yet we do find them within Shi'a's, you know. Personally, it's safe to say that, you know, in the West, in North America, not to be specific. But one center is approximately two blocks away, two kilometers away from another center. Why not combine those and combine the energies to, you know, to serve in the proper way? Instead of, you know, you having a message over here, that's good. It's beneficial. But if you can collect everyone under one roof and share the same message that would be shared in this center, in this center, you would have a greater reward because you're gathering everyone in just one center. You know what I mean? So it's important to keep that in mind. But inshallah we'll continue our discussion. Just a note, please. Yes. For this, there are some of the brothers and sisters I like their approach. They did, for example, especially in Ramadhan, they do some inter-central show in their central matches. For example, in the eve of the 15th of Ramadhan, one center, for example, in Halifax, Canada, one center hosts the rest of centers in the city, and they come together and do the matches together. Nice. In this way, the brotherhood among the community will increase, and inshallah this is a good approach for other brothers and sisters to do with. And we can use different types of events to host such majales. We can say, even you can have not only the hosting, only she, brothers and sisters, you can host other Muslims and host the rest of community. You can ask them, you can invite them. Yeah, Christians, they come and see what exactly you do. This is not, she-ism is not the, or Islam is not the thing which is you hear from people like Donald Trump. Islam is something that we are, and we have to indicate, we have to show ourselves. Yes, we have to embrace what Islam is. And it's, I mean, the best way to actually, to share what Islam has to teach and what Islam has to offer is coming hand in hand with together. Exactly. And, you know, working on one basis that Islam is a religion of peace and compassion, not a religion of, you know, as some people state. But I would like to go into a short break, and we'll come back to this discussion shortly. Respected viewers, do stay tuned after the break, for we, inshallah, will discuss the future of Imam Hussein TV Media Channel Group. So that's after the break, stay tuned. Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa ala Muhammad Allahumma salli ala Respected viewers, welcome back. I hope you, inshallah, enjoyed those recorded, not live. Usually we have live, but sorry for the technical difficulties that were going on. So you were provided with a recorded footage from inside the holy shrine of our master, Imam Hussein, alaihi s-salam. But before the break, we talked and discussed some history regarding Imam Hussein TV Media Channel Group. And back to the discussion with my dear guest, Mr. Masood Khakani. Welcome back, Habibi. Thank you. Allahumma salli ala Muhammad Allahumma salli ala Muhammad Before the break, we talked about the history of the channel and we talked about some objectives regarding what the channel has to offer and what's its main objectives towards serving the Ahl-e-Bait alaihi s-salam. Personally, I've watched numerous TV, Shi'a TV channels and their programs are very compelling to watch. They're very interesting. But the channel of Imam Hussein TV 3, I would like to focus on this now. The Arabic and the Farsi, they don't serve the Muslims living in the West as much as the English does. So I would like to focus on that. Other TV channels are also in English. They have interesting shows, but personally from working with this channel, I saw various very interesting and very compelling shows that respect viewers are actually interacting with, such as the live programs in Qadmiah. I think in the end of Rajab, I was in Qadmiah two months ago, and especially in Sha'baniyah when we were on the roads leading to Karbala. Viewers across the world, especially in the West, like to see what the atmosphere is, because it's very difficult for them. They have jobs, they have school, they have education, so it becomes difficult for them to do. Expenses as well. So it's difficult for them to leave that and to come here. So they prefer, as you mentioned, to watch it over TV and see what the atmosphere here is like. So in the future, they can plan for specific matters that they have to bring along with. But what has this branch, Imam Hussein TV 3, what has this branch provided for the millions of Muslims living in the West? As you mentioned, the most important, and I can say the point of the channel, Imam Hussein 3, is the live coverage. Yes. As you mentioned, a lot of people around the world do not have the ability to come and visit the shrines in different events. So we try to provide them with the high quality and from different aspects of the event. For example, in Arba'een, we send different two or three SNG vehicles to the roads directing to Karbala to cover the walk of the people to the Karbala. Also, we try to have live shows from the whole city of Karbala to show how the atmosphere is as well as the reports. For example, this year, you and brother Ali Fazal had the honor to record with him this year. Yes, Alhamdulillah. I send my salams to him from wherever he is. And we try to bring the atmosphere of the Holy Land to the every single house around the world for our brothers and sisters. This is first. Secondly, we are trying to increase the quality, graphical quality, visual quality of the shows in all type of the shows. For example, even if we have a simple lecture, we try to make it more attractive for the people, not only a lecture from the beginning to the end. We try to add some graphics, some notes to the lecture to be more useful as well. Interesting as well. Also, Alhamdulillah, we were privileged to make or produce different types of documentaries in some countries like the UK, and Canada, USA, and also Lebanon to show the ability of Shia community. Sometimes we hear here and there that they say that Shia community are only poor people living in the society. They are weak. They are not educated or something like this. But Alhamdulillah, there are a lot of educated Shia or businessmen, business women. The majority of the Shia are educated. Is it safe to say that? Yes. Unfortunately, the idea around Shia is not that. We are going to show that the Shia are educated, the Shia are wealthy, the Shia are rich, and the Shia can do whatever they want. So we made a show named Shia Talent to show different talents and abilities of Shias around the world. For example, a Shia who is a lawyer or a businessman or even a TV director or a cinema director. Any types of talents and abilities and expertise which is specific in the community, we try to make it bold and bring it for the people. Make it outstanding so people can see what Shia has us off? Exactly. The other types of the documentaries is about converts who become Shia from different religions. So we want to show that there are a lot of people because of the attractiveness of the Shia beliefs and Shia school, school of thought. They become interested in the Shia and they become Shia converting to the Shia. What's this show called? It is The Awakened. This is the name of the show. Also we have documentaries, for example, we made with brother Reza Jan Wadadi in London. We made two series of documentaries from those who are attending the Ziyarat of Arba'een from West, for example, from Washington DC and from London. The camera comes from their hometown to the airport, to Najaf, through The Awakened and to the whole city of Karbala and records their experience in this long journey. It was very interesting and a lot of people liked it. Was it successful? Yes. The second series will be, inshallah, shown after Ramadan, which is recorded for the last Arba'een. Inshallah, we will air it after Ramadan, which is named Path of Light. Inshallah. I would also like to mention that there are also other programs that show different holy shrines in Iraq. My close friend and dear brother to my salams to him. His show was very successful in going to different shrines in Iraq to provide information. For me personally, once I went with him and one shrine was, I think, the grandson of Al-Abbas, I personally, I didn't even know that he exists, but yet there are a lot of holy shrines. This is our heritage, definitely. And it's important to share that. And personally, I haven't seen any other TV channel that provided such coverages to other holy shrines, especially, I mean, in Arba'een, I had a program regarding, you know, the preparations for Arba'een and how people, if they're coming from the west, you know, to gather their stuff and what they need, because it's a long walk. If there's an airport in Basra, some people walk from Kuwait. Yes. So it's a long walk and it's not one day or two days. It's approximately 13 days to get to Karbala from Basra. I know approximately two or three days from Najaf. So we have a lot of space to Karbala. So they need to, you know, gather everything they need. Nothing you can call it but miracle. It is. It is. It's a miracle for approximately over 22 to 24 million in a small city like Karbala. It is a miracle. But all these shows, for the respective viewers, you can log into our YouTube channel at Noh Hussain TV and check them out. But now I would like to move to a different topic, a very sensitive topic that every western TV channel seems to provoke what Islam is not. And it becomes very annoying. I mean, considering the great threat that Muslims are facing around the world right now, especially after and accusations against them, especially after the massacres and hijacking of Islam by ISIS, what has Noh Hussain TV3 done in refuting and exposing ISIS and their true intention for their uncivilized actions against humanity? I can say that we have done three different actions for this matter. First of all, we tried to provide the world with the pure Islam, what exactly Islam is, and tried our best to introduce Islam to non-Muslims. So if a person, a non-Muslim person, comes to our YouTube channel or our website, he can find a big library of the Islamic beliefs, especially if you have a show in the name of Islamic beliefs as well. Yes, with Brother Hassan Hadi. And Brother Ahmad Salim. And so, plus to this, we have a lot of lectures, a lot of talk shows, talking about what exactly Islam is and what exactly Islam is not. Yes, of course. I mean, we have morals in minutes with Brother Muhammad Ali, who summarizes so much in two minutes or three minutes and provides the exact morals that Islam has to offer. Yes, and we are trying to change the idea which mainstream media is trying to affect to the brains of the Western people. We try to change it to, I can say, shed light over the brains of people and try to make them, survive them from this brainwashing. Secondly, we are cooperating with different Shia communities to make a kind of protection for Shia around the world. Especially we have brothers in the DC, Washington DC, and they, Alhamdulillah, made the community in the name of Shia rights watch, like human rights watch, and they registered in UN even, and they are doing their best to show the world and especially to put force over the different organizations around the world, especially UN, to prevent different governments and different people to make cruelties over Shia. Yes. So this is the second one. And the third one is to help Shia brothers and sisters to how to introduce themselves in their society. We are going to make a full series of shows with the action plans for a Shia brother and sister who is living in the West, teaching him how to behave in the society which shows that you are Shia, you are Muslim, and you have your own ideas and beliefs, but you are at the same time a very good member of the community and you are very helpful for the community. So these three are methods to work against the idea of ISIS and the idea of the mainstream media. And definitely, I mean, to add upon that, there are various misconceptions raised when the term ISIS is raised. I mean, first extremists or Islam, the radical religion, such statements don't actually, I mean, when you're looking at approximately 2 billion, the population of Muslims is approximately 2 billion, 1.7 or 2 billion up to now, and you're calling their religion radical and you're calling their religion extreme. If you want to actually just take it into account that 2 billion people, if all of them were extremists and all of them were terrorists, why is this planet still alive? You know what I mean? Muslims just open the first chapter on the first verse that you read is in the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful, the most beneficent, the most merciful. So we do see how they're trying to use the image of Islam in their own way to perceive others and deceive others, but that's a different topic. Seriously, it needs a whole lecture and a couple of episodes for that. But finally, we have two minutes, and I would like to talk about the future vision in the upcoming years. What will IH TV3, Imam Hussein TV3, provide for its viewers? This vision, I think it needs a whole episode to talk about it. It does, yes. But as a list, I can say that we are first of all going to improve the quality of the shows. We are going to make, produce, inshallah, more newer types of shows and also increase the number of the shows on air. For example, at the moment we are airing six minutes a day and we repeat it, but inshallah we are going to increase it in the coming year to eight minutes, sorry, eight hours. Not six minutes, six hours a day. And inshallah in coming year it will be eight hours or more. Also we are going, this is very important for us. We are going to increase the number of platforms to make the channel available for wherever and whenever. Yes. Especially we are going to go through Sky platform for covering the UK, inshallah, and getting the audience of the target audience of UK. Also we are, inshallah, being in cooperation with our brothers in other TV channels like Safir TV and Ahl al Bay TV and making cooperative shows and trying to share our abilities, our equipment, our studios with them to convey the message of Islam. Whoever around the world is trying to do a kind of service to Ahl al Bayt. He is more than welcome here in the Mahmoud Sayyid TV and we do our best to help him and to help him to bring the message, inshallah. Inshallah. Thank you very much for joining us Mr. Masoud. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala grant you the ability to continue serving Islam in the proper way. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Respect the viewers. Thank you very much for tuning in in this special episode. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala give all the believers the ability to work together and reflect and embrace what the true Islam has to offer. Once again thank you very much. As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh. As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh.